Kelsey Grammer has confirmed that the upcoming Frasier revival will honor his former co-star, John Mahoney, who played the popular patriarch Martin Crane in the NBC comedy series.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Grammer said, “[Mahoney’s] loss is and was devastating and must be given the proper attention in honor of the extraordinary man he was and the contribution he made to the show and to the acting profession. We will most certainly be honoring him according to his merit. A man of merit he remains to this day.”
Mahoney died on February 4, 2018, following complications from throat cancer. He was 77 years old. The beloved actor starred in all 11 seasons of the hit sitcom and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role in 2000.
“John was a kind man, and the world cannot afford to lose a kind man at any time,” Grammer added.
The upcoming sequel series will air on Paramount+ and comes from writers Chris Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Joe Cristalli (Life In Pieces). The 10-episode series will see Grammer reprise his role as the uptight radio psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane, who, in the original series, returns to his hometown of Seattle after the end of his marriage and life in Boston, as it was seen in Cheers.
Further casting details have yet to be announced, but it has previously been reported that David Hyde Pierce, who played Frasier’s younger brother Niles Crane, has been approached.
Grammer, meanwhile, made it clear that the new Frasier is not a reboot, saying, “Frasier, in his third or fourth act, is not a reboot, but a new show centered around the character in a new set of circumstances and a new city.”
Frasier, TBA, Paramount+