Born and raised in Ohio, actress Patricia Heaton got her start on the stage, performing with the off-Broadway company Stage Three. In 1989, she got her screen-acting big break when she was cast in a recurring role on ABC's thirtysomething. Over the next several years, she could be seen in a number of failed sitcoms, small TV guest roles, and bit film parts. But in 1996, Heaton landed the role that would make her career, that of long-suffering matriarch Debra Barone on the hit CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Heaton starred on the show through its nine-year run, receiving seven consecutive Emmy nominations and two wins. Following the conclusion of Everybody Loves Raymond in 2005, Heaton appeared in a pair of made-for-TV movies (The Engagement Ring and The Path to 9/11) before making her way back to sitcom territory in 2007, when she began starring as a TV news anchor opposite Kelsey Grammer on Fox's Back to You, and again 2009 for The Middle, in which she plays the lead role of Frankie Heck, a working-class mother devoted to her family despite her struggles at work and as caretaker for her ailing mother.
Born and raised in Ohio, actress Patricia Heaton got her start on the stage, performing with the off-Broadway company Stage Three. In 1989, she got her screen-acting big break when she was cast in a recurring role on ABC's thirtysomething. Over the next several years, she could be seen in a number of failed sitcoms, small TV guest roles, and bit film parts. But in 1996, Heaton landed the role that would make her career, that of long-suffering matriarch Debra Barone on the hit CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Heaton starred on the show through its nine-year run, receiving seven consecutive Emmy nominations and two wins. Following the conclusion of Everybody Loves Raymond in 2005, Heaton appeared in a pair of made-for-TV movies (The Engagement Ring and The Path to 9/11) before making her way back to sitcom territory in 2007, when she began starring as a TV news anchor opposite Kelsey Grammer on Fox's Back to You, and again 2009 for The Middle, in which she plays the lead role of Frankie Heck, a working-class mother devoted to her family despite her struggles at work and as caretaker for her ailing mother.