RIP Peter Boyle

[Hardbopjazz]

Act Peter Boyld just past away.

[Big Al]

Obit

I always remember him as the Don in "Johnny Dangerously," talking about how he wanted his gang to be "da New York Yankees of crime!"

As much as I hated "Everybody Loves Raymond," his character and the chemistry between him & Doris Roberts made for some extremely hilarious moments.

RIP Frankenstein

Edited December 13, 2006 by Big Al

[DukeCity]

Very sad. He was a fantastic actor.

I'm laughing right now, thinking about him and Gene Wilder doing "Puttin' on the Ritz" in Young Frankenstein!

[Aggie87]

RIP Peter.

Young Frankenstein remains his defining moment to me, but he also gave a fine performance as the racist father in Monster's Ball, too.

[Guy Berger]

He was excellent in an XFiles episodes, "Clyde Bruckman's Last Repose".

I'm not a big fan of Everybody Loves Raymond, but maybe I will change my mind once I hit 45.

Guy

[Big Al]

but he also gave a fine performance as the racist father in Monster's Ball, too.

Aha! Finally, a second reason to see that movie!

[Alexander]

Always one of my favorite actors. I never watched "Everybody Loves Raymond" more than once or twice, but when I did, I primarily watched it to see Boyle. "Young Frankenstein" is a fantastic film, one of the funniest ever made. I have it on an ancient VHS copy in the basement. I'll have to watch it in Boyles honor.

I also love the frank discussion that Boyle has with DeNiro in "Taxi Driver" (about girls). He was also great in "The Candidate" with Robert Redford.

One of my favorite Boyle roles was one of the episodes of "The X-Files" in which he plays an insurance salesman who can fortell how people will die. The episode was titled "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose."

[GA Russell]

RIP. I first became aware of him in the movie Joe in 1968. I thought he was perfect for the role.

[Rooster_Ties]

Young Frankenstein - Puttin' on the Ritz

[Aggie87]

Read an interesting comment over on the Hoffman board that I either didn't know or had long forgotten - the best man at Boyle's wedding was none other than John Lennon!

[Stereojack]

Boyle had a recurring role over several episodes in the second season of "NYPD Blue", as a troubled father of a mentally disturbed young man. A very moving and memorable performance.

[Dan Gould]

Interesting to learn of some of his other roles. I never watched "Raymond" and was mostly only aware of Young Frankenstein and Monster's Ball which indeed was an excellent performance.

RIP

[Jazzmoose]

Damn...sounds like they need to retitle that show.

[marcello]

He may have been a jazz fan.

I was the Vanguard once while Dexter Gordon was there and he had the next table.

[flat5]

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070077/

was one of my favorite Peter Boyle movies.

I read the book first, in about 1973. Both are good.

[danasgoodstuff]

I suspect he was a jazz fan, see previous thread I started on the Ben Webster episode of Raymond...

[BERIGAN]

Rest in peace Peter. I remember him being in Hardcore(With George C. Scott) playing a pretty good creep.

Since a few didn't click on the link, the Lennon friendship was mentioned, as well as a few other interesting facts.....excepts.....

“He came in all hot and angry,” recalled the show’s creator, Phil Rosenthal, “and I hired him because I was afraid of him.” But Rosenthal also noted: “I knew right away that he had a comic presence.”

.....

Boyle had first come to the public’s attention more than a quarter century before, in the critically acclaimed “Joe.” He met his wife, Loraine Alterman, on the set of “Young Frankenstein” when she visited as a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine and Boyle, still in monster makeup, asked her for a date.

......

Through his wife, a friend of Yoko Ono, the actor became close friends with John Lennon. “We were both seekers after a truth, looking for a quick way to enlightenment,” Boyle once said of Lennon, who was best man at his wedding.

In 1990, Boyle had a stroke and couldn’t talk for six months. In 1999, he had a heart attack on the “Raymond” set. He soon regained his health, however, and returned to the series.

and about that last thing, the stroke. I could have sworn he died after it, so imagine my surprise when he started to show up in films and TV again!!!

Edited December 14, 2006 by BERIGAN

[Free For All]

Besides the "Puttin' On The Ritz" scene in Young Frankenstein I also loved the scene with Gene Hackman as the blind man.

RIP

[BruceH]

Very sad. He was a fantastic actor.

I'm laughing right now, thinking about him and Gene Wilder doing "Puttin' on the Ritz" in Young Frankenstein!

They played that entire bit on Fresh Air yesterday. Never fails to crack me up. He was great in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, too. RIP

[Chalupa]

Wow. I had no idea he was from Philly! I think he must have lived very near to Chris A. when Chris was living in Philly. I wonder if their paths ever crossed.....

