Tragic Details About Kelsey Grammer

The following article includes references to alcoholism and substance abuse.

Kelsey Grammer has been one of television's biggest stars for decades, first coming to fame in the role of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on beloved sitcom "Cheers." That fame grew even larger when he reprised the character in a solo spinoff, "Frasier," ultimately playing the role for 20 continuous years. 

While Grammer has brought laughter to television viewers laughter since the 1980s, his personal life has been characterized by tragedy. That has included the deaths of several loved ones, multiple divorces, a terrifying health crisis, and a well-publicized battle with substance abuse. That said, he's emerged from these travails with the inner strength and wisdom that can only come about from experiencing adversity. Asked what he'd learned from all those tragic events, he told Vanity Fair, "That every one of us is going to experience some terrible loss. I just got a big dose. For every story you hear that's tragic, there's another that's equally tragic or more so. I think you come to look at it as part of life."

Let's dive into the tragic details about Kelsey Grammer's life.

Kelsey Grammer's early years were characterized by instability due to his parents divorcing when he was two. His mother took young Kelsey and his sister, Karen, to live with her parents. While there, the siblings were raised by their mother and their grandfather, Gordon Cranmer. Grammer and his grandfather were close because of their living situation. That tightly-knit relationship made it all the more painful when Grammer lost his grandfather to cancer when he was just 12 years old. "Yeah, it was Gordon that, you know, put the foundation of what it was to be a man," Grammer recalled during a 2004 interview with broadcast journalist Katie Couric for NBC News.

Decades later, Grammer figured out a way to honor his late grandfather onscreen when he played a WWII-era soldier in the film "Murder Company." "My granddad was in World War II and served, and he raised me," Grammer revealed during an interview with Yahoo! Canada. "So I have a real energetic connection to him that carries on to this day."

In April 1968, 13-year-old Kelsey Grammer experienced another tragedy. His father, Allen Grammer, had remarried and started a new family and was now living in St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One night, he heard what sounded like a trespasser outside his home and went to investigate. His wife, Elizabeth, told People that she heard a gunshot and then her husband yelling, "Call the police! I've been shot!" She then heard gunfire a second time before finding her husband lying on the ground, dead.

The assailant was identified as Black taxi driver Arthur Bevan Niles, who'd previously captured the attention of police by covering his cab with anti-white statements, including, "Kill the white pigs." Grammer, a magazine publisher who'd lived in St. Thomas since 1954, was described as "one of the island's most controversial figures" due to sharing his sometimes unpopular opinions in his magazine. According to the report, Niles started a fire to deliberately lure Grammer out of his house with the intent to kill him.

"A man who was proven to be, at least in court, of questionable sanity, I suppose, lit a ring of fire around his house, and as my father came down to investigate what was going on, he ... shot him several times and, uh, dad died," Kelsey Grammer recalled while appearing on E! series "Celebrity Profile."

Kelsey Grammer's talent for acting emerged during his teenage years. After graduating from high school, he was accepted into the Juilliard School in New York City on a scholarship. The opportunity to study at such a prestigious institution — famous Juilliard alumni include the likes of legendary queen of soul Aretha Franklin, actor Jessica Chastain, late comedian Robin Williams, and many more — was something Grammer treasured. However, he struggled to afford living in New York.

He went for a time without a home, sleeping in Central Park when the weather allowed. "Only for a few weeks, really," he recalled in an interview with "In Depth with Graham Bensinger." "But I could sneak behind a certain bush and cover myself in newspaper, and I was fine," he added. Grammer insisted he never felt he was in danger and compared the experience to the camping trips he went on as a child. "Whatever it was, there was always something that kept me safe."

Despite the hardships he faced, Grammer maintained a resolute faith that he would eventually become a successful actor. "I had complete trust that I was going to make it," Grammer told Us Weekly during a 1997 interview. "Not an arrogance, just a faith. I knew I was on the right path."

Sadly, Grammer's time at Juilliard was cut short when he was expelled after just two years because he demonstrated a "lack of focus." One underlying reason behind that was the loss of his sister, Karen, when she was 18. She'd been waiting tables at a restaurant in Colorado Springs when she was abducted by three men who'd been casing the place in order to rob it. She was raped and murdered, with one of the men slitting her throat and then stabbing her. "That was the worst part of my life," Grammer said, per People. As his first wife, Cerlette Lammé, told the magazine, he continued to be haunted by his sister's brutal murder. "He still cries about her," she said. "I don't know if he blames himself, but sometimes I think he wishes he could have been there to save her."
The man who murdered his sister was serial killer Freddie Glenn, who was subsequently jailed after embarking on a killing spree. Over the years, Grammer successfully blocked Glenn from being released whenever he came up for parole. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Grammer admitted he continued to feel guilt over his sister's death, even though he knew intellectually that she shouldn't. "It's hard to explain. It's not rational," he said. "But it happens anyway. I know a lot of people who've lost their siblings and blame themselves."

