Holy Crap!

Frank Barone died! He was only 71. My heartfelt condolences go out to Marie, Ray, Robert, Debra, Amy and the rest of the Barone family. I hope they’re doing OK.

I didn’t know Frank, but I sure felt like I did. It often seemed like he could have been my slightly off-center uncle from what is often referred to as “the other side of the family”.

Frank Barone, of course, is Peter Doyle, the instantly recognized character actor who played Frank on the long-running sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond. When I learned yesterday that Doyle had died, it momentarily felt like a personal loss. Not that it felt like a deep loss; just that it felt real, like I’d lost someone with whom I’d spent quite a bit of time. It was as though he’d been my neighbor for nine years, albeit a few doors down.

That feeling points out how TV can work its way into the fabric of our lives, for good or for bad. We really think we “know” the characters we watch week after week, or day after day in syndicated reruns. We get connected by sharing living rooms with each other – Frank has been in mine as often as I’ve been in his. Actors who play these roles consistently talk about people approaching them in public and calling them by their character’s name, often not having a clue about their real name. Peter Doyle was Frank Barone as much as Frank Barone was Peter Doyle.

If you haven’t seen Doyle play Frankenstein in Mel Brooks’ classic movie, Young Frankenstein, then you should head to Blockbuster or add it to your Netflix queue ASAP. Those who didn’t know Doyle before that movie, never forget him after seeing it.

So, another virtual friend passes on. The neighborhood just won’t feel the same.

I wonder if Marie will remarry.