Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, producer, director, writer, singer and activist.

Grammer is known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the NBC sitcoms Cheers and Frasier. He has won five Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, and has also worked as a television producer, director, writer, and as a voice artist on The Simpsons as Sideshow Bob (for which he received his fifth Primetime Emmy). Grammer has been married four times and has six children.

Biography

Family
Grammer has been married four times and has six children and one grandchild as of 2014. His first marriage, to dance instructor Doreen Alderman, lasted from 1982 to 1990, although they were separated for the last six years of that period. They have one daughter, Spencer Grammer (born October 9, 1983), an actress on the CBS Daytime soap opera As the World Turns, the ABC Family show Greek, and the Adult Swim animated comedy Rick and Morty. Through Spencer, Grammer has one grandson, Spencer's son Emmett Emmanual Hesketh (born October 10, 2011).

After his divorce from Alderman, Grammer had a daughter, Kandace Greer Grammer ("Greer Grammer"; born February 15, 1992), with hair and makeup stylist Barrie Buckner. Greer is currently a cast member on MTV's show Awkward.

His second marriage, to former exotic dancer Leigh-Anne Csuhany in September 1992, lasted one year. Grammer filed for an annulment when Csuhany was three months pregnant and evicted her from their home. Grammer claimed that she was abusive and fired a gun at him.

In 1994, he met 28-year-old Tammy Baliszewski, also known as Tammy Alexander, at a bar in Manhattan Beach, California. In December 1994, they appeared together on the cover of People magazine, announcing their engagement and Grammer's substance abuse problems. They broke up in 1995.

In August 1997, Grammer married his third wife, former Playboy model Camille Donatacci. They had met on a blind date in 1996. They have a daughter, Mason Olivia (born October 24, 2001), and a son, Jude Gordon (born August 28, 2004), both born to a surrogate mother. During their marriage, several of Grammer and Donatacci's homes were featured in magazines, including ones in Malibu, California (February 2001, InStyle), Maui (May 2004, InStyle), Long Island, New York (April 2008, InStyle), Bachelor Gulch, Colorado (Architectural Digest), and Bel Air, Los Angeles (Architectural Digest). It was announced on July 1, 2010, that Donatacci had filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Grammer and Donatacci's divorce was finalized on February 10, 2011.

On August 12, 2010, Grammer announced that he was going to be a father for the fifth time with girlfriend Kayte Walsh, a British flight attendant 25 years his junior. However, in October, Grammer announced that Walsh had miscarried six weeks earlier. The couple announced their engagement in December 2010, and married at The Plaza Hotel in New York City on February 25, 2011, two weeks after the finalization of Grammer's third divorce. Grammer and Walsh have a daughter, Faith Evangeline Elisa (born July 13, 2012), and a son, Kelsey Gabriel Elias (born July 22, 2014). Faith's expected twin, a boy, died in utero.


Murder of Karen Grammer
On July 1, 1975, his younger sister, 18-year-old Karen Grammer, was abducted, raped, and murdered by Freddie Glenn. Glenn was up for parole in June 2009. In a letter to the parole board upon Glenn's hearing, Grammer (who was unable to attend the hearing as planned due to inclement weather delaying his flight) wrote:


She was my best friend and the best person I knew.....I loved my sister, Karen. I miss her. I miss her in my bones. I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her—I could not. I have never gotten over it.....It very nearly destroyed me.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey he stated that he could forgive the man if he would at least take responsibility for the crime, as they all continue to say they had no involvement. In the same interview he expressed his loss of faith for a few years after Karen's passing. Grammer subsequently forgave Glenn.
His daughter Spencer Karen Grammer was named in part for her aunt.


Sex tape lawsuit
In 1998, Grammer filed a lawsuit against Internet Entertainment Group (IEG), which Grammer claimed had stolen from his home a videotape of him having sex with a woman. IEG countersued Grammer, denying it was in possession of such a tape, and Grammer's suit was eventually dropped. IEG President Seth Warshavsky later said, "We have been presented with another Kelsey Grammer tape. But we have no plans to air it. We are still evaluating it at this time." Grammer later reflected, "Whether or not you're a celebrity—even if you're just an old slob with a video camera—you don't realize you shouldn't do it. So you throw the tape in the back of a dark closet until your old girlfriend remembers it's there because you're famous now and she's not. But if you're not prepared to do the time, don't do the crime."


Substance abuse and legal issues
Grammer has a history as a frequent abuser of alcohol. In 1988, Grammer was arrested for drunk driving and cocaine possession and sentenced to 30 days in jail. In August 1990, Grammer was arrested again for cocaine possession and was sentenced to three years' probation, fined $500, and required to perform 300 hours of community service. In January 1991, Grammer was given an additional two years' probation for violating his original probation through additional cocaine use. The cast and producers of both Frasier and Cheers held interventions to attempt to help him. Grammer's personal problems affected his work; co-star Bebe Neuwirth and writer Ken Levine cited delays with rehearsals and filming due to his erratic behavior. Writer Dan O'Shannon recalled, however, that


He would ooze into the studio, his life all out of sorts. Jimmy would say "Action," and he would snap into Frasier and expound in this very erudite dialogue and be pitch-perfect. And Jimmy would yell "Cut!" and he would ooze back into Kelsey—glazed-over eyes, half asleep, going through whatever he was going through. It was the most amazing transformation I'd ever seen.

In 1995, Grammer was sued by ex-girlfriend Cerlette Lamme for defamation of character and invasion of privacy over content he included in his autobiography So Far. In September 1996, he crashed his Dodge Viper while intoxicated, and subsequently checked into the Betty Ford Center (an alcohol rehabilitation clinic) for 30 days.

In August 2008, Bradley Blakeman, a former aide to George W. Bush, filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court on Long Island over Grammer's movie Swing Vote, claiming that parts of its plot and marketing had been stolen from him. The lawsuit claimed that Blakeman had given a copyrighted screenplay called Go November to Grammer in 2006, and that Grammer agreed to develop the project and star as a Republican president but instead ended up playing a similar role in Swing Vote, which was released on August 1, 2008. Grammer's spokesman dismissed the claims as "frivolous" and a "waste of time". The lawsuit claims that Blakeman's copyrighted screenplay had the same basic plot as Swing Vote.


Health problems
On May 31, 2008, while paddleboarding with his then-wife Camille in Hawaii, Grammer experienced symptoms of a heart attack. After being hospitalized, it was confirmed that he had experienced a heart attack. He was released on June 4, 2008, and was said to be "resting comfortably" at his Hawaiian residence. Seven weeks after the attack, Grammer told Entertainment Tonight that, although at the time his spokesman described the attack as mild, it was in fact more severe, almost leading to his death, as his heart had stopped. Grammer thought Fox's decision to cancel his TV sitcom Back to You contributed to his health problems, stating that "It was a very stressful time for me, and a surprise that it was cancelled. But you know, everything that doesn't kill us—which it almost did—makes us stronger!".

On June 28, 2008, Grammer checked into an undisclosed Manhattan hospital after complaints of feeling faint. Other reports said Grammer was hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat. His publicist said that it may have been due to a reaction to medication.


Politics

Grammer is a member of the Republican Party and has expressed an interest in someday running for United States Congress. He is also interested in running for Mayor of New York. Grammer was a guest at President George W. Bush's first inauguration. Grammer endorsed Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential primary and later campaigned for John McCain in the general election. Grammer promotes RightNetwork, a conservative start-up American television network. He endorsed Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. After Mitt Romney won the nomination, Grammer endorsed him.

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