Trivia: For better or worse, leading actor Kelsey Grammer's name will probably forever be associated with the pompous, garrulous, and self-absorbed but lovable psychiatrist Frasier Crane, a character Grammer has played on television since he first appeared on the NBC sitcom Cheers, in 1984, as a love interest for Shelley Long. Though Frasier was not intended to become a series regular, Grammer's performance of the blowhard neurotic charmed audiences and he remained with Cheers through its 1993 demise. At the beginning of the 1993-1994 television season, Grammer's character was resurrected in his own show and moved from Boston to Seattle, where he became a radio psychologist and faced a whole slew of folks just waiting to poke metaphorical pins in his hot air balloon. Thanks to excellent performances and top-notch writing, Frasier became as big a hit as its predecessor. Grammer won three Emmy awards and was nominated for seven more (twice for Cheers, once for his guest appearance on a 1992 episode of Wings, four times for Frasier) for playing the character. Born on St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Grammer knew extreme tragedy in youth. Following the shooting death of his father when he was a boy, he was raised in New Jersey and then Florida, by his mother and grandfather. His grandfather died before Grammer became a teen. When he was 20, his sister was abducted and violently murdered. Five years later, he lost two half brothers in a diving accident. As a young man, Grammer found comfort in Shakespeare; with his acting debut in a high school production of The Little Foxes came an interest in pursuing drama as a career. He enrolled in Juilliard, but dropped out after two years to work at San Diego's Old Globe Theater, where he gained three years' invaluable experience performing in Shakespearean and classical dramas; afterward, Grammer performed in productions across the country. He eventually made it to Broadway, where he appeared in various productions, including Othello. Prior to playing Frasier, Grammer appeared occasionally on television and had regular roles in three soap operas, including One Life to Live. He continues to occasionally guest star on other series. Fans of the animated satire The Simpsons will recognize his periodic voice characterization as the venomous Sideshow Bob. Miniseries and telemovies in which he has appeared include London Suite and Beyond Suspicion. Grammer made his feature film debut with a small role in Top of the Hill (1989) and had his first starring role in the much-panned comedy Down Periscope (1996). In addition to his Emmy kudos, Grammer has received an American Comedy Award, two Golden Globes, and a People's Choice Award. In 1995, he published his autobiography So Far.Grammer would spend the following years taking on TV roles on shows like Back to You and Boss, but would find even more success as a producer, helping bring shows like The Game, Girlfriends, Hank, Medium, and World Cup Comedy to fruition. In 2014, he returned to acting in a big way, making a cameo appearance in X-Men: Days of Future Past, reprising his role as Beast, playing the bad guy in Transformers: Age of Extinction, and returning to television in the FX series Partners.

Trivia: Although he is best known for his role as anal-retentive psychiatrist extraordinaire Niles Crane on the celebrated sitcom Frasier, David Hyde Pierce has also done considerable work on the stage and screen. Fair, birdlike, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Frasier co-star Kelsey Grammer, Pierce is one of the entertainment business' finest purveyors of a certain kind of blue-blooded neuroticism, and, in the eyes of some viewers, has even gone so far as to make insecurity perversely sexy.Born in Saratoga Springs, New York, on April 3, 1959, Pierce was raised in what he has described as a "very run-of-the-mill, middle-class" household. When he was eight, he began taking piano lessons, and he decided to pursue a career as a concert pianist. He continued to train until he got to Yale University, where he realized that he was better suited to the acting profession. Following graduation, Pierce moved to New York and did a brief stint as a tie salesman at Bloomingdale's before being cast in a Broadway play. Although the production was a flop, Pierce continued to work on the stage in New York and Chicago for several years and was eventually cast as a suicidal congressman on the short-lived sitcom The Powers That Be in 1992. His work on the show, coupled with his resemblance to Kelsey Grammer, led to his casting on Frasier the following year.Frasier proved to be the turning point in Pierce's career. His portrayal of Niles, aside from winning him a slew of awards, including an Emmy, also provided a number of opportunities for the actor on the big screen. Pierce, who had been acting sporadically in films since the early '80s, could be seen in supporting roles in such '90s films as Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Nixon (1995), in which he played John Dean, and the animated A Bug's Life (1998), for which he provided the voice of a stick insect.As the first decade of the 21st century opened, Pierce began appearing in more and more feature films, selecting an eclectic array of roles that utitlized his strengths without resorting to rehashing the Niles Crane character. Diverse in their genre and theme, the projects also ranged in their levels of success and acclaim. The 2000 comedy Isn't She Great was an abysmal failure, while the indie films Wet Hot American Summer and Full Frontal both left audiences and critics fiercely split. Pierce also continued to flex his voice skills in the animated features Osmosis Jones and Treasure Planet.One of Pierce's best-received roles came in 2003, when he costarred in the tongue-in-cheek comedy Down With Love. While not much of a box-office hit, the film managed to charm many critics with its wall-to-wall homages to 1960s sex-comedies. A year later, Pierce again showed up sans-body, providing the voice of Abe Sapien in the comic-book adaptation Hellboy. He reunited with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola's animated comic adaptation The Amazing Screw-On Head to voice the role of the dreaded Emperor Zombie in 2006, and joined the cast of The Perfect Host in 2010 for a leading role as Warwick Wilson, whose genteel façade hides a deep rage and mental instability.

