Ray Romano

Ray Romano
Born	Raymond Romano
Years active	1995 — present

Raymond "Ray" Romano (born December 21 1957) is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian, best known for his starring role on the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. His other acting credits include Ice Age and Ice Age: The Meltdown and Welcome to Mooseport.

Early life

Romano, an Italian-American (his family was originally from the commune-town of Scigliano, in the Province of Cosenza, in the Calabria region of Italy), was born in Queens, New York. His mother, Lucie, was a piano teacher, and his father, Albert Romano, was a realtor and an engineer. He grew up in the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills. 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. 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 breaking into show business, Romano briefly attended Queens College in Flushing, New York where he had majored in accounting. Romano quit going to Queens College after gaining only fifteen credits in three years. However, he would later return, making it to the Dean's List for three years while studying accounting.

Career

His early comedy 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 was originally cast to play "Joe" on the American television sitcom NewsRadio, but was fired, to be replaced by Joe Rogan. Shortly thereafter, he became the star of his own show, Everybody Loves Raymond, that featured a cast and format more suitable to Romano's brand of humor.

Romano and his comedian friend Kevin James starred in the salesman comedy Grilled, as two guys of the same profession who are both very desperate to land a big sale. Romano 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. He also has a younger brother, Robert Romano (born 1965).

In 2001, Romano was named one of E!'s top twenty entertainers of the year. In the 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 seventh "Million Dollar Spectacular" special of the long-running daytime CBS series The Price Is Right.

Romano was the subject of the documentary film 95 MILES TO GO. The film documents Romano's road-trip for a series of gigs across the South. The film was released in theaters on April 7, 2006 by ThinkFILM. In August 2006, Romano was interviewed in front of a live audience at UCLA by fellow stand-up veteran, David Steinberg, for an episode of Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg. The program first aired on the TV Land network in March 2007.

Personal life

Romano married his wife Anna Scarpulla (born 1963), in 1987. They met while working at a bank. He had asked out two other co-workers before Anna agreed to go on a date with him. 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).

Romano's 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. Romano's real-life daughter Alexandra "Ally" Romano made several appearances on Everybody Loves Raymond as Molly, the best friend of his on-screen daughter Ally, and the daughter of Ray Barone's arch-nemesis, Peggy the Cookie Lady.

Romano is an avid New York Mets Fan.

Romano competed in the 2008 World Series of Poker.

Filmography

Acting

• Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (2009) (voice) movie – Manny
• Hannah Montana (2008) (guest star) We’re All On This Date Together
• The Last Word (2008)
• The Grand (2007) movie – Fred Marsh
• 'Til Death (2007) Man in restaurant that talks to Eddie (Brad Garrett) and his wife.
• The Knights of Prosperity (2007)
• The King of Queens (1998-2007) (guest star) TV series – Raymond Barone
• Grilled (2006) movie – Maurice
• Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) (voice) movie – Manny
• Making the Cut (2006) HBO documentary; himself
• Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2005) TV series – Raymond Barone
• The Simpsons (2005) (guest voice) TV series – Ray Magini (appeared in "Don't Fear the Roofer", as Homer Simpson's supposedly imaginary friend)
• 95 Miles to Go (2004) movie – himself
• Eulogy (2004) movie – Skip Collins
• Welcome to Mooseport (2004) movie – Handy Harrison
• Ice Age (2002) (voice) movie – Manny
• The Nanny (guest star) TV Series – Raymond Barone
• Cosby (guest star) TV Series – Raymond Barone

Writing

• Everybody Loves Raymond (1996–2005)

Bibliography

Everything and a Kite, 1999, Bantam Books. "Raymie, Dickie and the Bean," 2005, Simon & Schuster "Everybody Loves Raymond: Our Family Album," 2004, Pocket Books "Live At Carnegie Hall," (CD), 2001, Sony

External links

• Official Site
• Ray Romano interview