Peter Boyle, dad in "Raymond," dead at 71

Posted:
Dec 13, 2006

Tall actor Peter Boyle, who made grouchiness funny as father Frank Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond, died Tuesday evening at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He was 71.

Boyle had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, publicist Jennifer Plante said. He made New York City his home despite working in Raymond and other Hollywood productions.

Famous for spouting "Holy crap!" as Ray Romano's dad in the series for 10 years, the 6'2" Boyle voiced Muta in the English dub of Hiroyuki Morita's Studio Ghibli anime feature film Neko no ongaeshi(The Cat Returns), released in2002. He also had a guest role as the "Alien Gray Male" in "Roswell," a 2005 episode of Tripping the Rift.

His father, Pete Boyle, was a television pioneer who hosted C'mon to Uncle Pete's (1953) and Fun House (1955-57) on Philadelphia's WPTZ; both children's shows featured cartoons.

Boyle's role ranged from an angry blue-collar worker in Joe to a tap-dancing monster in 1974's Young Frankenstein.

But it was his role in Everybody Loves Raymond that won him the most plaudits. Every year from 1999 to 2005, it earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. The part also got him a 2000 nomination for the American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Male Performer in a TV Series.

In 2003, he shared a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series for Everybody Loves Raymond. Boyle shared nominations in the same category in 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2004-06. Despite all the nominations, Boyle was the only member of the ensemble cast never to win an Emmy for acting in a comedy series.

In 1996, Boyle won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for playing the title role in the X-Files episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose." It also won him a Sci-Fi Universe Magazine Reader's Choice Award for Best Guest Actor in a Genre TV Series.

Other Emmy nominations came in 1977 and 1989: for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama or Comedy Special for the TV-movie Tail Gunner Joe (in the title role of Sen. Joseph McCarthy), and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for playing J.J. Killian in "Fathers and Sins," an episode of Midnight Caller.

Born in October 18, 1925 in Philadelphia, the prematurely balding Boyle was a member of the Christian Brothers religious order who turned to acting.

"It's like losing a spouse," Doris Roberts, who played his wife on Raymond, said in a statement. "I'm going to miss my dear friend, so unlike the character he played on television. He's a brilliant actor, a gentleman, incredibly intelligent, wonderfully well read and a loving friend."

Boyle received wide notice as the hippie-hating (and murderous) bigot in the surprise 1970 hit Joe.

For a while, Boyle was cast as an angry tough guy. He shed the image as Robert Redford's campaign manager in The Candidate (1972) and as the monster in Young Frankenstein. In Mel Brooks' horror spoof, Gene Wilder -- as scientist Frederick Frankenstein -- introduced Boyle, wearing tails and doing a song and dance routine to the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' On the Ritz."

"He's just obnoxious in a nice way, just for laughs," Boyle said of the Frank Barone character in a 2001 interview. "It's a very sweet experience having this (success) happen at a time when you basically go back over your life and see every mistake you ever made."

Boyle met his wife, Rolling Stone magazine reporter Loraine Alterman, on the Young Frankenstein set when she dropped by for a visit. Still in his monster makeup, he asked her for a date. They married in 1977.

He starred in the short-lived 1986 "dramedy" Joe Bash, portraying a lonely beat cop.

His dozens of movies included Taxi Driver (1976), playing cabbie-philosopher Wizard, who counseled the violent Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro).

Other movies included T.R. Baskin, F.I.S.T., Johnny Dangerously, Conspiracy: Trial of the Chicago 8, The Dream Team, Monster's Ball, The Santa Clause, The Santa Clause 2, While You Were Sleeping and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

Boyle went to Roman Catholic schools and spent three years in a monastery before leaving his religious studies, which, he later recalled, was akin to "living in the Middle Ages."

I felt the call for awhile; then I felt the normal pull of the world and the flesh," he explained in 1991.

He headed to New York to study with Uta Hagen. For five years, he took on such jobs as postal worker, waiter, maitre d' and office temp.

Eventually, he was cast in a road company version of The Odd Couple. It reached Chicago, which was where he disembarked to study with the famed Second City improvisational troupe.

Boyle returned to the Big Apple and found roles in TV commercials, off-Broadway plays and, finally, movies.

In 1990, Boyle had a stroke and was unable to speak for six months. Despite a 1999, heart attack on the Raymond set, he soon recovered and returned to the series.

His friend John Lennon was best man at his wedding to his wife Loraine. Peter Boyle and his wife had two daughters, Lucy and Amy.