The various 'Joes' of Peter Boyle

I guess younger people can be excused for only seeing actor Peter Boyle as the curmudgeonly father on the sometimes mildly amusing Everybody Loves Raymond, but those who are a little older will recall that this guy was a consummate character actor whose roles (for me at least, not to mention a few critics) remain riveted in the mind.

Consequently, I was saddened last week to learn that he had died. Died at a relatively early age. Truth be known, he had been dying for years from both a severe heart condition and myeloma, but it still came as a shock.

For those whose viewing goes beyond the realm of television, Boyle is no doubt best known for playing the ultimately loveable monster (shown right) in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. Ultimately decked out in topper and evening dress the monster dances with Madeleine Kahn and hoofs with Gene Wilder’s Dr. Frankenstein (“That’s Fronkenschteen!”) to Puttin’ on the Ritz. For that flick Boyle’s scene with unbilled Gene Hackman is worth the price of admission.

Former seminarian Boyle first gained audience attention with a 1970 film called Joe, in which he played a blue-collar reactionary father of a young girl. He was a guy so bigoted he made Archie Bunker look like a Gore liberal. Redneck doesn’t begin to describe a man whose hatred of blacks, hippies, and anything else that smacked of a challenge to his lockset view of what should be that he ultimately turns to crazed homicide. That the film was clichéd and over-the-top in its left-wing inspired sensibilities goes without saying, but Boyle’s performance caught the attention of critics, and so it should have.

The Boyle role that really caught my attention was a 1977 TV movie called Tailgunner Joe, which was a bio-pic study of the notorious 1950s red-baiting senator, Joe McCarthy. Boyle brilliantly captured the droning monotone of this ruthless and ultimately pathetic man who destroyed so many lives during his brief reign of DC terror. You think there are reactionaries in Congress today? You should have seen McCarthy in his glory days. If you remember McCarthy, you know what I mean. Boyle remembered the man who destroyed so many lives in his chosen calling and he reveled in the role.

With his prematurely bald pate and his pedestrian looks, Boyle never offered a leading man persona, but the power of his personality in those works mentioned, and notable others like Taxi Driver, tended to dominate whatever he was in. If you get the chance, check it out and see what he was capable of well beyond the meanderings of Raymond. There you will see the sort of ‘presence’ that can be found in Spencer Tracy, Bogart, Nicholson, Nolte, Duval and DiNiro, and not many others. And, if you must, watch Raymond and see how Boyle’s character dominated that series.