Frasier actor also movie, theatre star

John Mahoney, who as the cranky, blue-collar dad in Frasier played counterpoint to pompous sons Frasier and Niles, has died. Mahoney was 77.

The actor died Sunday in Chicago after a brief hospitalization. The cause of death was not immediately provided.

In Frasier, the hit Cheers spinoff that aired from 1993 to 2004, Mahoney played Martin Crane, a disabled ex-police office who parked himself in a battered old armchair in Frasier’s chic Seattle living room.

Mahoney, a British native who made Chicago his hometown, was a two-time Emmy nominee for Frasier, won a 1986 Tony Award for The House of Blue Leaves and worked steadily in movies.

John Cusack, who appeared with Mahoney is the 1989 film Say Anything, tweeted that he was a great actor and a “lovely kind human.”

Mahoney’s recent TV credits included a recurring role as Betty White’s love interest on Hot in Cleveland and a 2015 guest appearance on Foyle’s War. On the big screen, he was in The American President, Eight Men Out, Tin Men and Moonstruck, with 2007’s Dan in Real Life starring Steve Carell among his last movie credits.

The actor was born in 1940 in Blackpool, England, during the Second World War.

One sister, who moved to the Mid- west after marrying a U.S. sailor, was responsible for Mahoney’s decision to make his life in America. He visited Chicago as a college student and fell in love with it.

The city’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company cancelled Monday’s scheduled performance in honour of Mahoney.