Ray & Anna Romano

setting was just right. Once they arrived, we all rated the mini bar and everyone ate M and M's while Marlowe struggled with the recording equipment. That has to I can't believe you're doing it at all. Yeah, those are. But then when you press this button, does it like? Because it's something supposed to like, but I don't think. Let's see here, but you sorted it out like a chance, Yes, you had you had it upside down. Okay, well that's funny,

that's kind of my personality. We finally settled down to talk. Well, first of all, you guys met how we worked together at a bank bank. We were bank tellers, we were really young, and I was bank teller. Oh, I think I started there when I was eighteen. He wasn't there yet. I started working there when I was twenty five. I lived at home till I was twenty nine. Wow. Yeah, so I drove my bike to work. I was pretty much like not the new stud guy working at the bank.

Yeah when ye, when he started there, there was a bunch of young girls. We all worked there, and we're like, oh, there's a young guy starting here, yeah, you know or whatever. Um, and then he strolled it on a bike. I was just at late by the way, always ten. I should back then. It wasn't going to change about two years. And I left after two years, right, And then I asked her out after I had left the bank. Yeah,

that's why I wasn't working anywhere. But little footnote she was the third girl I asked out at the bank. The first two said no, trust you get well, why did you live at home? Was that like an Italian thing? It was part that, But I think everyone in our neighborhood stayed home till they were married, most most of them, I would a lot of my buddies didn't move out until they got married. I just happened to get married later. But also I was kind of nowhere in my career

or what I wanted to do. I had dropped out of college and I was kind of in nowhere land until he met me. It all came together, and when I met her was the same time I also started doing stand up comedy. I always tell her she took a gamble because she went out with a guy who lived at home and rode a bike to work, and now she has her own movie theater. Okay, all right, will you deserve it? Yeah? Thank you, believe me. Well, what was it about him? I mean, did I want

with a guy? Yeah? You know, honestly, I think it just grew from a friendship into a relationship. So I think we were friend he became friends, and he was funny and he was kind and sweet. He really was an easy personality. You know. We didn't have any expectations when we were dating. It wasn't like and we just kind of did it. It was like what Rocky says, and U what's the home side of Rocky? It fills gaps. He was, I got gaps, She got gaps. Together, we

filled gaps. I think that's true with us. We filled gaps. Yeah, and so you didn't. So he looked like he was going nowhere, so you could be Yeah, I didn't. I didn't care. I guess it didn't matter. I didn't have but to be. But to tell you the truth, I've always said this, she would be happy if I was a plumber, if a plumber made the same amount of money. Yeah, well, you weren't looking to fix things up at the time.

I was like twenty seven. I guess I was about a year and a half, two years into my stand up, so it's still very early, still very early. I'm still I'm still not making a living. I'm doing it at night and I'm working with my friend who owns a futime mattress company during the day. I never had the idea this is going to be my career stand up when we started dating, I just love to do it, and I just kept doing it. You musn't trusted something about him, right, He It was funny and he was

just kind. You know, he's just a good person. I haven't heard the words yet. Did you did it take you when you started dating to get married? Two years? Yeah? Two years? Yeah, But I think we were both ready to be married. I remember one time. I don't know what the reason was, but I got jealous somehow. It was the first time I felt like this, and I don't know, I just felt like it kind of crossed over,

you know, for me. But I think we just both had the same goals without really even talking about it. You know, we both wanted kids and family, and that's what we really wanted, so everything else was a bonus. You know. It wasn't like a It just evolved. It wasn't a shocking me proposing in her. No, No, it just was a slow realization that that we both agree we want to get married. So having lived with your mom and dad all that time and he moved in for the first time for yeah, I used to do

stories about that in might stand up. These are jokes, but but these were true. Like day one when you move in with someone is a crucial day because you know there's decisions to be made on day one that you don't think are important when you're living on your own, like what side of the bed do you get? And I thought that was trivial, and then I realized that's your side for life right there, And I blew the call.

