Peter Boyle Has Died

Peter Boyle, probably most famous as Young Frankenstein's Monster, has died aged 71. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease.

Lately, Boyle was most often and widely seen in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and while, in fact, I didn't love Raymond at all, Peter Boyle was certainly somebody I found very, very funny when he was lucky enough to get good material.

At the beginnings of his career, Boyle essayed a number of hard, often unsympathetic characters and, yes, he was quite quickly typecast as, at best, a curmudgeon, or worst, a cantankerous bigot. I prefer the innocent monster, cemented in Young Frankenstein, which became the flip-side of the stereotyping that clogged much of Boyle's oeuvre. You can see him in cinemas now, in the third The Santa Clause film, but to be honest, you don't have to look for long to find a more fitting tribute. Myself, I'd opt for Joe.