Peter Lawrence Boyle

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17010501/peter-boyle?_gl=1*1d2e.....

Actor. He is best remembered as the 'Monster' in the film, "Young Frankenstein" (1974). Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, his father was a local Philadelphia television personality who hosted a children's show on the local station from 1951 to 1963. Brought up on a solid Irish Catholic background, young Peter attended West Philadelphia Catholic High School, and joined the Christian Brothers religious order while attending La Salle University in Philadelphia, only to leave the order a few years later as he felt he was not to make a religious life. After graduating from La Salle University in 1957, he decided to pursue an acting career. In 1959, he joined the Navy and took Officer Candidate School, becoming an Ensign; but shortly after his commissioning, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was discharged from the Navy. Like most beginning young actors, he struggled to make ends meet, and worked a number of odd jobs to earn money including waiter and bar bouncer, made all the more difficult by losing his hair and becoming bald by age 24. In 1965, he appeared in the stage version of "The Odd Couple" and did television commercials on the side. By 1969, he got a role on the Broadway play "Story Theater," and got his first movie breakthrough role (his fifth movie) when he played a hateful, bigoted hard-hat worker turn murderer in the film "Joe" (1970). When observing an audience cheering his violence in "Joe" he decided to forego future roles that glorified violence, and began looking for different roles. During this period he also became active in leftist politics and joined fellow actors Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland on anti-Vietnam war crusades. In 1974, he got his most remembered role, that of the monster in Mel Brooks cult classic movie, "Young Frankenstein," a role that showed off his comic side. He met his wife, Loraine Alterman, a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, while dressed as the Frankenstein monster on the set of "Young Frankenstein." Through her friendship with fellow reporter Yoko Ono, he met and became friends with John Lennon; Lennon would be his best man at Boyle's wedding to Loraine in October 1977. The two would have two children, Lucy and Amy. In 1977, he played the lead role of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the television movie "Tail Gunner Joe." He would then go on to play a number of smaller supporting roles in various movies, of which his role of father to actor Billy Bob Thornton in "Monster's Ball" (2001) got him critical notice. In one of his favorite roles, he got to portray his father, Peter Boyle Sr, in his real life job as a Philadelphia television personality, in the movie "The In-Crowd" (1988). He played the role of crusty, poker faced Frank Barone on the television sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" for seven years, from 1996 to 2005, for which he was nominated seven times for an Emmy, but was the only regular actor on "Raymond" not to receive an Emmy. In 1996, Boyle did win a guest actor Emmy for his role on an "X-Files" show, playing Clyde Bruckman in the episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose." Boyle also acted in all three of "The Santa Clause" movies, playing Scott Calvin's boss in the first movie and Father Time in the second and third movies. His last film was "All Roads Lead Home" (2008). He suffered a heart attack while on the set of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

Bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson

PETER BOYLE
1935 - 2006
The kindest and the best of men