I didn't I didn't look at the TV. And yeah, I think we were also brought up the same way where his mom did you know, took care of the man in the mouse. My mother very italian Us, But I didn't do a lottle. First little launcher I ever did was was when I got the TV show. I had to come out of here by myself, and I remember having to call you and say where do I

put the thing and whatever? Yeah. Yeah, so I think we had a lot of the same background, so we kind of just fell into our roles, which I wish we didn't fall into those roles because I do everything. But yeah, it wasn't like all of a sudden living on my own. It was like I was still being taken care of. That's the thing that you know, the fact that you're both Italian and my mom was Sicilian. My father's lemonade and there was a lot of screaming in our house. Yeah. Bill always said in his house,

everything was very quiet, you know. Yea, his parents didn't fight. I was a great shock to him because I'm because you're a fighter and gonna hear it right away and I'm through with it in three minutes. He on the other hand. Yeah, I think that's it too. We get mad and then it's over. You know we're done. Well, how do you fight? Do you fight the same way? We fight the same way? She yells at me normally when we have a disagreement, I get loud, you getting

loud to me. I don't return it because I know I'm always the one in trouble, so for me to flip it on you, like, I don't think I have the right, I'm glad I'm always the one. I think she's also very good at um. Like I'm quick tempered and I'll get mad and I don't think things through and he'll be like, okay, all right, all right, calm down for a second. You're the one that comes and makes about Do you ever apologize after you've started that or No, he's a one that you don't apologize to

each other a couple of times. I mean, it has to be a big fight if it's stupid little fights. No, we don't really apologize. We just get over it and that. But even like not to go back to my act, but it's all about a guy is always trying to score points with his wife. And what I've what I've realized is this game where we're trying to score points. We're always behind. We're always behind. You never feel you have to score points with me. I always I guess

I don't do anything wrong. No, no, it's not that you don't do anything wrong. It's not. It's that you do so much more good. You know where I feel like, if I see the guy selling the flower on the corner, you know, let me get it and bring it home because it'll score some points. Where she doesn't feel that she's a she's a head and points. Well, I think

that's true. Well, listen when I was doing my show and all that, she's the one home with the four kids, and she's the one and I'm the one going on the road and going to wherever to film and going here. Of course she's ahead and points. You know, she's the one holding the fort down and I'm paying for the fort. But thank god, that will. So trust is a big thing. So trust was up a thing you guys had to

work on. You had that, Yeah, we had that. I think for us it was he became the Hollywood star and I really was like the stay at home mom and I didn't have a career. I didn't have I was not in this business. So I stayed in Queens for the first season and he moved out. So he was living with his single friend who was always looking for girls, and I told him to every Raymond, I stayed in Queens with my three kids. I didn't we only had three. Him he living with this friend of his.

I told the friend, I go, you're not allowed to bring girls up there. I don't care. I don't care. We're paying for the apartment. You're not having girlfriends up there, you know, because you know, now here's a new celebrity. I don't know what it's like. You girls, you know, are looking for the next best thing. And I just I didn't want. Of course, I don't want. I have three little kids, you know. I I think he was a lawyer, was very loyal, but still it doesn't even

matter that you're loyal. I worry about the other women, the women, because they may force you to see So anyway, there was a little bit of that, and maybe I was a little like worried, but not I really I trusted him. I really trusted phil la Ren asked my husband out to lunch and I said, I don't think so, I really do under the purpose. Well, the women in my office would claim that if a female cast came on to me, I didn't know what was happening. That was good, that was a good thing. But he had

his show. Right the day after the show, she invited him to lunch. He called me. I was in New York, he was in Chicago. I was working and he was working and he said to me, you know, Sophia Laurent called me inviting me to lunch. What do you think. I said, Well, if she had invited you to lunch before she did the show, I'd understand that because that means she wants to know. What if she invites you to lunch after the show? Yeah, he said, yeah, that's what I thought. I get more. The funny thing is

I get more jealous than she does. And I'm the one in the scenes with the women here. They're not a lot, but it's on occasion. Yeah. And I had to do it with the show Vinyl that I did about rock and roll in the seventies. It was on HBO. It was like two two years ago, and I had to do a scene with the threesome. So too young? Are you're going to tell that part that the young girls, young naked girls. Yeah, it was HBO, it was Mick Jagger was producing it. It was it was on for

one season. It was about rock and roll in the seventies. So I play a music producer or whatever, after which she goes, all right, well, what was it like? Tell me what the scene was like. I asked a lot of details. I needed to hear the details. I told him. I said, it's it's it's horrible. There's a guy there and there's a boom mic there, and you know, we're wearing protective stuff and she's sitting uh here whatever. I was like, where's she sitting here? It's so anyway, So

that ends, and then she was in. It was in New York. We filmed it, and then she had to fly back to LA and I called her after the plane lands and I go, how was your friend? She said it was good. I sat next to this actor, this young Latino actor, and he wanted me. He found out I was your husband, and he gave me his card. So right away, now I'm the jail. I'm like, what do you mean he gave you his card? Question? She's like, what do you mean he gave me his card? Because

he knows. I'm He goes, but why would he give his card? I go and I kept going, and she's getting annoyed. I go, what was his name? What was his name? And she stops me and she goes, what was the name of a girl that sat on your coricks them up? Oh god? I did this movie with Christmas Stofferson and we're in bed, you know, kissing and whatever and whens and the scene was literally four minutes long.

