Date of birth 4 March 1958 Birth place Bay Village, Ohio, USA Birth name Patricia Helen Heaton Nickname Patty Height 5' 2" (1.57 m)   Patricia is an Emmy Award-winning American actress best known for playing Debra Barone on the CBS television sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.

She was nominated for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Comedy Series for this role 6 years in a row (1999-2005), and winning twice in a row, once in 2000, and again in 2001.
Heaton was the second youngest of five children born to an Irish American Catholic family in Bay Village, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She is the daughter of well-known Cleveland Plain Dealer sportswriter, Chuck Heaton. Her mother died when she was a small child. After graduating from The Ohio State University with a B.A. in drama in 1980, she moved to New York City to study with drama teacher William Esper.

Heaton's eldest sister, Sharon, is a Roman Catholic (Dominican) nun and second-grade teacher at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Virginia. Another sister, Alice Cartwright, the second oldest child, lives in Nashville and is married with three grown children, one of whom has ambitions to be an actress. Michael Heaton, the only boy in the family, is the "Minister of Culture" columnist for Cleveland Plain Dealer and a writer for the paper's Friday Magazine. He's married and has three young daughters. Heaton's younger sister Frances ("Franny") works in the activities department at Harborside Healthcare in Westlake, Ohio.