About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Doris Roberts

Encyclopedia : D : DO : DOR : Doris Roberts

Roberts in a scene from Everybody Loves Raymond
Enlarge
Roberts in a scene from Everybody Loves Raymond

Doris May Roberts (b. November 4, 1930 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an Emmy Award-winning American actress.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Roberts' father deserted the family when Roberts was a child, and her mother, Ann Meltzer, raised Doris with the help of her Jewish-American family in The Bronx, New York. Doris Roberts has never revealed her father's name and essentially has distanced herself from him and from that part of her life.

Career

Her career began in 1952 with a guest role on the TV series Studio One. She also appeared in guest roles on four other TV series, including The Naked City (1952), Ben Casey (1963), and The Defenders (1962 - 1963). In the 1950s, Roberts began appearing on Broadway. In 1961, she began her film career in Something Wild, and, in 1968 she appeared in the films A Lovely Way to Die and No Way to Treat a Lady, a film co-starring Rod Steiger, George Segal, Eileen Heckart and Lee Remick.

In 1971, Roberts starred in three films, Such Good Friends, Little Murders, and A New Leaf with Walter Matthau and Elaine May. In 1978, she starred in a film about John F. Kennedy's assassination, Ruby and Oswald; she played Ruby's sister, Eva. She also appeared briefly in The Rose, as the mother of the title character (played by Bette Midler). She also appeared as "Mildred Krebs" in the series, Remington Steele, which starred Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist. After the show's cancellation, she starred in the TV movie If It's Tuesday, It Still Must Be Belgium (1987) and the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) with Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo.

Roberts is most recently best known for her work as the nosy, insufferable Italian mother/cook, Marie Barone, in the long-running American TV series Everybody Loves Raymond. She beat out 100 other actresses for the role. She has been nominated for nine Emmy awards and won from 2001 to 2005 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Everybody Loves Raymond, and was also nominated in 1999 and 2000.

She also won an Emmy for a guest role on St. Elsewhere as a homeless woman, and was nominated for Remington Steele. In 2003, Roberts received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Personal life

Roberts' first husband was Michael Cannata; they divorced in 1962. Their son, Michael Cannata, Jr. is Roberts' manager, and is the father of her three grandchildren: Kelsey, Andrew, and Devon. Her second husband was writer William Goyen, reputedly a bisexual (according to Boze Hadleigh). She was married to Goyen from 1963 until his death from leukemia on August 30, 1983 in Los Angeles, California.

On September 4, 2002, she testified before a U.S. Congressional panel that age discrimination is prevalent in Hollywood, advocating that such discrimination be treated on par with biases against race and gender.

As an avid cook, she wrote a book in 2005 titled Are You Hungry, Dear? Life, Laughs, and Lasagna, written with Danelle Morton and published by St Martin's Press. She says of her book, "It’s about sharing things I’ve learned that have changed my life."

An animal lover and advocate, she has worked with a group called "Puppies Behind Bars" that works with inmates in training guide dogs and assistance dogs for the physically disabled and elderly, as well as dogs trained in explosives detection to be used by the ATF and other law enforcement agencies. She also is active with the Children with AIDS Foundation, of which she has served as the chairwoman.

She currently lives alone in Los Angeles in a house once owned by screen legend James Dean.

Emmy Awards

Selected filmography

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: