Everybody loves Peter.
During CBS’s “Everybody Loves Raymond” 30th anniversary special, Ray Romano revealed that he was “intimidated” by the late Peter Boyle during their first meeting.
“He was an imposing figure,” Romano, 67, recalled in the special, which airs Monday, Nov. 24 (8 p.m. on CBS and streaming on Paramount+).
Boyle played Romano’s father, Frank Barone, on “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
The sitcom aired on CBS from 1996 to 2005, following the antics of Ray Barone (Romano) and his family.
Boyle died at age 71 in 2006, after battling multiple myeloma and heart disease.
“I didn’t know then how sweet he really was,” Romano said.
Before they exchanged words, Romano said that Boyle stopped him, and, “He could tell I was nervous. He goes ‘it’s just like water, just let it flow.’ And then he leaves.”
The comedian said that at the time, he wondered “What does that mean?” about Boyle’s advice.
But, he added, “Just the gesture of him reaching out to me was everything.”
The “Everybody Loves Raymond” special saw Romano reunite onstage with series creator Philip Rosenthal and fellow cast members including Patricia Heaton, who played Ray’s wife Debra, and Brad Garrett, 65, who played his brother, Robert, and siblings Madylin and Sullivan Sweeten, who played Ray and Debra’s kids. (Their brother Sawyer, who played the third child, died by suicide at 19 in 2015).
Romano also revealed the amusing remark he made to Garrett, who stands at a towering 6’8.
Boyle famously played Frankenstein’s monster opposite Gene Wilder in the 1974 Mel Brooks movie “Young Frankenstein.”
Garrett recalled that everyone was “excited” when Boyle was cast, and that Romano quipped to him, “It’s so fitting that the guy playing your dad was ‘Young Frankenstein.’”
Doris Roberts, who played Ray’s mom Marie Barone, also died in 2016, at age 90.
Heaton recalled, “Doris could drink everyone under the table.”
The cast said that Boyle was “the opposite” of his character, Frank, and that he was “a renaissance man.”
Rosenthal revealed “two things about Boyle that you may not know.”
The first is that he had previously studied to be a monk.
“I asked what made you give it up, he said ‘there weren’t enough girls there,’” Rosenthal said.
As the other tidbit about Boyle, he said, “the best man at his wedding was John Lennon, how about that.”
“Everybody Loves Raymond: 30th Anniversary Reunion” airs Monday, Nov. 24 on CBS at 8 p.m and streams on Paramount+.
