An Everybody Loves Raymond Star Almost Had A Leading Role On Seinfeld

Elaine Benes was the last of the four main “Seinfeld” characters to be conceived. Note how she is nowhere to be seen in the pilot episode, “The Seinfeld Chronicles”, and only appears at the end of the second produced (but fourth aired) episode, “Male Unbonding”.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus obviously got the role of Ellen, and there’s a compelling argument that she was the best actress in the show. (Let’s see which of her stars make something as good as “Veep.”) While JLD had an impressive resume before “Seinfeld,” having been a cast member of “Saturday Night Live” in the 1980s, the role of Elaine wasn’t written for her and many other actresses auditioned for it.

One of those actresses was Patricia Heaton. As she told the story in 2020 on Access Daily: “The first test [on ‘Seinfeld’] It went well, then the callback, I just realized Jerry [Seinfeld] “He was just trying to get me to do something or be a certain way… It wasn’t working, and I knew it wasn’t working, but it all worked out well because Julie Dreyfus is hot.”

And as Heaton notes, it worked out for her, too, because she then landed a starring role in another ’90s sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond. Heaton’s role there, as Raymond’s (Ray Romano) easily frustrated wife Debra, is the part most people recognize her from (for good reason). If heaton king Cast as Elaine, she likely wasn’t looking for a role when “Raymond” premiered in 1996.

Unlike “Seinfeld,” a show about single people living in New York City, “Everybody Loves Raymond” was a local sitcom set in suburban Long Island. Despite the “domestic” premise, Ray and Debra’s children were merely background material, not main characters in their own right. the TRUE The conflict in the series was between Ray, Debra and Ray’s overbearing parents, Mary (Doris Roberts) and Frank (Peter Boyle), who lived across the street.

Heaton as Debra had a burning fire and no BS energy, but she was a different kind of abrasive than Elaine was. Debra was actually a staple force among the silly and straight-laced women of the series’ comedy, while Elaine could be just as cruel and selfish as the men. Debra was the underdog on the show, because it was hard not to sympathize with her never being able to get over Mary.

Like “Seinfeld,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” ran for nine seasons. (Though, due to the different lengths of the seasons, it had 210 episodes versus “Seinfeld’s” 180.) A 30th anniversary reunion special for “Raymond” will air in November of this year, but unfortunately, don’t expect a full revival; Both Boyle and Roberts have died since the conclusion of Everybody Loves Raymond. Both of them are as irreplaceable as Frank and Mary, and without those two characters, half the show is gone.

However, as a testament to how good she was in the role of Debra, Heaton later starred in the similar sitcom “The Middle”, where she played a similar character. She may not be able to brag about playing Ellen, but playing Debra was a nice consolation prize.