Charles John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018) was an English-American actor. He played 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.
Charles John Mahoney was born in Blackpool, England on June 20, 1940,[1] the seventh of eight children. His father, Reg, was a baker[2] who played classical piano, and his mother, Margaret (née Watson), was a housewife who loved reading. His paternal grandfather was Irish.[3][4][5] The family had been evacuated to Blackpool from their home city of Manchester when it was heavily bombed during the Second World War. 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, fueled Mahoney's interest in acting and he vowed to leave Manchester.[6][7]
Mahoney made a concerted effort to lose his English accent after joining the U.S. Army, later stating that he felt that he did not want to "stand out" in his new adopted country. He spoke with an American accent for the rest of his life.[12][13]
Mahoney appeared in Frasier from its debut in 1993 until the final episode in 2004; Mahoney 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.[22] 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 co-starred as the Old Man in the Broadway revival of Prelude to a Kiss at the American Airlines Theater in a limited-run engagement running from previews on February 17, 2007, through to April 29, 2007.[23][24] He appeared as an elderly drag queen in the ER season 13 episode "Somebody to Love," and co-starred with Steve Carell (himself a veteran of Chicago theater) as the father of Carell's character in Dan in Real Life. In March 2008, he opened in the world premiere of Better Late at the Northlight Theatre.[25] He was also the narrator for Midwest Airlines commercials. Mahoney also made two appearances on USA's Burn Notice in the second (2009) and third (2010) season finales. His character, referred to only as "Management," is a senior intelligence agency official who is the apparent main mover of the conspiracy which blacklistedMichael Westen.[26][27]
Mahoney joined the cast of In Treatment for the series' second season (2009) as a frenetic CEO who is overwhelmed by his personal and professional responsibilities and experiences chronic physical anxiety attacks. In 2010, he made a guest appearance on $#*! My Dad Says as homophobic retired naval officer Lt. Commander Wally Durham.
Beginning in April 2011, Mahoney began rehearsing The Outgoing Tide, a new play by Bruce Graham at Northlight Theatre in Skokie, Illinois (suburban Chicago). The play also stars fellow Chicago actors Rondi Reed and Thom Cox. In 2011, he had two guest appearances on Hot in Cleveland as Roy, a waiter and a love interest for Betty White's character Elka.[28] This reunited him with his Frasier co-star Jane Leeves, as well as Wendie Malick whose character he eventually married in Frasier and his co-star in the movie The American President. Mahoney was a featured ensemble cast member in The Birthday Party, playing in Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre from January 24 to April 28, 2013.[29] His last role was in the play The Rembrandt, from September to November 2017.[30][31]
Despite the numerous successes throughout his career, Mahoney maintained that his early work in the play Orphans has "affected people more than any other play I've ever done. I still get mail from it, I still get people stopping me on the street, and it's 20 years later."[32]
Personal life
Mahoney lived in Oak Park, Illinois,[7] and suffered from colon cancer in the mid-1980s.[33] He was successfully treated for cancer again in 2014, and credited his love of acting and desire to continue it for giving him enough determination to survive both bouts, saying in October 2017: "I refused to yield to it because I love what I'm doing so much."[34]
Mahoney rarely spoke publicly about his private life,[6] and he died without marrying or having any children.[35] In 2002, he said, "I was never very mature in my relationships with women. First sign of conflict, I was gone. Wouldn't discuss it, because I was afraid it would lead to an argument." This stemmed from a fear of having an unhappy marriage like the one his parents had, though Mahoney did previously have "several long-term relationships".[7] To the surprise of much of the public, when he died many tributes noted that he had lived privately as a gay man and was a well-known fixture on the Chicago LGBTQ scene. [36]
He was a Catholic who called Christianity "probably the most important facet of my life": before each of his performances, he would pray "Most glorious blessed spirit, I thank you for all the gifts and talents that you've given me. Please help me to use all these gifts and talents to their fullest. And please accept this performance as a prayer of praise and thanks to you". Mahoney would also say prayers upon waking up and before going to sleep daily, and would repeatedly pray "Dear God, please help me to treat everybody – including myself – with love, respect, and dignity."[37]
Death
Mahoney died in a Chicago hospice on February 4, 2018,[15] due to complications from throat cancer, originally diagnosed in 2014. He was 77 years old. According to his friend Anna D. Shapiro, "He was fragile and he was supposed to be having a routine procedure. But having just beat Stage 3 throat cancer, I think he was just too weak ... by the time he did The Rembrandt [a play at Steppenwolf Theatre] he was clean of cancer ... but other health issues came up and he was just too fragile."[38]
^ abcLane, Harriet (August 4, 2002). "Take a chance on me". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 2, 2014. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
^Hayward, Anthony (February 6, 2018). "John Mahoney obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved October 8, 2018.
^Levine, Ken (December 15, 2010). "How Frasier Came to Be". Kenlevine.blogspot.com. Archived from the original on September 11, 2012. Retrieved October 14, 2012.
^Falsani, Cathleen (March 7, 2006). The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 133–137. ISBN0374163812.
^ abcde"John Mahoney (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved November 15, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.
