John Mahoney

Charles John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018) was an English-American actor of stage, film, and television.
Born in Blackpool, England, Mahoney emigrated to the United States at the age of 18 and started his acting career on the stage in 1977, moving into film in 1980. He was best known for playing the blue-collar patriarch Martin Crane in the American sitcom Frasier, which aired on NBC from 1993 to 2004. In addition to his film and television work, Mahoney also worked as a voice actor and was particularly passionate about his stage work on Broadway and in Chicago theatre.
== Early life ==
Mahoney was born in the Bispham area of Blackpool, England on June 20, 1940, the seventh of eight children. His paternal grandfather was Irish Catholic.[4][5]
The family had been evacuated to Blackpool from the Mahoneys' home city of Manchester, when it was heavily bombed during the Second World War. He started school at St Joseph's College, Blackpool. After the war, the family moved back to Manchester. Mahoney grew up in the Withington area of the city and discovered acting at the Stretford Children's Theatre. His father Reg was a baker[6] who played classical piano, and his mother Margaret (née Watson) was a housewife who loved reading. His parents' marriage was not happy and they either would not speak to each other or have heated arguments. The family situation, combined with the war, fueled Mahoney's interest in acting and he vowed to leave Manchester.[7][8]
Mahoney moved to the United States aged 18 in March 1959[9] 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. After graduating from Quincy, he lived in Macomb, Illinois, earned his Master's degree in English [10]and taught English at Western Illinois University in the early 1970s,[11] before settling in Forest Park, Illinois, and later in Oak Park, Illinois. He became a US citizen in 1971[12] and served as editor of a medical journal through much of the 1970s.[11]
== Career ==
=== Early work ===
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.[13][14] He did so and went on to win the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Male Newcomer. Gary Sinise said in an interview for Bomb Magazine that Lyle Kessler's play Orphans "kicked John Mahoney, Kevin Anderson and Terry Kinney off into the movie business"[15] after their Steppenwolf performance of the play for which he won the Derwent Award and the Theatre World Award.[16] Mahoney won Broadway's Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves.[17]
Mahoney's first major film role was in the 1987 Barry Levinson film Tin Men. He went on to have prominent roles in a number of acclaimed films throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, including Moonstruck, Eight Men Out, Say Anything..., In the Line of Fire, Reality Bites, and The American President.[17][18][11] He appeared in two Coen brothers films, Barton Fink[19] and The Hudsucker Proxy.[20]
=== Frasier ===
Main article: Martin Crane
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.[21] Prior to appearing on the series, Mahoney had appeared in an episode of Cheers – from which Frasier was a spin-off – as 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.
=== Voice acting ===
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. 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). 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).
=== Post-Frasier ===
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.[22][23] 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 theatre) 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.[24] 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 blacklisted Michael Westen.[25][26]
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. Despite the numerous successes throughout his career, Mahoney has maintained that his early work in Lyle Kessler's 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."[27]
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] Mahoney portrayed his last role in the play The Rembrandt, from September to November 2017.[30]
== Personal life ==
Along with David Hyde Pierce, Mahoney was godfather to Frasier co-star Jane Leeves' son Finn.[31] Mahoney rarely spoke publicly about his private life,[7] but in a 2002 article he revealed he had been in several relationships, although he had never married, citing his parents' unhappy marriage as something he feared he would repeat.[8] He suffered from colon cancer in the mid-1980s and felt unable to have sex following a colostomy.[32] His Catholic faith was at the center of his life and work.[33][34]
Mahoney lived in Oak Park, Illinois.[8]
