John Mahoney (born June 20, 1940) is an English actor known for playing the retired police officer father, Martin "Marty" Crane, of Kelsey Grammer's character, Dr. Frasier Crane, in the popular American TV series Frasier (NBC, 1993-2004).
Mahoney, the seventh of eight children, was born in Blackpool, England - the town to where his mother was evacuated as the Mahoney's home city of Manchester was bombed during the Second World War. After the war, the Mahoneys moved back to Manchester. John grew up in the Withington area of the city. His father, Reg, was a baker. Mahoney moved to the United States as a young man when his older sister, Vera, a war-bride living in rural Illinois, agreed to sponsor him. He studied at Quincy University, Illinois, before joining the United States Army to speed up the citizenship process and to become a U.S. citizen. He lived in Macomb, Illinois and taught English at Western Illinois University in the early 1970s, before finally settling in Oak Park, Illinois. He served as editor of a medical journal through much of the decade.
Disillusioned with his career, Mahoney said he realized that as he was approaching middle age, he was coming to terms with his future, which made him very depressed.[citation needed] Ready for a change, Mahoney took acting classes at St. Nicholas Theater that inspired him to quit his day job and pursue acting full time, and after a stage production in 1977, fellow actor John Malkovich encouraged him to join Steppenwolf Theatre. He did so, and went on to win the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Male Newcomer, and, in 1986, Broadway's Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves.
He made his film debut in 1980, and has played supporting roles in such films as Suspect and Moonstruck (both 1987 and both starring Cher), Eight Men Out, Frantic and Betrayed (all three 1988), Say Anything... (1989), Barton Fink (1991), In the Line of Fire (1993), Striking Distance (1993), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The American President (1995), Primal Fear (1996), and The Broken Hearts Club (2000). Although he has often played "good guy" roles, Mahoney has occasionally gone into "bad guy" territory, evident by his work in Reality Bites as a diva talk show host who torments Winona Ryder's character.
He also provided the voices for several characters in the animated film Antz (1998), as well as Whitmore in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, General Rogard in The Iron Giant (1999), and Kronk's Papi in Kronk's New Groove (succeeded by Jeff Bennett in The Emperor's New School).
He appeared in Frasier from its inception in 1993 until the final episode in 2004, and received numerous Emmy and Golden Globe award nominations for this role. Coincidentally, Mahoney also appeared in an episode of Cheers as an inept jingle writer, including a brief conversation with Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), whose father he would later play. In one episode of Frasier, Martin wrote a jingle that was used for Frasier's show.
He co-starred in the Broadway revival of the play Prelude to a Kiss at the American Airlines Theater, in the role of The Old Man, beginning in previews February 17, 2007, scheduled to open March 8, 2007 and to run as a limited engagement through April 22, 2007. He also appeared in ER season 13 part "Somebody to Love" as an elderly drag queen.
Mahoney will next appear in the romantic comedy Dan in Real Life, co-starring as the father of Steve Carell and Dane Cook
Mahoney is also guest starring in an episode of The Simpsons as the father of Sideshow Bob played by Kelsey Grammer and Cecil Terwilliger played by David Hyde Pierce who also starred in Frasier with Mahoney.
Mahoney lost all traces of his original Mancunian accent, but he did resurrect it once on Frasier, while mocking Daphne Moon (played by English actress Jane Leeves). In 2003, he returned to his home in Chicago to work with the Steppenwolf Theatre again, citing theater as his first passion.[citation needed]
Mahoney has never married.
