Available contemporary reports do not verify that Doris Roberts struggled with the serious health problems sometimes claimed about her. Roberts died on April 17, 2016, at age 90. Her family said she died peacefully in her sleep of natural causes, while a report published at the time said the cause was not immediately known and quoted her spokeswoman describing her as “healthy and active.” Those accounts provide context, not a complete medical history.
What was reported about Doris Roberts’s death?
Roberts died at age 90 on April 17, 2016. Her son’s statement, reported by ABC News, said she died peacefully in her sleep of natural causes. The Los Angeles Times also reported the family’s description of her death as natural causes.
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A contemporaneous CBS News report carrying Associated Press coverage said the cause was not immediately known at the time it was published. It quoted spokeswoman Janet Daily calling Roberts “healthy and active.” These statements are not necessarily contradictory: the family described the death as natural, while the news report said a specific cause had not yet been identified publicly. Neither account sets out a detailed medical history or a specific medical cause.
Are reports of a specific illness confirmed?
The available reliable accounts cited here do not establish that Roberts had pulmonary hypertension, suffered a stroke, or had Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, or another particular diagnosis. It would be inaccurate to present any of those conditions as her personal health history on this evidence. The spokeswoman’s comment is relevant contemporary context, but it does not prove that Roberts had never experienced health problems.
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- signed memoir of the late Doris Roberts, TV and movie actress
Her Alzheimer’s role was fictional
Some coverage concerned Roberts playing a woman with Alzheimer’s disease in the television movie A Time to Remember. The CBS News article discusses her performance and character; it is not evidence that Roberts herself had Alzheimer’s.
Why Doris Roberts remains closely associated with Everybody Loves Raymond
Roberts played Marie Barone throughout all nine seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond, which ran from 1996 through 2005 and comprised 210 episodes. The Television Academy records four Emmy wins for that role, in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005. Her long career and signature comic performance are well documented; they do not, however, fill in facts about her private medical history.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Roberts spoke publicly about ageism in acting
Roberts also addressed the treatment of older performers. In 2002 testimony to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, published in the hearing record in 2003, she said: “Age discrimination negates the value of wisdom and experience, robs us of our dignity and denies us the chance to continue to grow, to flourish, and to become all that we are capable of being.”
In that testimony, Roberts cited a Screen Actors Guild employment survey as finding three times as many roles for women under 40 as for women 40 and older, and said 42 percent of Americans were older than 40. These are historical figures she attributed to the survey in her testimony, not current employment statistics. The Senate hearing record preserves her statement.
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The Television Academy’s oral-history archive also includes an interview recorded in Los Angeles on April 26, 2005, with indexed segments on her career, Everybody Loves Raymond, and her experience as an older woman in Hollywood. For Roberts’s own written account, the Television Academy notes her 2005 autobiography, Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs and Lasagna.
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