Romano, 67, and co-stars Patricia Heaton and Brad Garrett have reconnected for the Everybody Loves Raymond 30th Anniversary Reunion<\/a>, a prime time special airing Monday, November 24, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. The event, taking place on a recreated set (featuring the original couch<\/a>, which Romano has in his own house), is expected to celebrate some of the show\u2019s funniest moments and lasting legacy in pop culture.<\/p>\n Before the sitcom turned Romano and his castmates into household names, he was a relatively unknown stand-up performer with a growing family. A fateful performance for Letterman in 1995 changed the course of his career\u2014and started a unique bond between the two funnymen. <\/p>\n Romano was an accountant and delivered futons before his comedy career took off<\/p>\n Romano, born in Queens, New York City, in 1957, began his comedy obsession as a teenager. He became fascinated with the long-running sketch show Saturday Night Live<\/a> and began organizing comedy shows in a local church basement, according to PBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, these small-scale performances were hardly enough to pay bills. Romano worked as an accountant and delivered futons<\/a> by day\u2014with star purchasers including Cher<\/a> and Robert De Niro<\/a>\u2014while continuing to pursue his comedy career.<\/p>\n Slowly, his gigs got bigger, moving from church basements to comedy clubs, and, by 1995, Romano was \u201cmaking a living at it\u201d with stand-up, as he told Cleveland.com<\/a>. He and wife Anna had three young children<\/a>, Alexander, Matthew, and Gregory, at the time. Son Joseph soon followed. <\/p>\n Then, on May 23, 1995, Romano was asked to appear on the popular Late Show with David Letterman.<\/p>\n Learn About Other Famous Sitcom Stars<\/p>\n Letterman immediately worked to get Romano a sitcom after his 5-minute routine<\/p>\n Romano performed a little more than 5 minutes, riffing on topics from Burger King employees in Montreal to parenting his young children. \u201cYou know, it doesn\u2019t matter if you laugh or not. I\u2019m just happy to be out of the house right now, I\u2019ll be honest with you,\u201d he quipped<\/a>.<\/p>\n Based on their laughter, the audience enjoyed the set\u2014and so did Letterman. A representative from the host\u2019s production company, Worldwide Pants, called Romano shortly after the show, revealing Letterman was interested in developing a series for the comedian. \u201cMy wife brings the phone out to the backyard where I was with the kids. She said, \u2018They\u2019re on the phone!\u2019 I didn\u2019t know how they had my number!\u201d Romano later told The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Their agreement served as the framework for what became Everybody Loves Raymond. As showrunner Philip Rosenthal explained<\/a>, Romano initially eyed a show \u201cabout a comedian who sits at the coffee shop and talks with his friends about the current subjects,\u201d but that would have been a near-imitation of the smash hit Seinfeld<\/a>. Instead, the pair connected during a meeting at a Los Angeles delicatessen over stories about their family members. The conversation clicked with Rosenthal.<\/p>\n Everybody Loves Raymond debuted in 1996 and ran for nine seasons.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Your family is as good as anything else we can come up with for you, plus you know it. You will be comfortable in this situation,\u2019\u201d Rosenthal told the Television Academy Foundation. \u201cAnd what I don\u2019t know about his people, I\u2019m going to fill in with the characters of my people.\u201d <\/p>\n Romano hated the name of the show, but Letterman persuaded him <\/p>\n Rosenthal and Romano based a number of the characters off their own relatives. Romano\u2019s on-screen brother Robert Barone (Garrett) is largely inspired by his actual sibling, while Marie Barone (Doris Roberts) bore similarities to Rosenthal\u2019s own mother.<\/p>\n Romano believed in the writing, but the name of the series was a tougher sell. Shortly before the debut, Romano contacted Letterman directly to suggest changing it. He feared it was ripe for negative headlines (\u201cI guess not EVERYBODY loves Raymond\u201d) if the show flopped. <\/p>\n \u201cDave told me not to worry so much about it. He said the success of the show would supersede any concerns I had about the name,\u201d Romano said. \u201cHe said the show would take on a life of its own. And he was right. And I still to this day hate the name.\u201d<\/p>\n Romano and Letterman remained distant, but dependable friends David Letterman performs during his final broadcast of the Late Show in 2015.<\/p>\n Everybody Loves Raymond ran for 210 episodes through May 2005, with Romano winning a total of three Emmys for his acting and work as a producer.<\/p>\n Although their conversations were infrequent, Romano and Letterman kept in touch throughout the show\u2019s run and afterward. \u201cI knew Dave to be a very private person. I always knew that he liked me, he liked the show,\u201d Romano recalled<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019d send me a bottle of Dom Perignon for my birthday. Things like that. Once he paid for our writing staff to spend a day at a pro [Go-kart] racing track in Oxnard. Race cars were his thing. I loved it. I\u2019ve gone back there since.\u201d<\/p>\nCBS Photo Archive\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n