Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano (born December 21, 1957) made four appearances on The King of Queens in his Ray Barone character which he plays on its sister series, CBS-TV's Everybody Loves Raymond. Ray, who holds multiple roles within Hollywood as a stand-up comedian, screenwriter and voice actor, is best known for his roles on Everybody Loves Raymond and in the Ice Age film series. He recently starred in the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age. He also played as Rick Moreweather in Epix dramedy series Get Shorty.
Ray, who was born in Queens, New York, is the son of Lucie, a piano teacher, and Albert Romano (1925–March 2010), a real estate agent and engineer.[1] He is from an Italian American background, and grew up in the Forest Hills section of Queens.[2] He has a brother named Richard A. Romano and another brother, Robert. Romano attended elementary and middle school at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Forest Hills. After transferring from Archbishop Molloy High School, Romano graduated from Hillcrest High School in 1975.[3] He was in the same high school class as Fran Drescher and later appeared on Drescher's sitcom, The Nanny, as an old classmate. Before getting into show business, Ray briefly attended Queens College, City University of New York, in Flushing, Queens, where he studied accounting. Romano quit after gaining only 15 credits in three years, but he would later return, however, making it to the Dean's List for three years.
Career and personal life[]
Ray's early comedy career started when he competed in the Johnnie Walker Comedy Search in 1989. His career included many outlets, such as Comedy Central, where he had been a recurring guest voice on the show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. He also was a contestant on Star Search in the stand-up comedy category. He originally was cast to play Joe (originally named Rick) on the NBC television sitcom NewsRadio, but was fired and replaced by Joe Rogan. He then appeared on Late Show with David Letterman doing his stand up routine which formed his ties with CBS. Shortly thereafter, in September 1995, he became the star of his own show, Everybody Loves Raymond on CBS, that featured a cast and format more suitable to Romano's brand of humor.
Ray and Kevin James, who in real life are close friends, both starred in the 2006 salesman comedy, Grilled, as two guys of the same meat packing profession who are both very desperate to land a big sale. Ray was featured on a 2000 episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, on which he won US$125,000 for the NYPD's D.A.R.E. Unit. His older brother, Richard Romano (born in 1956), is a sergeant with the NYPD, and he also has a younger brother, Robert Romano (born 1965). Ray married his wife, Anna, on October 11, 1987. They met while working at a bank together. They have four children: one daughter, Alexandra (born 1990), and three sons: twins Matthew and Gregory (born 1993), and Joseph Raymond (born February 16, 1998). His on-screen daughter for Everybody Loves Raymond was named after his real-life daughter. Also, in the series pilot, Ray and Debra's twin boys were named after Gregory and Matthew, Romano's real twin sons, but Romano felt it was too weird to have all his TV kids have the same names as his real kids, so they changed the twins' names to Geoffrey and Michael on screen.
In 2001, Romano was named one of E!'s top twenty entertainers of the year. That same year he was featured with his brother (a teacher at a school in Long Island) on a New York Police Department recruiting poster. In 2004 he became the highest-paid television actor in history for his role of Raymond on CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond. It was later revealed on E! that he had broken another record by his show having the highest revenue at US$3.9 billion.
On December 13, 2003, Romano was featured as a special guest star, sending a birthday card to Bob Barker in his eightieth-birthday bash on the twenty-seventh "Million Dollar Spectacular" special of the long-running daytime CBS series The Price Is Right.
References[]
- ↑ Ray Romano Biography (1957-)
- ↑ Strickland, Carol. "Can Sitcom Make It With L.I. Setting?", The New York Times, December 1, 1996. Accessed November 12, 2007. "For Everybody Loves Raymond, the route to Hollywood Hills began in Forest Hills, where Ray Romano, standup comedian and the star of the show, grew up."
- ↑ Movies - Ray Romano, Yahoo! Movies, accessed 2006-08-23.
External links[]
- Ray Romano's official website
Ray Romano at the Internet Movie Database- Ray Romano article at Wikipedia
