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An International Online Journal of the Arts, Language, Entertainment, Culture and Pseudo-intellectuality


Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Holy Crap!


It is a sad day when we receive the latest news that actor Peter Boyle has joined toothless George Washington. At age 71 Mr. Boyle passed away today in NYC Presbyterian Hospital from Multiple Myeloma and heart disease.
While a generation of TV viewers knows him as Frank Barone - with his trademark "Holy crap!" line - Boyle had a respectable career long before "Everybody Loves Raymond" debuted in 1996, including a part in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." He also was close friends with John Lennon, who was best man at Boyle's wedding.
A member of the Christian Brothers religious order based at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, Boyle turned to acting, the tall, prematurely balding Boyle gained notice in the title role of the 1970 sleeper hit "Joe," playing an angry, murderous bigot at odds with the emerging hippie youth culture.
Briefly typecast in tough, irate roles, Boyle began to escape the image as Robert Redford's campaign manager in "The Candidate" and left it behind entirely after "Young Frankenstein," Brooks' 1974 send-up of horror films.
The latter movie's defining moment came when Gene Wilder, as scientist Frederick Frankenstein, introduced his creation to an upscale audience. Boyle, decked out in tails, performed a song-and-dance routine to the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' On the Ritz."