David Hyde Pierce (born
April 3, 1959) is an American
actor and comedian, best known
for his role as psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the NBC
sitcom Frasier.
Early life
Pierce was
born in Saratoga
Springs
, New
York
, the youngest child of Laura Marie (née Hughes) and George Hyde Pierce,
who was an insurance agent and aspiring actor. He has two
older sisters, Barbara and Nancy, and an older brother,
Thomas.
As a child he became very interested in the piano and frequently
played organ at the local Bethesda
Episcopal
Church in Saratoga Springs. He began acting in high school and
was recognized as best Dramatic Arts student. He also received the
Yaddo Medal for character and scholarship in
1977, and worked in theater while a counselor at Camp Kabeyun, in
New Hampshire.
However, his love of music was still strong,
so he decided to study classical piano at Yale University
. Unfortunately, he soon grew bored with
music history lessons and found that he wasn’t dedicated enough to
practice the required number of hours to become a successful
concert pianist. Instead, he graduated in 1981 with a double major
in
English and
Theatre Arts.
At
Yale
University, Pierce
performed and directed student productions, appearing as Sir Joseph
Porter, K.C.B., in the Yale Gilbert & Sullivan Society's
production of H.M.S.
Pinafore; for the same
society, he directed the operetta
Princess Ida, and occasionally accompanied
rehearsals on the piano. Other roles he played as a student at Yale
include Vladimir in
Waiting for
Godot, Cauchon in
Saint
Joan, and Nick in
Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?.
Pierce
then moved to New York
City
, where he worked several jobs including selling
ties at Bloomingdale's and working as
a security guard while acting in the theater during the late 1980s
and early 1990s and studying at Michael Howard Studios. During
this period, he portrayed Laertes in a popular off-Broadway
production of
Hamlet.
Career
Pierce at the 1994 Emmy Awards
Pierce's first big television break came when in the early 1990s
with
Norman Lear's political comedy
The Powers That
Be. Pierce played Theodore, a Congressman. Despite
positive reviews from critics, the show was cancelled after a brief
run.
Pierce has commented in interviews that the cancellation came as a
shock to him and that he was very disappointed the show did not
continue. His career would soon, however, take off with a role on
another sitcom. In part because of his physical resemblance to
Kelsey Grammer, the role of Niles
Crane on the
Cheers spin-off Frasier was created for him. For this role,
Pierce was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor
Emmy for a record eleven consecutive years,
winning in 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2004. For the last few years of the
run of the show, it's speculated that Pierce was paid up to US$1
million per episode.
Pierce also acts in movies from time to time. He appeared alongside
Jodie Foster in
Little Man Tate, with
Anthony Hopkins in
Oliver Stone's
Nixon, and alongside
Ewan McGregor in
Down With Love. He also provided the
voice for Doctor Doppler in
Disney's 42nd
animated feature
Treasure
Planet, Slim, a
stick insect in
Pixar's
A Bug's
Life and
Abe Sapien in
Guillermo del Toro's
Hellboy.
In his role in
Sleepless in
Seattle, Pierce played Meg Ryan's character's brother, a
professor at the
Johns Hopkins
University.
Upon his sister's admission that she had been
fantasizing about the man in Seattle
,
Hyde-Pierce's character replied, “It rains nine months of the year
in Seattle.” This was roughly one year before the start of
Frasier.
In 2005, Pierce joined
Tim Curry and
others in the stage production
Spamalot. In August/September 2006, he starred in
Curtains as Lietenant
Frank Cioffi, a new Kander and Ebb musical at the Ahmanson
Theatre in Los
Angeles
, which transferred to Broadway
in March
2007. On
June 10,
2007 Pierce won the
Tony
Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical at
the 61st
Tony Awards for his role in
Curtains. On November 19,
2007, Pierce was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from Niagara
University
in Lewiston, New York
.
In his Tony acceptance speech for "Curtains," he said the first
words he spoke on a Broadway stage were 'I'm sorry, I'm going to
have to ask you to leave."
Voice acting
Pierce has a distinctive voice and, like his
Frasier co-star Kelsey Grammer, is often called
upon to provide voice work. Some of his more notable roles in this
calling include the
walking stick insect
Slim in
A Bug's Life, Doctor
Delbert Doppler in Disney's film
Treasure Planet, and the
amphibian
Abe Sapien in
Hellboy. Pierce refused credit for his
Hellboy role, because he felt that it was the performance
of
Doug Jones, and not his own
voice, which ultimately brought the character of Abe Sapien to
life. He provided the voice for Drix, a cold pill in the animated
comedy
Osmosis Jones. In a
deliberate in-joke, he has also voiced
Cecil, the brother of Kelsey Grammer-voiced
Sideshow Bob, in
The Simpsons episode "
Brother from Another Series," in
which the two characters parallel the Frasier-Niles relationship.
At one point, Cecil mistook Bart for Maris, the unseen wife of
Niles on
Frasier. He once again returned as Cecil in the
Season 19 episode "
Funeral for a
Fiend," this time also joined by
Frasier co-star
John Mahoney, who provided the voice of
Bob and Cecil's father in the episode, mirroring his role as
Martin Crane.
In 2006, Pierce co-starred in the animated pilot for
The Amazing Screw-On Head as
the Screw-On Head's arch-nemesis Emperor Zombie; however, the
series was not picked up. His commercial voiceover work includes
ads for the
Tassimo coffee system and home
furnishings retailer
IKEA Canada.
Personal life
After years of speculation about his sexuality, his relationship
with long-time
partner, television
writer, director and producer
Brian
Hargrove was made public in 2007. Pierce later confirmed,
through his publicist, that he and Hargrove were indeed a
couple.
When accepting his Tony Award for
Curtains, Pierce thanked "my
partner, Brian, because it's 24 years of listening to your damn
notes — that's why I'm up here tonight." He and Hargrove were
married in California on October 24, 2008, just before
Proposition 8 was adopted as
law, banning same-sex marriages in the state. They live in New York
and Los Angeles.
On May 28, 2009, while he was a guest on
The View, he publicly announced his marriage
to Hargrove and expressed his anger over the Proposition 8
ruling.
Filmography
References
- Barbara S Wilson, Arlene Flancher, and Susan T Erdey, The
Episcopal Handbook (Moorhouse [Church] Publishing 2008), pp.
106-107, ISBN 978-0819223296.
- Show Person: the David Hyde Pierce website
- AP staff report, "David Hyde Pierce says he married longtime
partner," May 29, 2009. Found at yahoo news. Accessed May 29, 2009.
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