John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018) was an English-American stage, film, and television actor.

Born in Bispham, Blackpool, Lancashire, England, Mahoney started his career on the stage in 1977 and moved into film in 1980. He was best known for playing the blue-collar patriarch, Martin Crane, in the American sitcom Frasier on NBC from 1993 to 2004. He also worked as a voice actor, and performed on Broadway and in Chicago theatre.

Early life

Mahoney was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England on June 20, 1940 as the seventh of eight children in the family. The family was 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 Mahoneys moved back to Manchester. Mahoney grew up in the Withington area of the city and discovered acting at the Stretford Children's Theatre. His Irish father, Reg, was a baker who played classical piano, and his mother, Margaret, 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, fuelled Mahoney's interest in acting and he vowed to leave Manchester.

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 U.S. citizenship process; he received citizenship in 1959. He lived in Macomb, Illinois, and taught English at Western Illinois University in the early 1970s, before settling in Forest Park, Illinois, and later in Oak Park, Illinois. He served as editor of a medical journal through much of the decade.

Career

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, and after a stage production in 1977, 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. 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" 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 for his performance in John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves.

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.  He appeared in two Coen brothers films, Barton Fink and The Hudsucker Proxy.

Mahoney appeared in Frasier from its debut in 1993 until the final episode in 2004; Mahoney received two Emmynominations and two Golden Globe nominations for this role. He played 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. Prior to appearing on the series, Mahoney appeared in season 11, episode five of Cheers as inept jingle writer Sy Flembeck and has a brief conversation with Frasier Crane. Mahoney also appeared as a priest in Becker, which starred Cheers star Ted Danson.

Mahoney's first voice job was in W. B. Yeats' "The Words upon the Window-Pane" for the award-winning National Radio Theater of Chicago. He provided the voicesfor 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 Simpsonsepisode "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).

Mahoney co-starred as the Old Man in the Broadway revival of Prelude to a Kissat the American Airlines Theater in a limited-run engagement running from previews on February 17, 2007, through to April 29, 2007.[18][19] He appeared as an elderly drag queen in the ER season 13 episode "Somebody to Love," and co-starred as Steve Carell's father (himself a veteran of Chicago theatre) in Dan in Real Life. In March 2008, he opened in the world premiere of Better Late at the Northlight Theatre. He is 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.

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 Orphanshas "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."

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. 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.  Mahoney portrayed his last role in the play The Rembrandt, from September to November 2017. 

Personal life

Along with David Hyde Pierce, Mahoney was godfather to Frasier co-star Jane Leeves' son Finn. Mahoney rarely spoke publicly about his private life, but in a 2002 article he revealed he had been in several relationships, although he had never married. He suffered from colon cancer in the mid-1980s.

Mahoney lived in Oak Park, Illinois.

Death

Mahoney died on February 4, 2018 at the age of 77 while in hospice care in Chicago, after a short illness.