Trivia: A distinctive-looking, grey-haired British character actor, John Mahoney worked onstage in his teens, and moved to the U.S. at 19. In his mid-30s, while employed as an editor in Chicago, he decided to renew his interest in acting, and he enrolled in classes at a local theater co-founded by playwright David Mamet; he landed a role in a Mamet play and left his job for the part. At the urging of actor John Malkovich, he went on to join Chicago's celebrated Steppenwolf Theater; eventually he appeared in more than 30 plays. For his work in the Broadway play House of Blue Leaves he won a Tony and a Clarence Derwent Award. For his work in the lead role of Orphans (on Broadway and in Chicago) he won a Theater World Award. He still lives in Chicago, and maintains his connection with Steppenwolf. Mahoney debuted onscreen in Mission HIll (1982), but his screen breakthrough came in his fifth film, Barry Levinson's popular comedy Tin Men (1987); afterwards he went on to better parts in more noteworthy movies, and has avoided typecasting in a busy screen career. Mahoney's TV credits include Favorite Son and House of Blue Leaves, in which he reprised his stage role; he has since achieved wide popularity as Martin Crane, Frasier Crane's crochety father, on the NBC sitcom Frasier.

Trivia: Began studying ballet at a very early age, but hurt her ankle when she was 18 and was forced to give it up. Appeared in David Lee Roth's video for "California Girls." Lived for a time with her best friend Faith Ford, whom she met in acting class. Cofounded the production company Bristol Cities with Frasier costar Peri Gilpin in 1998. Since her first pregnancy wasn't written into Frasier, her character, Daphne, was sent off to a fat camp and was said to have lost 9 pounds, 12 ounces---the weight of Jane's daughter when she was born. Made her Broadway debut in Cabaret as Sally Bowles in 2002. Reunited with Fraiser alum Wendy Malick to costar in the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland.

Trivia: With a father who was a famous local radio and television celebrity, a model mother who appeared in television, and a working relationship with Wings producer Roz Doyle in her past, it may all seem like an obscure cosmic joke that pretty Peri Gilpin would rise to fame as radio producer Roz Doyle on the smash television sitcom Frasier, though the longtime actress would likely credit her success to hard work rather than astrological coincidence.Born in Waco, TX, and raised in Dallas, Gilpin began acting on stage with the Dallas Theater Company at the age of eight, a fact that helped her shake stage fright and gain the confidence that would accompany her through numerous future auditions. A Skyline High School graduate, Gilpin later studied acting at both the University of Texas at Austin and London's British-American Academy. Upon returning to the U.S., Gilpin worked as a makeup artist in the Dallas area before taking an apprenticeship with the Williamstown Theater Festival. A chance meeting with actress Blythe Danner resulted in Gilpin gaining some support within the industry, and it wasn't long before Gilpin's dreams were coming true with roles on television's Flesh 'n' Blood and 21 Jump Street. A role on Cheers followed shortly after, and when a spin-off series entitled Frasier became an unexpected hit, Gilpin found the role that would bring her into households across the country on a weekly basis. Appearing frequently on such made-for-television films as The Secret She Carried (1996) and Laughter on the 23rd Floor (2000) while simultaneously essaying her role on Frasier, Gilpin (who was named after the animated Disney character Peri the squirrel) has also loaned her voice to such animated projects as television's Hercules and the computer-animated feature Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001). Throughout the 2000's and 2010's, Gilpin remained active, starring most notably on the dance series Make It or Break It.

