Birth information18 October 1935, Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA BioA bold, blunt instrument of hatred and violence at the onset of his film career, Peter Boyle recoiled from that repugnant, politically incorrect "working class" image to eventually play gruff, gentler bears and even comedy monsters in a career that lasted four decades. He was born on October 18, 1935, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, but eventually moved to Philadelphia where his father, Peter Sr., was a sought-after local TV personality and children's show host. Following a solid Irish-Catholic upbringing (he attended a Catholic high school), Peter was a sensitive youth and joined the Christian Brothers religious order at one point while attending La Salle University in Philadelphia. He left the monastery after only a few years when he "lost" his calling.Bent on an acting career, Boyle initially studied with guru Uta Hagen in New York. The tall (6'2"), hulking, prematurely bald actor wannabe struggled through a variety of odd jobs (postal worker, waiter, bouncer) while simultaneously building up his credits on stage and waiting for that first big break. Things started progressing for him after appearing in the national company of "The Odd Couple" in 1965 and landing TV commercials on the sly. In the late 60s he joined Chicago's Second City improv group and made his Broadway debut as a replacement for Peter Bonerz in Paul Sills' "Story Theatre" (1971) (Sills was the founder of Second City). Peter's breakout film role did not come without controversy as the hateful, hardhat-donning bigot-turned-murderer Joe (1970) in a tense, violence-prone film directed by John G. Avildsen. The role led to major notoriety, however, and some daunting supporting parts in T.R. Baskin (1971), Slither (1973) and as Robert Redford's calculating campaign manager in The Candidate (1972). During this time his political radicalism found a visible platform after joining Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland on anti-war crusades, which would include the anti-establishment picture Steelyard Blues (1973). This period also saw the forging of a strong friendship with Beatle John Lennon.Destined to be cast as monstrous undesirables throughout much of his career, he played a monster of another sort in his early film days, and thus avoided a complete stereotype as a film abhorrent. His hilarious, sexually potent Frankenstein's Monster in the cult Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) saw him in a sympathetic and certainly more humorous vein. His creature's first public viewing, in which Boyle shares an adroit tap-dancing scene with "creator" Gene Wilder in full Fred Astaire regalia, was a show-stopping audience pleaser. Late 70s filmgoers continued to witness Boyle in seamy, urban settings with brutish roles in Taxi Driver (1976) and Hardcore (1979). At the same time he addressed several TV mini-movie roles with the same brilliant darkness such as his Senator Joe McCarthy in Tail Gunner Joe (1977) (TV), for which he received an Emmy nomination, and his murderous, knife-wielding Fatso in the miniseries remake of "From Here to Eternity" (1979).While the following decade found Peter in predominantly less noteworthy filming and a short-lived TV series lead as remote cop "Joe Bash" (1986), the 90s brought him Emmy glory (for a guest episode on "X Files"). Despite a blood clot-induced stroke in 1990 that impaired his speech for six months, he ventured on and capped his enviable career on TV wielding funny but crass one-liners in the Archie Bunker mold on the long-running sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" (1996). A major Emmy blunder had Boyle earning seven nominations for his Frank Barrone character without a win, the only prime player on the show unhonored. He survived a heart attack while on the set of "Everybody Loves Raymond" in 1999, but managed to return full time until its cancellation in 2005.Following a superb turn as Billy Bob Thornton's unrepentantly racist father in the sobering Oscar-winner Monster's Ball (2001), the remainder of his films were primarily situated in frivolous comedy fare such as The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), The Santa Clause 2 (2002), Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), typically playing cranky curmudgeons. Boyle died of multiple myeloma (bone-marrow cancer) and heart disease at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2006, and was survived by his wife Lorraine and two children. He was 71.

Asking me to choose my favorite scene from Young Frankenstein is like asking a parent to pick their favorite child -- it can't be done. Instead, I chose to share one of the many scenes that can reduce me to giggles in five seconds flat. When I first saw Mel Brooks' and Gene Wilder's masterpiece, I might have only been a kid with a limited knowledge of dirty jokes and references to classic Hollywood, but I was in love. Thanks to this classic, Wilder, Madeleine Kahn, Peter Boyle, and Marty Feldman have become some of my most lasting examples of comic genius.
It has been 35 years since Young Frankenstein first hit theaters, but I still can't think of a movie that makes me laugh louder and harder every time I see it.
Young Frankenstein Fun Facts (via IMDb)
When the film was released, Aerosmith was hard at work on their album,
Jessica Barnes

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The critical work on the American New Wave, it seems, has only just begun -- Robert Altman still gets a free skate (who thinks "M*A*S*H" is worthwhile anymore?), Hal Ashby has been sanctified, but Alan J. Pakula has not, and Robert Aldrich's contributions to the decade are forgotten, while the proper canonization of the films of Monte Hellman and Barbara Loden's "Wanda" is paperwork still waiting to be filed, and the few fascinating films Peter Fonda directed are still cinema non grata. The era's propensity for desperate road travel, dusty realism and pitiless narrative makes it the match for the meaning of film noir, but as yet it seems more critical and academic thought has been devoted, generally, to "Blade Runner" and "E.T.", to the least of Hitchcock's films and to the oeuvre of David Fincher. There's still so much that's left out of the discussion -- for example,
Michael Atkinson

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Cloris Leachman's memoir is hitting bookstores on April 7, and Frau Blücher of the film "Young Frankenstein" fame is not holding back the juicy details. In fact, it was a costar of that same film, Gene Hackman, (who played a blindman offering Peter Boyle's character some soup) who Ms. Leachman claims to have had "epic" sex with back in the seventies. The New York Post reprinted a small excerpt where the star recounts her torrid tryst in the book titled "Cloris": Cloris ran into Gene Hackman while both were shooting movies in San Francisco in the 1970s and dined with him at their hotel. "As we moved into the main course, it was as if a cosmic wind enveloped us.
April MacIntyre

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