== Death ==
Mahoney died in a Chicago hospice on February 4, 2018, of complications from throat cancer, originally diagnosed in 2014. He was 77 years old. According to his friend Anna 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 he was clean of cancer... But other health issues came up and he was just too fragile."[35][36][37][38][39]
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
1982	Mission Hill 	Michael Doyle 	
1985	Code of Silence 	Prowler Representative 	
1986	The Manhattan Project 	Lt. Col. Conroy 	
1986	Streets of Gold 	Linnehan 	
1987	Suspect 	Judge Matthew Bishop Helms 	
1987	Tin Men[17] 	Moe Adams 	
1987	Moonstruck 	Perry 	
1988	Frantic 	Williams, U.S. Embassy Official	
1988	Betrayed 	Shorty 	
1988	Eight Men Out[17] 	William "Kid" Gleason 	
1989	Say Anything...[18] 	James Court 	
1990	Love Hurts 	Boomer 	
1990	The Russia House 	Brady 	
1991	Barton Fink[19] 	W. P. Mayhew 	
1992	Article 99 	Dr. Henry Dreyfoos 	
1993	In the Line of Fire[18] 	Sam Campagna 	
1993	Striking Distance 	Capt. Vince Hardy 	
1994	A Hard Rain 	Ross Stewart 	Short film
1994	Reality Bites[18] 	Grant Gubler 	
1994	The Hudsucker Proxy[20] 	Chief 	
1995	The American President[17] 	Leo Solomon 	
1996	Primal Fear[18] 	Shaughnessy 	
1996	She's the One 	Mr. Fitzpatrick 	
1996	Mariette in Ecstasy 	Dr. Claude Baptiste 	
1998	Antz[18] 	Grebs 	Voice
1999	The Iron Giant 	General Kenneth Rogard 	Voice
2000	The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy	Jack 	
2001	Almost Salinas 	Max Harris 	
2001	Atlantis: The Lost Empire[18] 	Preston B. Whitmore 	Voice
2003	Atlantis: Milo's Return 	Preston B. Whitmore 	Voice
2005	Kronk's New Groove 	Papi 	Voice
2007	Dan in Real Life[17] 	Poppy 	
2010	Flipped 	Chet Duncan 	Final film role
 	 	 	Final film role
 	 	 	Final film role
 	 	 	Final film role
=== Television ===
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
1982 	Chicago Story 	Lt. Roselli 	13 episodes
1985 	Lady Blue 	Capt. Flynn 	TV movie
1986 	Trapped in Silence 	Doctor Winslow 	TV movie
1987 	Saturday Night Live 	Fast Eddie Felson / Paul Newman 	Episode: "Charlton Heston/Wynton Marsalis"
1987 	American Playhouse 	Artie Shaughnessy 	Episode: "The House of Blue Leaves"
1988 	Favorite Son 	Lou Brenner 	Episode: "Part One"
1989 	Dinner at Eight 	Oliver Jordan 	TV movie
1990 	The Image 	Irv Mickelson 	TV movie
1990 	H.E.L.P. 	Chief Patrick Meacham 	6 episodes
1991 	The 10 Million Dollar Getaway	Jimmy Burke 	TV movie
1992 	The Human Factor 	Dr. Alec McMurtry 	5 episodes
1992 	The Water Engine 	Mason Gross 	TV movie
1992 	Screenplay 	Walter Partin 	Episode: "Buying a Landslide"
1992 	Cheers 	Sy Flembeck 	Episode: "Do Not Forsake Me, O' My Postman"
1992 	Unnatural Pursuits 	Paddy Quinn 	Episode: "I Don't Do Cuddles"
1993–2004	Frasier 	Martin Crane 	264 episodes 
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2000) 
Nominated–Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries, or Television Film (1994, 2001) 
Nominated–Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (1999, 2003) 
Nominated–Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Quality Comedy Series (1998, 2000) 
Nominated–Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy (2001) 
Nominated–Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (1995–1999, 2001–2004) 
Nominated–TV Guide Award for Supporting Actor of the Year in a Comedy Series (2001)
1995 	Biography 	Narrator (voice) 	Episode: "Al Capone: Scarface"
1996 	3rd Rock from the Sun 	Dr. Leonard Hamlin 	Episode: "Body & Soul & Dick"
1997 	Tracey Takes On... 	Jeffrey Ayliss 	Episode: "Childhood"
1998 	Nothing Sacred 	Vince Reyneaux 	Episode: "The Coldest Night of the Year"
2000 	Becker 	Father Joe D'Andrea 	Episode: "Crosstalk"
2000 	Teacher's Pet 	Narrator / Tim Tim Tim (voice) 	Episode: #1.12
2000 	Nature 	Narrator 	Episode: "Intimate Enemies: Lions and Buffalo"
2003 	Gary the Rat 	Steele (voice) 	Episode: "Strange Bedfellows"
2005 	Fathers and Sons 	Gene 	TV movie
2006 	ER 	Bennett Cray 	Episode "Somebody to Love"
2007 	Mobsters 	Narrator 	Episode: "Al Capone"
2007 	The Simpsons 	Dr. Robert Terwilliger, Sr. (voice)	Episode: "Funeral for a Fiend"
2009 	In Treatment 	Walter Barnett 	7 episodes
Nominated–PRISM Award for Performance in a Drama Series Multi-Episode Storyline
2009–10 	Burn Notice 	Management 	2 episodes
2010 	$#*! My Dad Says 	Lt. Col. Wally Durham 	Episode: "The Manly Thing to Do"
2011–14 	Hot in Cleveland 	Roy 	6 episodes
2015 	Foyle's War 	Andrew Del Mar 	Episode: "High Castle"
Category:Antz
Category:The Iron Giant
Category:Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Category:2018 deaths
Category:1940 births