Trivia: African-American leading actor Lincoln Kilpatrick was much in demand in the late '60s and early '70s, a time when dynamic black performers were required to make up for the years of Stepin Fetchit-style subservience. Making his first film in 1968, Kilpatrick was seen in such sociopolitical time capsules as Cool Breeze (1972), Soul Soldier (1973) and Uptown Saturday Night (1974). Looking and acting like a born survivor, Kilpatrick was vital to futuristic films like The Omega Man (1971), Soylent Green (1973), and Chosen Survivors (1974), most of which predicted a post-apocalyptic society comprised of the strongest and swiftest. As busy in TV as in films, Lincoln Kilpatrick was a regular on several series: The Leslie Uggams Show (1968) in the recurring segment "Sugar Hill;" Love of Life, wherein Kilpatrick and Rita Bond were the first black regulars on this long-running soap opera; Matt Houston (1982-85) as Lt. Hoyt; and Frank's Place (1988), as Reverend Deal.

Trivia: Though they were never married, writer/lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green were joined at the hip so far as the public was concerned. Betty Comden was doing just fine as a NYU grad and just adequately as a theatre actress when she met fellow performers Green, Judy Holliday and Alvin Hammer. Forming a comedy/revue act called The Revellers, the four young performers were a hit on the New York nightclub circuit when they were brought to Hollywood to appear in the 1944 musical Greenwich Village. Only Judy Holliday was able to go on as a successful solo performer, but Comden and Green flourished as a writing/acting collaboration in such Broadway musicals as On the Town and Billion Dollar Baby, then as non-performing writers and lyricists for such major MGM musicals as Good News (1947), Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The Band Wagon (1953) (this last film included an ersatz Comden-Green team in the form of Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant). After their MGM years, Comden and Green collaborated on Broadway hits like Bells are Ringing (1956) and films like What a Way to Go (1964), deftly blending coherent continuity with stinging satire. They were also responsible for the 1967 ABC musical special I'm Getting Married, and have packed the houses with their own two-person stage show. More recently, the team has won Tony awards for the Broadway hits On the Twentieth Century and The Will Rogers Follies. Like Adolph Green, Betty Comden also made a number of late-career acting appearances, notably as Greta Garbo in the closing scenes of Garbo Talks (1984).

Trivia: American writer/composer/actor Adolph Green first attracted attention as a member of the Revuers, a satirical musicomedy troupe which performed at New York's Village Vanguard nightclub in the early '40s. The group couldn't afford the royalties on previously written material, so Green and fellow Revuer Betty Comden took to writing their own songs and routines. The Revuers were invited to Hollywood for the 1944 Betty Grable musical Greenwich Village, but the only member of the group that the movies were truly interested in was young Judy Holliday. Green and Comden remained in New York to write the libretto for and co-star in the Leonard Bernstein musical On the Town (which they later adapted for the screen). Green and Comden continued collaborating, spending less performance time as they became busier writers. The pair returned to Hollywood in 1947 as members of the Arthur Freed musical unit at MGM, where they worked on the scripts (and occasionally the songs) for such film hits as Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1948), The Barkeleys of Broadway (1949), The Band Wagon (1953) (which featured an ersatz Adolph Green-Betty Comden team in the form of Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray) and the immortal Singin' in the Rain (1956). For the Broadway stage, Green and Comden concocted a musical vehicle for their old Revuers cohort Judy Holliday, Bells are Ringing (1956), and also wrote the non-musical success Auntie Mame (1958). The white-maned Adolph Green has occasionally returned to movie acting with supporting roles in such films as My Favorite Year (1982); he also played the leading role of an elderly cartoonist in director Alain Resnais' I Want to Go Home (1989).