While Monica Horan was playing Amy on Everybody Loves Raymond, she was also seeing some stories from her real life play out in front of her. The sitcom star is married to Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal, who sometimes took inspiration from their home and marriage to craft plots. Amy was best friend to Debra (Patricia Heaton) and also the girlfriend and eventual wife of Robert (Brad Garrett). But her own relationship with her husband was often shown through the relationship of Debra and Ray (Ray Romano). (Aside from their cute wedding dance looking very similar to the one performed by Amy and Robert.)
Speaking of some of their spats making it into the show—where they were neatly resolved by the episode’s end—Horan told People in 2002, “My favorite line to Phil is, ‘You can say the right thing on TV, but why can’t you do it in real life?'”
Today, Horan is still acting, and she and Rosenthal are still working together on occasion. Read on to find out more about her life today.
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Horan was a working actor before joining Everybody Loves Raymond in 1996. She majored in theater at Hofstra University and was performing on stage in New York City when she first met Rosenthal. By the time Everybody Loves Raymond came around, she had already been on episodes of L.A. Law, In Living Color, Coach, and In the House.
After Everybody Loves Raymond ended in 2005, Horan pulled back on the amount of roles she took on. But, she has since appeared in episodes of Hot in Cleveland, The Middle, and Better Things, among others. She had a recurring role on The Bold and the Beautiful, for which she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series in 2017. She’s also continued acting on stage.
Additionally, Horan has appeared as herself on her husband’s Netflix travel series Somebody Feed Phil. The fifth season of the show was released earlier this year.
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Horan and Rosenthal have two children together, Lily and Ben Rosenthal. She sometimes shares about her kids on Instagram, including for their birthdays and during time they spend together as a family.
In an interview with Australia’s Today Extra in 2021 (via nine.com.au), Horan shared the funny way her son inspired an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond titled “The Angry Family.”
“[W]e went to my kid’s school and he had written a short story,” she said. “All the kids were announcing their stories … My son’s was: ‘The Angry Family.'”
The cast of Everybody Loves Raymond reunited in 2020 for the 14th Annual IMF Virtual Comedy Celebration, supporting the search for a cure for myeloma. Co-star Peter Boyle (Frank Barone) was diagnosed with the form of cancer prior to his death in 2006. During the reunion, the colleagues read scenes from the show and reminisced about their experience.
“As a fan, I couldn’t believe I was getting to see, you know, Ray and Debra together again, oh my gosh, Robert and Amy—even if I’m Amy,” Horan told KTLA of the reunion. “It was really magical. It was really special. And, of course, we were thinking of our friend Peter the whole time.”