And when the movie was over, he said, head is the longest fucking love scene I've ever seen in my life. We'll have more. After a quick break, we're back to our conversation with Ray and Anna Romano. They've been together for more than thirty years, not an easy thing to do in Hollywood. So Marlowe asked, what's the glue that keeps them together? It's that we're compatible. She's this person

on this person. I'm this person who performs, and part of me needs attention and this and that that doesn't threaten her and she doesn't feel neglected by that, you know, and especially in this business, the pieces have to fit that way. I feel like he needs that attention from other people. All I want is the attention from my family. I don't really need it from it and me, and she doesn't even get it from me as much as I should not yet she you Catholic Italian. Yeah, the

father and all that. You know, my father was very undemonstrative, and it was just hard to show anything like that. But you know what, I don't even think it's only that because I notice. I think it's genetic. I think it's something you're born with me. Maybe my father never said he loved me to me. Never, So I go out of my way to make sure my kids don't feel that. But even when I do, it doesn't roll off the tongue. It doesn't come natural. Yes, but I do it, but so I feel self conscious doing it.

So they pick up on that a little bit. You know. Well, my kids are now, they now say I love you. Yeah, it was hard, hard, Yeah. Yeah. Was it hard for you though to tell them? Yeah? Yeah, it's weird of just some people. Yeah. The first time you told me he loved me, we were in Chicago, near his home. We were taking a walk and he said to me, Okay, I'm going to play a card here for it, play a card here, I said, yeah, he said, I love you,

I said, that's a card. He's trying to see if you're trying to see if I can get it out, because his parents never said I can come natural. My parents said I love you all the time. We cried. My father cried all the time for everybody, very right, right, Yeah, it was completely different kind of Well, how about the first time we kissed. Yeah, so the first time we kissed, he drove me home to my mom's house and we

made out in the car. So we were done, and I don't know what, you know, I don't know what to do next week. So I look at him and he literally is not looking at me. He can't even look at me. He's looking straight straight ahead, and I'm like, um, okay, so I'll see you tomorrow. I don't know you'll call me. I don't know. It was so awkward. Ye afterwards was awkward, but during it was fine. You know, So, what have you learned from being married this long that you would

pass on? Well? I think you shouldn't decide until you know the person totally, you know. I think by the time we decided, you knew who I was and I knew who you were. But we were together two years, where some people date ten years, they get married and then get supporting. And I never understood showing that, you know, so what's the big surprise. Yeah, I don't know. What about stress? Who handles it better? We stress over different things. That's the problem. Why I'm worse is because I stress

over things that you really shouldn't. You know, I'm neurotic. I'm the neurotic one. I'll stress over you know, what's this bump, what's this thing that guy he hates me, you know, stuff like that. But constantly all day there's something you know I am. I'm neurotic. I'm I'm a hypochondriact. I'm a pessimist, and I obsess over things where she stresses over things like yeah, I stress over like real things,

and that's when I am the rational one. I stress over the kids, you know, if they're not working, they're not going to school, or it's just the real life things where he's just obsessed over a little Yeah. Well, there's a there's a great saying that a good marriage people don't go crazy at the same time. We go

crazy at the same time. So when he panics, I panic, and when I panic, key panics and I've been trying to really work on that, which is when he panics, I really try very hard not to and he tries not think we do that. I think we do that pretty good. Interviewing other people about marriage is really interesting because every time we do, we get in the car and say, well, do we do that? Do you do?

You know? One of the things we were thinking through is about what we really get from the other that we just can't get anyplace else, and not love and sex and those things, but other emotional things. And I'm a very self reliant person. I'm very resourceful and tough and all that. But when I get blue or down, only one person can make it better, and that's Phil. He will talk me out of where I put myself.

