Allen Kelsey Grammer[2] (born February 21, 1955)[1] is an American actor, comedian, and producer. He gained fame for his role as the psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1984–1993) and its spin-off Frasier (1993–2004, and again from 2023–present). At more than 20 years on-air, this is one of the longest-running roles played by a single live-action actor in primetime television history.
He has received numerous accolades including a total of six Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Tony Award.
Grammer, having trained as an actor at Juilliard and the Old Globe Theatre, made his professional acting debut as Lennox in the 1981 Broadway revival of Macbeth.
Kelsey Grammer was born on Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.[2][1] Grammer’s mother, Sally Cranmer (1928–2008), was a dancer who performed under the name of Sally Sullivan.[6] His father, Frank Allen Grammer Jr. was a musician who owned a coffee shop, Greer’s Place;[7][8] and owned and edited a magazine, Virgin Islands View.[9] Kelsey had a younger sister, Karen, and four half-siblings from his father’s second marriage.
Grammer’s personal life has been shaped by many family tragedies. Following his parents’ divorce, Grammer was raised in New Jersey by his mother and maternal grandparents, Gordon and Evangeline Cranmer.[10] The family later relocated to Pompano Beach, Florida. Shortly after, when Grammer was twelve years old, his grandfather died of cancer.[10] In 1968, his father was murdered in Saint Thomas during a wave of racial violence following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.[9][11][12] In 1975, his sister was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, by spree killer Freddie Glenn.[13] In 1980, his two teenage half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident.[13]
