Charles John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018) was an English-American actor, born in Blackpool, known for playing retired police officer Martin Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier from 1993 to 2004, receiving nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. He was the seventh of eight children. His father, Reg, was a baker who played classical piano, and his mother, Margaret (née Watson), was a housewife who loved reading. His paternal grandfather was Irish. The family had been evacuated to Blackpool from their home city of Manchester when it was heavily bombed during World War II. Mahoney started school at St Joseph’s College. After the war, the family moved back to Manchester, where Mahoney grew up in the suburb of Withington and discovered acting at the Stretford Children’s Theatre. His parents’ marriage was not happy. They would not speak to each other for long periods of time—and when they did, it often led to heated arguments. The family situation, combined with the war, fuelled Mahoney’s interest in acting, which made him vow to leave Manchester.
At age 18 in 1959, he moved to Illinois in the United States where he studied at Quincy University before joining the United States Army. After graduating from Quincy, he earned his Master’s degree in English from Western Illinois University, where he went on to teach English in the late 1960s before settling in Forest Park, Illinois, and later in Oak Park, Illinois. He became a U.S. citizen in 1971 and served as an associate editor of the Quality Review Bulletin medical journal through much of the late 1970s. Mahoney made a concerted effort to lose his English accent after joining the U.S. Army, not wanting to “stand out” in his new adopted country. He spoke with an American accent for the rest of his life.
Dissatisfied with his career, Mahoney took acting classes at St. Nicholas Theatre, which inspired him to resign from his day job and pursue acting full-time. After a stage production in Chicago in 1977, John Malkovich encouraged him to join the Steppenwolf Theatre. He did so and went on to win the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Male Newcomer in 1986. Steppenwolf founder Gary Sinise said in an interview for Bomb Magazine that Lyle Kessler’s play Orphans in 1985 “kicked John Mahoney, Kevin Anderson and Terry Kinney off into the movie business” after their Steppenwolf performance of the play for which he won the Derwent Award and the Theatre World Award. Mahoney won Broadway’s Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1986 for his performance in John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves.
He earned the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in the 1986 Broadway revival of John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves, and went on to achieve wider recognition for his roles in the films Suspect and Moonstruck (both 1987). Other credits included Tin Men (1987), Frantic, Eight Men Out (both 1988), Say Anything… (1989), Barton Fink (1991), Striking Distance, In the Line of Fire (both 1993), Reality Bites (1994), The American President (1995), Primal Fear (1996), and The Broken Hearts Club (2000). He also voiced roles in animated films such as Antz (1998), The Iron Giant (1999), and Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001).
Mahoney’s first major film roles both came in 1987, in Barry Levinson’s Tin Men and in Peter Yates’ Suspect, a courtroom drama/mystery starring Cher, Dennis Quaid, and Liam Neeson. In the next decade, he had prominent roles in many acclaimed films including the John Patrick Shanley romantic comedy film Moonstruck (1987) starring Nicolas Cage and Cher. In 1988, Mahoney portrayed Kid Gleason in the sports drama Eight Men Out, and the following year portrayed the protective father in the Cameron Crowe teen coming of age film Say Anything… (1989). He portrayed Secret Service Director Sam Campagna in the Wolfgang Petersen directed drama In the Line of Fire (1993), Grant Gubler in Ben Stiller’s romance film Reality Bites (1994), environmental lobbyist Leo Solomon in Rob Reiner’s political romance film The American President (1995) and John Shaughnessy in the legal mystery thriller Primal Fear (1996). He also is known for his collaboration with the Coen brothers in films such as the period black comedy Barton Fink and the screwball comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. Mahoney also played a pivotal gay role in Greg Berlanti’s 2000 GLAAD Media Award-winning film The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy.
Mahoney appeared in Frasier from its debut in 1993 until the final episode in 2004. He received two Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations for the role of Martin Crane, the father of Frasier Crane and Niles Crane. NBC executives held Mahoney in such high esteem that Warren Littlefield declared he was pre-approved when the Frasier creative team suggested casting him as the father. Before appearing on the series, Mahoney had appeared in the episode “Do Not Forsake Me, O’ My Postman” of Cheers – from which Frasier was a spinoff – as Sy Flembeck, an inept jingle writer who has a brief conversation with Frasier. Mahoney also appeared as a priest in Becker, which starred Cheers star Ted Danson.
Mahoney’s first voice job was in W. B. Yeats’s “The Words upon the Window-Pane” for the award-winning National Radio Theater of Chicago.[citation needed] He provided the voices for several characters in Antz (1998), Preston Whitmore in Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Atlantis: Milo’s Return, General Rogard in The Iron Giant (1999), and Papi in Kronk’s New Groove (but was succeeded by Jeff Bennett in The Emperor’s New School for an unknown reason).[citation needed] In 2007, Mahoney provided the voice of Dr. Robert Terwilliger, Sr. (Sideshow Bob’s father) in The Simpsons episode “Funeral for a Fiend”. This reunited him with his Frasier co-stars Kelsey Grammer (Sideshow Bob) and David Hyde Pierce (Cecil, Sideshow Bob’s brother).
David Hyde Pierce, Peri Gilpin, Kelsey Grammer, Jane Leeves, John Mahoney, Moose the dog (front), Season 2, 1993-2004.
