John Mahoney obituary
Actor who starred as Martin Crane, the cantankerous father in the hit US sitcom Frasier
Kelsey Grammer had star billing in the TV series Frasier, which took a character from another hit American sitcom, Cheers, the pretentious psychiatrist Frasier Crane, home to Seattle. There the actor John Mahoney, as Frasier’s cantankerous but charming father, Martin Crane, injected a crucial contrasting dimension into a programme lauded for its witty dialogue.
Mahoney, who has died of complications from throat cancer aged 77, said: “Martin was a great character. I loved him – and so did everybody else. People liked the fact he constantly punctured his two pompous, silly sons.”
Dr Frasier Crane’s plans for a carefree bachelor life on becoming host of a radio phone-in show were thwarted when he had to look after Marty, a widowed policeman forced to retire after being shot during a convenience store robbery. With him came a Jack Russell terrier, Eddie, and a ghastly recliner chair he insisted on installing in his son’s plush designer flat.
Also in the mix was David Hyde Pierce as Frasier’s neurotic brother and a fellow psychiatrist Niles, who pursued Martin’s English carer, Daphne (Jane Leeves), and eventually married her.
Frasier was one of the most popular spin-off sitcoms in television history, screened worldwide and winning 37 Emmy awards during its 11-year run (1993-2004). Mahoney appeared in all 263 episodes.
He was born Charles Mahoney in Blackpool, Lancashire, the seventh of eight children, to Reg, a baker, and Margaret (nee Watson). His pregnant mother had been evacuated there from the family home in Manchester during the first year of the second world war. They returned to Withington when Charles (who later changed his name to John) was three months old and he went to schools there and in Ardwick Green. His ambition to act was fuelled by performances with Stretford children’s theatre, including playing Polonius in Hamlet when he was 12.
A year earlier, in 1951, he had travelled to Illinois to visit his sister Vera – who had married an American sailor during the war – and the US made such an impression on him that he returned eight years later under her sponsorship.
He was homesick at first but studied at Quincy College, then joined the US army to speed up his application for citizenship before gaining a master’s degree in English from Western Illinois University. After briefly working as a teacher, he became editor of a technical publication, the Journal for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals.
In 1979, having studied acting at St Nicholas theatre, Chicago, Mahoney turned professional on being invited by John Malkovich and Gary Sinise to join their fledgling Steppenwolf company in Chicago, which needed actors for older roles, and he continued to perform with it for the rest of his life.
His Broadway debut, as Artie Shaughnessy in John Guare’s comedy The House of Blue Leaves (Plymouth theatre, 1986-87), won him a Tony award. He returned to Broadway two decades later to star as the Old Man in the 2007 revival of Craig Lucas’s romantic comedy Prelude to a Kiss.
Mahoney was seen in many character parts on US TV in the 1980s, then landed starring roles in two dramas before his success in Frasier. He played Chief Patrick Meacham, of the New York City Fire Department, in H.E.L.P. (1990) – with a cast that included David Caruso and Wesley Snipes as police officers – and Dr Alec McMurtry, dedicated to treating patients’ physical and emotional needs at a metropolitan teaching hospital, in The Human Factor (1992). He also had a guest role as an inept jingle writer in a 1992 episode of Cheers, set in a bar in Boston where “everybody knows your name”.
Later, he played Walter Barnett, a business executive prone to panic attacks who consults Gabriel Byrne’s psychologist during the second series (2009) of the drama In Treatment. He also played Roy, a waiter in the city adopted by three female entertainment industry veterans, during two runs (2011 and 2014) of the sitcom Hot in Cleveland.
Mahoney’s film breakthrough came with the part of Moe Adams, Richard Dreyfuss’s hospitalised mentor, in the comedy Tin Men (1987), directed by Barry Levinson. His subsequent roles included the manager of the corrupt White Sox baseball team, Kid Gleason, in Eight Men Out (1988), and Ione Sky’s embezzling father in Say Anything (1989), directed by Cameron Crowe. His performance drew the critic Roger Ebert to write: “This actor can be as convincingly nice as anyone in the movies. He exudes decency. That quality is right for this role, in which we learn that there is a great deal Diane doesn’t know about her father.”
The Coen Brothers chose Mahoney for the role of WP Mayhew in Barton Fink (1992) because of his resemblance to William Faulkner. Both Faulkner and Mayhew were heavy drinkers and writers who later worked in the film business. Mahoney also voiced Grebs in DreamWorks’ 1998 animated film Antz.
His final screen appearance, in 2015, was his first in a British TV drama – Foyle’s War, as an ailing, bed-bound former Texas oil tycoon.
• John Mahoney (Charles Mahoney), actor, born 20 June 1940; died 4 February 2018
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