Newspaperman Bill Boyle, 54

EVEN IN HIS HOSPITAL bed after surgery, Bill Boyle was still working for the

New York Daily News.

"He was editing copy on his BlackBerry," said his brother, Samuel Boyle IV, longtime Associated Press bureau chief in New York. "That was just a little over a week ago."

Bill died Saturday, a year after he was diagnosed with stage-three melanoma. He was 54 and lived in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

A native Philadelphian, Bill was suburban editor and assistant city editor of the Philadelphia Daily News in the early '80s before going to the New York paper in 1986.

He was senior managing editor with a reputation for quiet efficiency and managerial skills that were credited with helping the tabloid improve its coverage of New York.

He guided the paper's coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack and its aftermath.

Bill came from a newspapering family. His late father, Samuel J. Boyle III, was a legendary city editor for the old Philadelphia Bulletin. He died in 1985.

Bill's brother, Sam, now teaches journalism at Columbia University. His uncle, Robert J. Boyle, was an innovative editor of the Pottstown Mercury in the '60s and '70s and was associated with other newspapers before his death in 1990.

F. Gilman Spencer, former editor of both the Daily News and the New York Daily News, who hired Bill twice, said he was the "quintessential newspaperman."

"He was excellent as a reporter, excellent as an editor," Gil said. "He was terrific with copy, very smart with copy. The reporters loved him. He was also a good human being."

Bill might have been a perfect example of the old-time chain-smoking, black coffee-guzzling newspaper editor, but he never raised his voice and did not enjoy idle banter.

"He didn't waste a lot of time talking," his brother said. "He did not indulge in meaningless conversation."

Isabel Spencer, Gil's wife, who was city editor of the Wilmington News-Journal, where Bill worked before the Daily News, tells a story about Bill's taciturnity.

"One day I called our Dover bureau, which Bill ran, and got a staff member who was whispering," she said. "I said, 'What's going on?' The staffer said, 'We're being quiet to see if Bill ever speaks.'

"How long have you been doing this?" Isabel asked. " 'About 45 minutes,' he said."

When Gil moved to New York to take over the New York Daily News in 1984, Bill said to him, "I'm going with you." And a couple of years later, he did.

Gar Joseph, Daily News city editor, worked with Bill both in Wilmington and in Philadelphia.

"Bill was a superb editor," Gar said. "He was a very even-tempered, calm presence in the news room, which is a rare commodity."

David Lee Preston, a Daily News copy editor, also worked with Bill in Wilmington and remained good friends with him afterward.

"Bill smoked like a chimney as long as I can remember, which caused him to find the nature of his illness ironic," David said.

He said Bill sent him this e-mail in February: "I beat myself up all my life, find a love of fishing and get sun cancer. Go figure."

Sam Boyle said his brother had a love of language, of literature and music. "He was widely read, on all sorts of subjects. He loved Irish history and fishing. He would go deep-sea fishing in Florida and the Bahamas."

Bill and his son, Timothy, also made frequent trips to Ireland.

"He fished the trout streams in Ireland," Sam said. "He loved being on the water."

Bill was born to Samuel and Margaret Boyle and grew up in the Paoli area. He attended St. Norbert's Parochial School there, and graduated from Conestoga High School and Boston University.

His first newspaper was the Intelligencer in Doylestown, Bucks County, where he worked before going to Wilmington.

Following his surgery, he was editing Mike Lupica's column from his hospital bed.

"He had one job from the day he walked through the door of the Daily News," Lupica said. "That was to make the paper smart."

Daily News chairman and publisher Morton Zuckerman said, "You could always rely on Bill for honest appraisal of how the paper was performing. He devoted himself to improving our coverage of New York and the world beyond. He will be sorely missed."

Besides his brother, son and mother, Bill is survived by his wife, the former Gail Scandora, whom he married in 1977, and a sister, Teresa.

Services: Mass of Christian Burial 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Vito's Catholic Church, Mamaroneck. Friends may call at 6 p.m. today at the Coxe-Gaziano Funeral Home in Mamaroneck. *