Peter Boyle of Everybody Loves Raymond dies

Peter Boyle, who played the sardonic father on the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, died Tuesday at New York Presbyterian Hospital, his publicist Jennifer Plante said.

Boyle was 71. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, Plante said.

He played Frank Barone, the overbearing father of sportswriter Ray Barone, played by Ray Romano, in the series that ran from 1996 to 2005.

"He's just obnoxious in a nice way, just for laughs," he said of the character in a 2001 interview.

"It's a very sweet experience having this happen at a time when you basically go back over your life and see every mistake you ever made."

The veteran screen and television actor had starred in the 1976 film Taxi Driver and 1989's The Dream Team and had roles in series such as NYPD Blue and The X Files.

He won an Emmy in 1996 for a role on The X Files in the episode called "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," but was the only cast member of Everybody Loves Raymond not to take home an Emmy, despite multiple nominations.

He also had a memorable turn as the monster in 1974's Young Frankenstein, doing soft-shoe alongside Gene Wilder to the tune of Puttin' on the Ritz.

Born Oct. 18, 1935, in Philadelphia, Boyle served in the United States army, but his military career was shortened by a nervous breakdown.

He trained as a monk in the Christian Brothers order and taught drama before turning toacting himself.

He was briefly part of The Second City Chicago ensemble, and he studied acting with acting coach Uta Hagen.

An early breakout role for Boyle was in the 1970 film Joe, in which he played a factory worker who hates hippies and anyone "different."

After seeing audiences cheer this bigoted role, he turned down the lead in The French Connection and other films that he believed glorified violence.

Friends with John and Yoko

During this period, Boyle became friends with Jane Fonda and protested the Vietnam War.

He also met his wife, Loraine Alterman, a reporter for Rolling Stone when she came onto the set of Young Frankenstein. He asked her for a date while still in his monster makeup.

Alterman was friends with Yoko Ono and Boyle became close to John Lennon during the periodLennon and Ono lived in New York. Lennon was best man at his wedding.

Boylestarred opposite Bill Murray in John Kaye's film Where the Buffalo Roam about the semi-fictionalized life of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

Boyle played a series of hard-bitten, angry types for both big and small screen.

He was a tough police officer in Malcolm X and starred opposite Sean Connery as a corrupt mining facility boss in Outland.

In Monster's Ball, he plays the unfeeling father to the prison guard character played by Billy Bob Thornton.

But the role of the hulking, lab-created monster in Mel Brooks's horror film parody Young Frankenstein opened the possibility of more comedic roles.

That was the vein he mined inroles in films such as Dr. Doolittle and the Santa Clause 2 and 3 andin Everybody Loves Raymond.

"He came in all hot and angry," recalled the hitshow's creator, Phil Rosenthal, "and I hired him because I was afraid of him."

But Rosenthal also noted: "I knew right away that he had a comic presence."

In 1990, Boyle suffered a stroke and couldn't talk for six months. In 1999, he had a heart attack on the set ofEverybody Loves Raymond, but he recovered to continue in the series.

He is survived by his wife Loraine and two daughters, Lucy and Amy.