Posted on Thu, Dec. 14, 2006

Actor Peter Boyle, 71; roles belied his true personality

By Gayle Ronan Sims

Inquirer Staff Writer

Before Peter Boyle began an acting career that included his portrayal of the crotchety and profane father in the television hit Everybody Loves Raymond, he played football for West Catholic High, studied to be a monk, and substituted as a teacher in Philadelphia-area schools. The 71-year-old actor died Tuesday of multiple myeloma and heart disease at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Mr. Boyle's character, Frank Barone, in Raymond, which ran from 1996 until 2005, was that of an angry, suburban, blue-collar guy - which could not have been further from his sensitive, artistic temperament in real life.

"He's nothing like Frank Barone, and that makes his performance even more impressive," the sitcom's creator, Phil Rosenthal, said in 2004. "He's hilarious. For a lot of people, he's their favorite character because there's no filter on what he says."

The show's star, Ray Romano, told the Associated Press that he considered Mr. Boyle a mentor.

"The way he connected with everyone around him amazed me," Romano said. "The fact that he could play a convincing curmudgeon on the show, but in reality be such a compassionate and thoughtful person, is a true testament to his talent."

Although his days in a Maryland monastery would not portend a career as one of America's favorite TV dads - Frank Barone's favorite expression, after all, was "Holy crap" - Mr. Boyle's efforts on the long-running comedy gained acclaim. He was nominated for an Emmy seven times, but never won.

He gained notice in the title role in the 1970 movie Joe, playing a barroom bigot who was angry with the hippie culture. Mr. Boyle found the role - a precursor to Archie Bunker - uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, the role opened doors for him as an actor, and he played a series of tough guys until another break, in 1974. That was the year he played the monster in Mel Brooks' classic horror-film send-up, Young Frankenstein.

He played the role for laughs, most memorably in the song-and-dance routine "Puttin' on the Ritz" with Gene Wilder. The monster wore a tux.

"Pete loved making Frankenstein," said lifelong friend Gerry Molyneaux, a film teacher at La Salle University. "He would go to the set to hang around the actors on his days off."

Young Frankenstein, Mr. Boyle said, was the highlight of his career.

Mr. Boyle met his future wife, Loraine Alterman, who was a reporter for Rolling Stone, on the set of Frankenstein. He and Alterman had become friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. So, when the couple married in Manhattan in 1977, Mr. Boyle asked Lennon to be his best man. The couple raised two daughters in Manhattan.

In West Philadelphia, where he was born, his life was ordinary, even if his father was a local celebrity.

Mr. Boyle grew up in a stone twin near 50th Street and Baltimore Avenue. He was the youngest of three children of a homemaker mother, Alice, and an artist and television personality father, Francis X. "Pete" Boyle. His father starred in the early 1950s on WPTZ (Channel 3) kiddie shows Lunch With Uncle Pete and Chuckwagon Pete. He drew cartoons on the air and introduced a generation of Philadelphians to the Little Rascals on Fun House.

Mr. Boyle described his childhood in Philadelphia in a 2004 Inquirer article as "very mellow, lots of trees, lots of backyard. I would walk to school at St. Francis de Sales."

At West Catholic High School, Mr. Boyle "played football, acted in school plays, and cracked us up by drawing caricatures of the teachers and then passing them around the class," said his friend Molyneaux. "He was very bright and creative and could imitate anyone."

After graduating in 1953, Mr. Boyle joined an order of Christian Brothers and studied at Ammendale Normal Institute, a monastery in Beltsville, Md., considered a boot camp for would-be monks.

"Pete was a deep, reflective, spiritual guy," Molyneaux said. "Ammendale was hard core. The rules were strict. He prayed all day and could not speak. I think the place really troubled him. He left after a year."

He left Ammendale to study English at La Salle College. He was still a Christian Brother and continued to wear his habit. He graduated with honors in 1957 with a bachelor's degree in English.

After graduating, Mr. Boyle left the Christian Brothers, worked briefly as a substitute teacher, and then moved to New York to become an actor.

"I left the monastery and joined the circus," he told The Inquirer in 2004.

For the next five years he worked odd jobs, went to acting classes, and lived in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York.

He briefly joined the Second City improv troupe in Chicago before returning to New York, where he made television commercials to pay the bills while waiting for his big break.

The bulk of his work came after Joe.

His roles in films and television tended to be masculine, rough, aggressive - most notably, the racist prison guard in Monster's Ball in 2001.

On television, he demonstrated his singing voice in 1975 while hosting Saturday Night Live. He starred in Joe Bash, a 1986 show in which he portrayed a lonely cop. He won an Emmy in 1996 for his role in an episode of The X Files.

He made dozens of films, including Johnny Dangerously; Conspiracy: Trial of the Chicago 8; Dream Team; The Santa Clause; While You Were Sleeping; and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

His most recent work was as Father Time in the Tim Allen comedy The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

Mr. Boyle, who lived in Manhattan, survived a stroke in 1990 and bounced back from a heart attack he suffered on the Raymond set in 1999. He continued the part until the series ended in 2005.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Boyle is survived by daughters Amy and Lucy.

Services have not yet been announced.