Kelsey Grammer

Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955) is an American actor.

Allen Kelsey Grammer was born on February 21, 1955, in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, to Frank Allen Grammer Jr. (d. 1968), and Sally Cranmer (1928–2008).

His father was a musician, owned a restaurant called Greer's Place, and owned and edited the Virgin Islands View magazine.

His mother was a singer and actress.

He had one 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.

The family later moved to Pompano Beach, Florida, and shortly afterwards, when Grammer was twelve years old, his grandfather died of cancer.

In 1968, his father was murdered in St. Thomas during a wave of racial violence following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr..

After leaving Juilliard, Grammer had a three-year internship with the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in the late 1970s before a stint in 1980 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Grammer later won a scholarship to study drama at the Juilliard School, where he was a member of Group 6 from 1973 to 1975.

However, after his sister's murder, Grammer failed to attend classes and was eventually expelled.

In 1975, his sister was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in Colorado Springs.

Grammer acted as the Burglar in the LA production of the George Bernard Shaw play Too True to Be Good in 1977.

In 1980, his two teenage half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident.

Grammer attended Pine Crest School, a private preparatory school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

It was there that he first began to sing and perform on stage.

In 1980 he starred in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of A Month in the Country.

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.

The following year, he portrayed Cassio acting opposite Christopher Plummer and James Earl Jones in Othello.

He made his Broadway debut in 1981 as "Lennox" in Macbeth, taking the lead role when Philip Anglim withdrew after receiving negative reviews.

Grammer then played Michael Cassio in the 1982 Broadway revival of Othello, alongside James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer.

That same year he portrayed Codename Lazar in the Public Theatre production of the David Hare play Plenty.

In 1983, he acted alongside Mandy Patinkin in the original off-Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George.

He has since starred in the leading roles in productions of both Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and My Fair Lady.

In 1983, he performed in the demo of the Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine production Sunday in the Park with George, starring Mandy Patinkin.

He gained fame for his role as psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1984–1993) and its spin-off Frasier (1993–2004, and again in 2023).

At more than 20 years on-air, this is one of the longest-running roles played by a single live-action actor in 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.

His other roles include Down Periscope (1996), The Pentagon Wars (1998), and Swing Vote (2008).

He is also known for his voice roles in Anastasia (1997), Toy Story 2 (1999), and as Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons.

He has appeared in the sitcoms 30 Rock, Modern Family, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2000.

On film, he is known for his role as Dr. Hank McCoy / Beast in the superhero films X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), and The Marvels (2023).

In 2010, Grammer returned to Broadway in the musical revival of La Cage aux Folles, where he received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

For his role as the corrupt mayor in the political series Boss (2011–2012), he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama.

In 2016, Grammer won a Tony Award for Best Musical as producer of a musical revival of The Color Purple.

In 2019, he starred as Don Quixote in a production of Man of La Mancha at the London Coliseum.

In 2023, The Telegraph described Grammer as one of "the finest actors" of his generation.

According to his interview with the Cayman Compass in 2019, Grammer described himself as "a Caribbean kid" who "was born in St. Thomas, USVI, and I have been back and forth a lot, gone to the Bahamas a lot, St. John and the Virgin Islands and the BVI."