From Unpredictability To Peace

Heaton grew up in a Cleveland, Ohio suburb alongside three sisters and a brother. Blessed with a big imagination, she found early inspiration in Shirley Temple movies and Barbra Streisand albums, even spontaneously offering to perform those songs for the nuns and classmates at her elementary school.

“I think performing was just woven into my DNA,” she says.

At just age 12, Heaton lost her mother to an aneurysm. This devastating loss taught Heaton the truth about life’s unpredictability, yet she found solace in her Christian faith, which would continue to affect her life and career in ways she could not anticipate.

In fact, Heaton wasn’t sure she would have an acting career at all. She scraped by with intermittent theater gigs in New York City for several years before venturing west with David Hunt, who would later become her husband, to try to make it in Los Angeles.

Living in a spare bedroom in West Hollywood with no car and no agent, Heaton wondered if time had run out on her dream. That same year, she joined the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood and went on a mission trip to an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico.

“When I came back from that trip, I felt an enormous sense of peace,” she says. “I realized I could let acting go and go back to that orphanage. So I gave everything over to God. I said if the chances to audition stopped, I was meant to go back to Mexico. If the auditions and the work kept coming, I would go that way. But I was no longer in charge.”

Truth And Laughter

The work did keep coming. Even though her first three sitcoms were short-lived, her fourth primetime role was as Debra Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond. Although the show initially struggled on Friday nights, a move to Monday allowed the series to build a massive, loyal audience over nine seasons. Along with Ray Romano, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, Heaton was a part of a family of characters who were both deeply funny and sympathetic.

“The show dealt with truths that we all live through,” Heaton says. She recalls traveling through Uganda as part of her humanitarian work, and her driver—a Ugandan farmer—confided his anxiety about attending a wedding with his wife. The farmer didn’t know anyone who would be at the wedding and wished he could just stay home.

“That’s the same kind of thing Ray and Debra would argue about,” Heaton says. “Marriage, children, and in-laws are universal.”

Heaton is among the small pool of actors who followed one hit show with another, The Middle, which also lasted for nine seasons. Other notable TV work included the Emmy-award-winning Food Network series, Patricia Heaton Parties, and the critically-acclaimed sitcom, Carol’s Second Act. Both of those shows inspired bestselling books, including Your Second Act: Inspiring Stories of Transformation.

“What I loved about writing Your Second Act was learning all the ways people can pivot when life throws curveballs,” Heaton says. “It can happen to anyone at any time in their life. And I think America is a particularly great place to have a second, or even third or fourth act. There is a hopefulness in this country that can help people flourish when they face the unexpected.”

Living And Moving In Faith

Heaton has channeled her acting success into a wide range of humanitarian efforts, including the founding of World Vision’s Celebrity Ambassador Network. World Vision is a global organization dedicated to helping impoverished children gain access to food, clean water, education and healthcare.

“Nobody in the entertainment industry had heard of World Vision, so I reached out to them about promoting their mission,” Heaton says. “I would go on all the shows like Entertainment Tonight and Extra, where I was normally talking about Raymond or The Middle, but now I was talking about World Vision and how they are one of the largest providers of clean water in the world.”

Reflecting on her philanthropy, Heaton says she realized God hadn’t actually separated the two paths she prayed about back in that spare bedroom in West Hollywood.

“God heard me and said, ‘You’re giving me an either/or question—acting or humanitarian work—but I’m actually going to give you both, in ways you cannot imagine,’” Heaton says.

That sense of a full circle—with God at the center—is part of the message Heaton hopes to bring to this year’s SmartWomen Luncheon & Expo.

“I want my story and the things I have been through to be an encouragement,” she says. “And I want to reinforce the importance of faith in our lives. As the Apostle Paul says, ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ Faith is not separate from what we do. It’s a lifelong project.”

Top photo courtesy of Kate Romero

Photos from Everybody Loves Raymond 30th Anniversary courtesy of Sonja Fleming/CBS.

The 24^th annual SmartWomen Luncheon & Expo is Wednesday, September 30. Your business or organization can make a huge difference in the health and wellbeing of local women by being a sponsor. For sponsorship information, call 912-819-8683, email sjcsmartwomen@sjchs.org or click here.