Doris Roberts

Doris May Roberts ( Green; November 4, 1925 – April 17, 2016) was an American actress whose career spanned seven decades of television and film.

She received five Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild award during her acting career, which began in 1951.

Roberts' acting career began in 1951 with a role on the TV series Studio One.

She appeared in episodes of The Naked City (1958-1963), Way Out (1961), Ben Casey (1963), and The Defenders (1962-1963).

She appeared in such 1960s/1970s films as A Lovely Way to Die, No Way to Treat a Lady, The Honeymoon Killers, Such Good Friends, Little Murders, A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Hester Street, and Rabbit Test.

Roberts studied acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City and started in films in 1961.

In 1961, she made her film debut in Something Wild (1961).

She had several prominent film roles, including playing opposite Shirley Stoler in The Honeymoon Killers (1970), Elliott Gould in Little Murders (1971), Steven Keats in Hester Street (1975), Billy Crystal in Rabbit Test (1978), Robert Carradine in Number One with a Bullet (1987), Cady McClain in Simple Justice (1989), among many others.

In an interview with the Archive of American Television, Rue McClanahan confirmed that in 1972 she was approached by Norman Lear during the taping of an All in the Family episode to be a late replacement for Roberts, who was originally intended for the role of Vivian on Maude.

(Roberts later guest starred in a 1976 All in the Family episode, "Edith's Night Out" as a bar patron who befriended Edith.)

Roberts also appeared on Alice, playing the mother of the title character (played by her former Broadway co-star Linda Lavin); on Barney Miller in two different roles, as the wife of a man who secretly visits a sex surrogate, and (in three episodes) as the harried wife of a middle-aged man who occasionally makes erratic decisions to give his life meaning.

She played the unhinged Flo Flotsky on four episodes of Soap, and Dorelda Doremus, a faith healer, on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

In 1978, she appeared in a film about John F. Kennedy's assassination, Ruby and Oswald, in which she played Jack Ruby's sister.

She also appeared briefly in The Rose, as the mother of the title character (Bette Midler).

She achieved continuing success in television, becoming known for her role as Mildred Krebs in NBC's Remington Steele from 1983 to 1987 and her co-starring role as Raymond Barone's mother, Marie Barone, on the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996–2005).

Roberts played Theresa Falco on Angie, and later appeared as Mildred Krebs on NBC's Remington Steele from 1983-1987.

After Remington Steele ended, she starred several films including the TV film remake of If It's Tuesday, It Still Must Be Belgium (1987), Number One with a Bullet (1987), Simple Justice (1989), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and Used People (1992).

She also appeared on Full House as Danny Tanner's mother, Claire, as well as two episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and as lonely Aunt Edna on Step by Step among others.

Roberts achieved much of her fame for her role as Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond, which ran on CBS from 1996 to 2005.

She was reportedly one of 100 actresses considered for the role.

For her work on the series, she was nominated for seven Emmy Awards (and won four times) for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

She had previously won an Emmy for a guest appearance on St. Elsewhere, playing a homeless woman, and was also once nominated for her role on Remington Steele.

She was nominated for appearances on Perfect Strangers and a PBS special called The Sunset Gang.

In 2003, she made a guest appearance as Gordo's grandmother in Lizzie McGuire.

The same year, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2006, she starred in Our House as a wealthy woman who took in homeless people into her own house, and in Grandma's Boy.

In 2007, she made a guest appearance on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In 2008, she appeared in the romantic comedy Play the Game alongside Andy Griffith, who plays a lonely widowed grandfather re-entering the dating world after a 60-year hiatus.

Roberts appeared in the 2009 film Aliens in the Attic, which was filmed in Auckland, New Zealand.

On September 23, 2010, she played Ms. Rinsky, Brick Heck's teacher in the second-season premiere episode of The Middle.

This appearance reunited her with Patricia Heaton, her co-star from Everybody Loves Raymond.

The two women's characters, of course, clash, with Heaton's Frankie Heck always managing to get pushed out of sorts into disastrous action usually resulting in some kind of public chastisement by Roberts' Rinsky, an expert at passive-aggressive manipulation.

Towards the end of her acting career, she also had a prominent role opposite Tyler Perry in Madea's Witness Protection (2012).

She appeared as a guest on many talk and variety shows, as well as a panelist on several game shows.

She was an advocate of animal rights and animal rights activism, supporting groups such as the United Activists for Animal Rights.

Doris May Green was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants.

She was raised by her mother, Ann (née Meltzer), and her maternal grandparents in The Bronx, New York, after her father, Larry Green, deserted the family.

Roberts' stepfather, whose surname she took as her own, was Chester H. Roberts.

Chester and Roberts' mother operated the Z.L. Rosenfield Agency, a stenographic service catering to playwrights and actors.

She played George Needleman's mother in Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection (2012).