John Mahoney was a Tony Award-winning actor, a longtime member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and a reliably great supporting player in numerous films. But when the news broke earlier today that Mahoney had died Sunday at the age of 77, practically every obituary and social media post about him referred to him first as Frasier’s dad.
Mahoney’s role as Martin Crane, the salt-of-the-Earth father of snobby psychiatrists Frasier and Niles on the NBC sitcom Frasier, unquestionably defined Mahoney’s career. It earned him two Emmy Award nominations and made him forever identifiable as the ex-cop who barked sarcastic remarks from his favorite La-Z Boy recliner, the one with the stripes and the duct tape patches on it.
When people describe that character, they tend to use words like “cantankerous” or “crusty,” which are not inaccurate. Martin Crane was emotionally closed off, sometimes grumpy, a man’s man, and a father who often had trouble understanding how his genes could possibly be linked to the ones inside his pretentious-sophisticate offspring, whom he loved even if he couldn’t bring himself to say it. But when I think about Martin Crane and what Mahoney brought to the part — what he brought to so many of the roles he played — I immediately think about the twinkle in his eye. It was that twinkle that allowed audiences to feel connected to him, to look past the flaws of the men he portrayed and connect with the joy, childlike mischief, and affection he felt for the people — or, in the case of Martin’s beloved dog, Eddie, the animals — in his characters’ lives.
In the first season of Frasier, in an episode called “Dinner at Eight,” the twinkle is on full display when Martin takes Niles and Frasier to a restaurant called the Timber Mill. Martin thinks the place is just…
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