Doris Roberts was much more than simply an actor; She was also an advocate for older people everywhere.

In the late 1990s, Roberts became a television mainstay as Marie Barone of the hit comedy Everybody Loves Raymond. The role was originally based on the actual mother of series creator Phil Rosenthal. Though Marie was eccentric at times, her personality was always based in reality.

However, Roberts felt that her character was an anomaly for seniors seen on television.

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“The roles for women my age frequently show seniors in insulting and degrading ways,” the actor wrote in her memoir, Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs, and Lasagna. “They’re cartoons of the elderly. There is a coalition to protect the way every other group is depicted in the media, but no one protects the image of the elderly.”

For Roberts, this issue didn’t just impact one series or a network; it was an industry-wide issue.

“Hollywood clearly is clueless when it comes to understanding today’s seniors,” wrote the actor. “It’s blind to the advances in medicine and self-care and the increases in personal income, which have made us a force to be reckoned with and a market to be exploited. Twenty years ago, it was accurate to show a senior coming in for his check-up dragging his oxygen tank. Today he would be dragging his golf clubs.”

Roberts was quick to remind young people everywhere that you’re only as old as you feel inside.

“Yes, there is energy, excitement, and enthusiasm in the young, but there isn’t any less of it in those in their senior years,” wrote Roberts. “It is a small comfort to know that those who have perpetrated ageism will someday face it themselves. Nobody feels old until he or she is treated that way.”