BOSTON -- The economic grim reaper seems to spare few these days, not even the longtime bartender at Boston's fabled Cheers pub, the inspiration for the long-running television show of the 1980s.

Eddie Doyle, who tended bar for nearly 35 years -- or almost half his life -- at Cheers, is now among the newly unemployed. A few weeks ago he was told by his boss, Tom Kershaw, that the recession had hit their industry hard and he was losing his job.

"I'm a casualty of the economic situation that we're in," Doyle told the Boston Globe.

"Business is way off," Kershaw said. "It was very tough. Personally, for me, it was a disaster. Eddie and I have been friends for 40 years."

Kershaw said he would continue to pay Doyle through the rest of the year.

Doyle left his job as a graphic artist to become a bartender at Cheers in 1974. At the time, its only claim was being known as the best dart bar in the city.

After "Cheers" premiered on NBC in 1982, Doyle told the Globe that he went from barely being able to pay his rent to serving 5,000 people a day. "Some expected to see Ted Danson behind the bar," said Doyle, referring to the actor who played the Cheers bartender on the program.

Tourists who flooded the bar would ask for his autograph and wanted to know everything about the TV show.

"Eddie is the heart and soul of this entire building," said bartender Christine Kelly, who worked alongside Doyle for 16 years.

Doyle said he plans to spend more time with his wife Marcia, whom he met at the bar, and perhaps write a book about his life.

"I'll still be around. I'm not dead," he said.