Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. (October 18, 1935 – December 12, 2006) was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein (1974).

Boyle, who won an Emmy Award in 1996 for a guest-starring role on the science-fiction drama The X-Files, won praise in both comedic and dramatic parts following his breakthrough performance in the 1970 film Joe.

Boyle was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania of Irish descent, the son of Alice and Peter Boyle Sr. He moved with his family to nearby Philadelphia. His father was a Philadelphia TV personality from 1951–1963 who, among many other things, played the Western-show host Chuck Wagon Pete, and hosted the afterschool children's program Uncle Pete Presents the Little Rascals, which showed vintage Little Rascals, Three Stooges comedy shorts and Popeye cartoons.

He was raised Roman Catholic and he attended St. Francis de Sales School and West Philadelphia Catholic High School For Boys. After high school Boyle spent three years as a novice of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, or De La Salle Brothers, a Catholic teaching order. He lived in a house of studies with other novices and earned a BA from La Salle University in Philadelphia in 1957, but left the order because he did not feel called to religious life. While in Philadelphia, he worked as a cameraman on the cooking show Television Kitchen, hosted by Florence Hanford.

Raymond Albert Romano (born December 21, 1957) is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian, best known for his roles on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and in the Ice Age film series. He recently starred in the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age.

Romano was born in Queens, New York, to Italian American parents: Lucie, a piano teacher, and Albert Romano (1925–March 2010), a real estate agent and an engineer. He grew up in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens. He has a brother named Richard A. Romano. 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 getting into show business, Romano briefly attended Queens College, in Flushing, New York, where he studied accounting. Romano quit after gaining only 15 credits in three years, but he would later return, however, making it to the Dean's List for three years.

Everybody Loves Raymond is an American television sitcom, starring Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton. It originally ran on CBS from September 13, 1996 to May 16, 2005. Many of the situations from the show are based on the real-life experiences of Romano, creator/producer Phil Rosenthal and the show's writing staff. The main characters on the show are also loosely based on Romano's and Rosenthal's real-life family members.

The show reruns in syndication on different channels such as TBS, TV Land, and in most TV markets on local stations. From 2000 to 2007, KingWorld distributed the show for off-network syndication. In 2008, CBS Television Distribution took over King World's distribution, although its logo is retained on TBS. CBS only owns American syndication rights; ancillary rights are controlled by HBO and Warner Bros. Television (WBTV distributes the series outside the US in conjunction with HBO; while HBO Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video own DVD rights worldwide).

The show revolves around the life of Italian-American Raymond Barone, a newspaper sportswriter for Newsday living with his family in Lynbrook, Long Island, New York. Whiny and flippant, Raymond does not take many things seriously, making jokes in nearly every situation, no matter how troubling or problematic, and constantly avoiding any sort of real responsibility.

Ellen Lee DeGeneres ( /dɨˈdʒɛnərəs/; born January 26, 1958) is an American stand-up comedian, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

DeGeneres has hosted both the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmys. As a film actress, she starred in Mr. Wrong, appeared in EDtv and The Love Letter, and provided the voice of Dory in the Disney-Pixar animated film Finding Nemo, for which she was awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first and only time a voice performance won a Saturn Award. She was a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season. She also starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002. During the fourth season of Ellen in 1997, DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterwards, her character Ellen Morgan also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues including the coming out process. She has won thirteen Emmys and numerous other awards for her work and charitable efforts.

Doris Roberts (born November 4, 1930) is an American character actress of film, stage and television.

She has received five Emmy Awards during her acting career, which began in 1952. She is perhaps best known for her role as Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond from 1996 to 2005.

Doris Roberts was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Ann Meltzer, raised Roberts in the Jewish faith in the New York City borough of The Bronx with the assistance of her own parents, after her husband, whose name may have been Larry Meltzer or Larry Green, deserted the family. Doris' stepfather, whose surname she took as her own, was Chester H. Roberts. Chester and Ann Roberts operated the Z.L. Rosenfield Agency, a stenographic service catering to playwrights and actors.

Roberts' acting career began in 1952 with a role on the TV series Studio One. She appeared in episodes of The Naked City (1958–63), Way Out (1961), Ben Casey (1963), and The Defenders (1962–63).

In 1961, she made her film debut in Something Wild. She appeared in such 1960s and 1970s cult films as A Lovely Way to Die, No Way to Treat a Lady, The Honeymoon Killers, Such Good Friends, Little Murders, A New Leaf and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. 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 very briefly in The Rose, as the mother of the title character (played by Bette Midler).