While the murder of his sister has continued to haunt Kelsey Grammer throughout his life, it wasn't the only tragedy he faced with a sibling. In June of 1980, Grammer's half-brothers, Billy and Stephen, were scuba diving off the coast of St. Thomas. At one point, Billy rose to the surface, but Stephen didn't. Panicked that something had happened, Billy dove under the water to search for his brother. When he ascended to the surface too quickly, he suffered an embolism that killed him instantly. Stephen's body was never recovered; their mother believed he was attacked by sharks, and his body was consumed.

Like others Grammer had gone through, those deaths left him with a lingering pain that he tries to forget about — but not always successfully. "I just put [that pain] where it is: in the past," Grammer disclosed in an interview with inews.co.uk. "But it's a pain that you can always stumble into again — it's with you 24/7, especially in the case of tragic death, and there have been a few of those."

As difficult as it had been, however, Grammer has been forced to carry that grief with him on his journey. "It's just part of life," he explained. "Maybe I learnt a little earlier than most, but it's just the way it goes."

Kelsey Grammer developed a taste for alcohol at a young age, taking his first drink at age nine. By the time he'd achieved stardom via his role as Dr. Frasier Crane on "Cheers," his rampant substance abuse had made him a tabloid fixture. For example, Grammer made headlines in 1987 after being arrested for driving under the influence and then the following year when he was charged with possession of cocaine.

In 1990, an arrest warrant was issued for Grammer, because he hadn't completed the mandatory 10 days of community service and an alcohol-abuse program resulting from those previous arrests. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 10 days collecting trash from the side of a California highway. According to Ted Danson, Grammer's "Cheers" co-star at the time, he and other cast members staged an intervention. "I remember the intervention only worked so-so," Danson jokingly told Us Weekly. "But going to jail worked great."

Looking back at those dark days, Grammer could see a straight line between his sister's murder and his own substance abuse. I'll speak to the straight of it," Grammer told Vanity Fair. "That was the time when I could not forgive myself for my sister's death."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

In 1992, Kelsey Grammer married Leigh-Anne Csuhany, a 22-year-old former exotic dancer he'd met in a strip club. This was far from a match made in heaven; less than a year after exchanging vows, Grammer sought to have the marriage annulled. At the time they split up, Csuhany was three months pregnant, and Grammer asked for custody of their unborn child. He then got a court order demanding that she leave his home; several days later, she was found in a Malibu hotel room after a reported suicide attempt, leaving a note that reportedly read, "[Kelsey] doesn't love me." She was placed under psychiatric observation and then terminated the pregnancy.
In his 1995 memoir, "So Far...," Grammer revealed the marriage imploded because of Csuhany's abusive treatment. "To be sure I'd never leave her, Leigh-Anne had to convince me I was nothing: unattractive, untalented, undeserving of love, and incapable of being loved by anyone but her," he wrote. "She'd spit in my face, slap me, punch me, kick me, break glasses over my head, break windows, tear up pictures of my loved ones, threaten to kill me or herself."
Csuhany refused to accept the annulment, which would essentially prevent her from making any claim to their shared property, as a divorce would. The marriage was eventually annulled; Grammer was ordered to pay Csuhany $7,500 in monthly spousal support.

During the first half of the 1990s, Kelsey Grammer's substance abuse ebbed and flowed. In the fall of 1996, however, Grammer's drinking and drug use had reached a critical mass. Shortly after NBC gifted him a brand-new Dodge Viper, he demolished the sports car in an accident, flipping it while driving. Given the extent of the damage, Grammer was lucky to escape with his life, suffering only some bruises and a cut to his forehead. The California Highway Patrol sought DUI charges against the actor.
The following day, Grammer checked himself into the Betty Ford Center, which resulted in his sitcom, "Frasier," going on an unexpected hiatus. Prosecutors ultimately declined to charge him with drunk driving due to a lack of evidence; instead, he was charged with driving with an expired license, a misdemeanor.
During his time in rehab, Grammer was forced to confront the guilt he still felt about his sister's murder and the role it played in his substance abuse. "My biggest disappointment was me," he told Katie Couric for NBC News. "But it was mostly because I couldn't save my sister. That's what happened. I couldn't save her. And as it turned out, I couldn't save anyone else. And it became a mounting frustration. And they helped me discover that I wasn't going to be much good to anybody unless I could figure out how to save me."

