John Mahoney RIP

NollagShona wrote: »

Just heard he died. Very sad to hear. A frequent visitor to Galway and the blue collar to Frasier and Niles’ starched whites on Frasier.

When we pitched the character of Martin, we said to picture John Mahoney. Warren [Littlefield, NBC President] said if we could get John, he was also pre-approved.
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About halfway through writing the pilot script, Kerry McCluggage, the new President of Paramount Television, told us that he had spoken with John Mahoney regarding playing Frasier’s father. Kerry had a relationship with John dating back to Kerry’s days at Universal Studios where John had done a dramatic series called “The Human Factor.” John said he would like to meet with us and discuss FRASIER. We said that was great and could Kerry set up a meeting. He told us he had, but there was a catch. John wasn’t coming to meet us. We were going to meet John and that meant the three of us were flying to Chicago because that’s where John lived. The plan was we’d fly in the morning, arrive in the afternoon, have dinner with John, then return to LA the next morning. We were on a roll with the script so we weren’t thrilled about having to break our momentum. On the other hand, dinner in Chicago with John Mahoney sounded pretty cool so we went. It was late January or early February, cold, with snow on the ground, but what did we care? Paramount put us up at The Four Seasons and had provided us with a car and driver. We met John and Kerry at a restaurant called Shaw’s Crab House. Being a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, John was quite a local celebrity, so restaurant patrons were constantly stopping by the table or waving across the room. John was absolutely charming with everyone. Over dinner we pitched John the series concept, went into the character of Martin and his relationship with Frasier, and outlined the plot of the pilot episode. John was definitely interested, but he wouldn’t commit until he had read the pilot. Fair enough. We returned to LA the next morning and resumed writing with renewed enthusiasm picturing John Mahoney as Martin Crane.


It took us another week to finish the script, so two weeks total. I have to say it was one of the easiest scripts I’ve ever written. Everything seemed to flow naturally. This gave us a very good feeling about the project, but of course you never know how others are going to react to it. We sent it over to the Paramount executive offices and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Kerry McCluggage immediately FedEx’d it to John Mahoney. The next day we received an enthusiastic “yes” from John. Months later in LA, John told me he’d read through a two foot stack of pilots before the FRASIER script arrived and our script was so superior that it was the only project he wanted to do.

Water John wrote: »

Am I right in thinking he was from, The Chicago School of Acting? Heard and interview with him on radio some years ago, very interesting guy. Think he did a play at the Abbey, at the time. RIP.
In Frasier, good writing, makes good acting easier, and they were all good actors, and the rest takes care of itself.

ncmc wrote: »

One of my favourite ‘Martin’ episodes in Frasier was the one where he pretended to be gay so that Frasier could spend more time with a woman he liked. It was hilarious of course, but had that lovely heart warming core where Martin was willing to do something he was so uncomfortable with just to try and help his son.