Who is Frank Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond?

Show

Everybody Loves Raymond

Played by

Peter Boyle

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired September 13, 1996

Role

Main cast

Network

CBS

Occupation

Retired bookkeeper and Korean War veteran

Show run

1996 to 2005

Also known as

Francis Barone, Francis Oscar Barone

Frank Barone is the cranky patriarch who treats his son's house as his own and never met an insult he would not say out loud. Peter Boyle plays him with gravelly gusto, and his "Holy crap!" became one of the show's signature lines.

On Everybody Loves Raymond, Frank Barone's story runs through Marie Barone (Wife), Ray Barone (Son), Robert Barone (Son), and Debra Barone (Daughter-in-law).

Other CBS sitcom characters from around the same time include Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother) and Lily Aldrin (How I Met Your Mother).

Who is Frank Barone?

Frank is Marie's husband and the father of Robert and Ray. He is a retired bookkeeper and a veteran who fought in the Korean War, a fact he brings up whenever he wants to prove that the younger generation has gone soft. He lives across the street from Ray and spends a remarkable amount of time in Ray's living room, eating Ray's food and watching Ray's television.

His home away from home is the lodge, a fraternal club where he and his elderly friends hang out, including long soaks in the pool. He is a handy fixer of things, a Civil War buff, and, by his own account, a man who has no interest in anyone's feelings, least of all his own.

Personality and comedy

Frank's comedy comes from saying exactly what everyone else is too polite to say. He mocks his sons for letting their wives and their mother push them around, trades barbs with Marie at every meal, and has a gift for blunt, perfectly timed one-liners. He also famously sits in Ray's armchair with his pants unbuttoned.

The writers keep hinting that the tough guy is partly an act. Frank adores Debra, whom he treats like a daughter and often defends against Marie, and every so often he lets a moment of real tenderness slip out before covering it with another insult. He was a distant father, but he never raised a hand to his boys, a choice the show ties to the beatings he took from his own father and grandfather.

Key storylines

Early on, Frank gets a humor story printed in Reader's Digest and decides he is a writer, leaving Ray to choose between his editor and his father's pride. At Christmas, Ray learns that the Mickey Mantle baseball Frank gave him as a boy was signed by Frank himself, and Frank eventually explains why he did it.

Other episodes chip away at his armor. When the lodge names him Man of the Year, Ray and Robert discover his friends had nothing nice to say on camera. In "Anniversary" the family learns that Frank and Marie once separated for a year. In "Frank Paints the House" his bossy home improvement project turns out to hide the hurt of being let go from his last job.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Peter Boyle came to Raymond with a long film career, including the title role in Joe and the monster in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein. In 1999 he had a heart attack on the set, and Frank is missing from a few season three episodes while Boyle recovered before returning to the show.

Boyle was nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series seven times for Frank, though he never won for the role. He died in December 2006, the year after the series ended, and Frank remains one of the most quoted sitcom dads of the era.

Frank Barone: frequently asked questions

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