One day in 2008, while paddleboarding in Hawaii, Kelsey Grammer suddenly experienced severe chest pains. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors confirmed that he'd suffered a heart attack. While initial reports described it as mild, Grammer revealed how close he'd come to death during a subsequent interview with "Entertainment Tonight."

According to Grammer, his heart had stopped and needed to be shocked back into beating. "They had to blast me twice and get me started all over again," he said, describing the pain he experienced as feeling "like somebody was actually trying to tear my chest apart with, like, the jaws of life" (via Reuters). Grammer felt his life ebbing away and realized he wasn't ready to go. "As I lay there dying, I said, 'Please, I cannot do this ... I don't want to see any light — I don't want to have any little adventures that make me want to get out of this life. I need to finish this one,'" he added (via Exposay).

Looking back on his near-fatal heart attack during an appearance on "Oprah's Next Chapter," Grammer revealed that he'd come to see the experience as a positive one. "It was a good thing in my life," he said, per the Toronto Sun. "It was the physical manifestation of whatever lesson was being taught to me, which was you better fix [your life] now ... And it was time I thought I had to change a few patterns."

Kelsey Grammer tied the knot for a third time in 1997, marrying Camille Donatacci, a former dancer and Playboy Playmate. After more than a decade, Camille — who opted to keep the name Grammer after their split – filed for divorce in 2010.

Years later, Grammer had some harsh words to say about his ex-wife Camille — who'd gained her own degree of fame via the cast of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" — in a 2019 interview with "In Depth with Graham Bensinger." "My previous marriage, and, you know, honestly, I don't really talk about her very much because, you know, so much of her life is spent talking about me, and I just think it's sort of pathetic," he said. He then shared some shocking allegations surrounding the events leading up to their split. "A month after I had a heart attack, my mother died ... the day of my mother's funeral, my third wife basically had an explosion about something," he added, recalling how she complained about being sick of the relationship, demanding a divorce. According to Grammer, they'd had that same conversation numerous times over the years, and he'd finally had enough. "I realized at that moment that I was done with her," he said. His former spouse denied that account. "This is not true," she posted on X, formerly Twitter. "It's unfortunate that he is rewriting history."

When the dust settled, it cost Grammer a cool $30 million to part ways with Camille.

Prior to his divorce from his third wife Camille Grammer, Kelsey Grammer met Kayte Walsh, a flight attendant, during a flight to London. The ink on his divorce hadn't even dried when he made a fourth attempt at matrimony, marrying Walsh in 2011 after about a year of dating. By all accounts, the fourth time proved to be the charm, with the couple remaining happily married for over a decade as of this writing.

The couple's attempts at starting a family were sadly unsuccessful. "Kayte and I had a couple of miscarriages before we had our first child. That was devastating," Grammer divulged in an interview with inews.co.uk. There was, however, a happy ending. The two eventually had three children, daughter Faith and sons Kelsey Gabriel and Auden. "These things are hard," he said of him and his wife going through those miscarriages together. "But when it's good," he added, "it's magnificent."

The arrival of daughter Faith, however, was tinged with tragedy; they'd been expecting twins but lost the other baby, a boy, early in the pregnancy. The couple didn't reveal that until announcing Faith's birth. "It was unspeakably painful and we know that people will understand our desire to keep the news private," they said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "A glorious birth with a lingering sadness is ours today."

Kelsey Grammer lost both his father and grandfather at such a young age, so it's easy to see why he developed a father-son relationship with actor John Mahoney, who played his character's dad on "Frasier." When Mahoney died at age 77 in 2018, Grammer addressed the loss while appearing on the daytime show "The Talk." "John actually played my father longer than I knew my own father, so he was more like my dad," Grammer said while fighting back tears.

"I had the same relationship with David Hyde Pierce as my brother," Grammer said of the actor who portrayed Frasier Crane's brother, Niles. "So it was an interesting thing that we got to explore what it would have been like to have those relationships," Grammer said, adding, "I miss him."

When Grammer returned to his most famous role in the 2023 reboot of "Frasier," he honored his TV dad by naming the bar frequented by Frasier and his pals Mahoney's. "I just thought, well, we can't do the show again without honoring John, we just can't," a tearful Grammer said during an appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show."