And one of those people who always feels I said the wrong thing somewhere and did you see that person's face? I mean, I really, why did I say that then? Because are you kidding? You're the most interesting person at the party. Are you crazy? You know? He'll just bring me all the way from zero up. So I'm trying to figure out how that If there's that in U guys, I think, well, I get what I get from her is the truth. You know, in this business where everyone

either is phony or kissing her ass. You know, I know that's not going to happen with her. She's just gonna tell me the truth and not be mean about it. But it's exactly what I want. You know, you can count on it. Yes, perfect example. And when Everybody Loves Raymond premiered, I was in LA and she was home with the kids, and so to celebrate, we were going to go to Vegas, me and Kevin James, my buddy. And when I told her We're going to Vegas, she was, oh,

you're going to Vegas. I'm meantime, I'm home with the kids. I go, but my show premiered, and I was kind of being mockingly cocky, you know, I was saying, do you understand what is happening right now? I'm being broadcast in front of the whole United States? Okay, thirty million people are going to see me tonight. You know, I'm just trying to be annoying whatever. I'm going to be a star tomorrow, And to which she said, You're still the dick I married. That was so wonderful. We had

such a great time with ray and Anna. After we wrapped up. We realized we had completely forgotten to ask about one very important experience that they had gone through together. Days later, we called them on the phone to hear the story. So, were you alone when you got the news, Anna, or were you was rayed with you with the doctor? How did it happen? Well, the kind of caused this found a lump, So we did a mammogram and they

found something. I picked up the phone. You were crying and I thought immediately thought it was my father because my father was was close to to leaving our Yeah, and then you told me that ye yeah, yeah, yeah, I got I was very upset. And then you went for the biopsy. Yeah. We had to wait a whole weekend to get the results. And then when we got the results, it was like Monday morning. At night, Monday morning, we were together because we were waiting for him for

them to call. You know, yeah, we called from the bathroom. I remember, we were in the bathroom. You know, it's very nerve, you're nervous. All weekend. We were hosting a Super Bowl party. That weekend. We had fifteen fifty at least people over our house and we just had to you know, uh, through it. That's sure. That was very scary, Yeah, very very But we were first trying to say, look, let's not let's not think it's anything until we know it's something. You know that. I think it was like

nine am on a Monday they called us. You know, first we kind of got emotional and um, but then we immediately wanted to didn't want to waste any time, you know. I remember I had to call my manager and cancel. It kind of hit me then when I had to tell him why, Um, I was in my member, I was in the closet, and I got a little. I got a little. It overtook me a little bit. So at that moment when you got the phone call, they said, um, so it is breast cancer. And of course,

you know whatever, I'm going to get emotional. I know, wouldn't I'm getting emotional listening to it. I don't know. I think when you get the news just well, I think I was all weekend just trying to convince myself, well it's not it's not going to be that. You know. I hadn't mind you. Ray is such a hypochondriac. He's always like, I think I have stomach cancer. I think I have this cancer. It's funny, because it's not funny. But I did say to him, I go, you're the

one who always thinks who have cancer. I never do, and I'm the one who gets it, you know. But I'm glad it was me and my youth because at least I guess I'm stronger maybe in that, I don't know. It was a very emotional period because the also the day you had your surgery was the day my father passed away. And I remember, Yeah, we were driving to the hospital, you know, at like I don't know, six am, and my mother in law called us to day they think today is going to be the day that he passes.

I don't know. And while you were getting prepped, my mother called me and told me he passed away. And then and then I saw you before you went in, but I didn't tell you. He said, how'd you father? But I didn't want to tell you then. But then we kind of, you know, we made like a connection and a feeling that my father kind of went to a place where he could look over you. Yeah. Now I'm getting emotional and make sure that everything goes well

for you. You know, it's a lovely thought. Wow, I learned how strong she is, you know, and and I learned you know, I'm not the most tremonstous demonstrative man. Um Anna knows this about me. Yeah, but yeah, when something like this happens and you face the fact that you may lose someone like this, it's kind of uh, it shines a light on how much you love this person, and U and I should say it. I should. Yes. The reason this marriage works is because thankfully, um she

knows I love her. And you know, some women who have to hear it out loud, it's not gonna go. It's not gonna go that well when you're married to a guy like me, you know. Well, it's pretty clear how well it is going between Ray and Anna Romano. And it was such fun hanging out with them. It sure was. Until next time. I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlo Thomas. Did you start telling her you loved then? Now a couple more times? Double Day is a production

of Pushkin Industries. The show was created by US and produced by Sarah Lilly. Michael Bahari is associate producer. Musical adaptations of It Had to Be You by Cellwagon, Simfinette, Marlo and I are executive producers, along with Mia Lobell and Letal Molad from Pushkin. Special thanks to Jacob Wiseberg, Malcolm Gladwell, Heather Faine, John Snars, Carly Migliori, Eric Sandler,

Emily Rostek, Jason Gambrel, Paul Williams, and Bruce Klucker. If you like our show, please remember to share, rate, and review. Thanks for listening.