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David Hyde Pierce

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David Hyde Pierce
the 1994 Emmy Awards
OccupationActor
Years active1987-present
PartnerBrian Hargrove

David Hyde Pierce (born April 3, 1959) is an American actor, best known for his role as psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier.

Biography

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.[1] 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. [2] 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 amount of hours to become a successful concert pianist. Instead, he graduated in 1981 with a double major in English and Theatre Arts. Pierce then moved to New York City, where he worked several lesser 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.

Career

Pierce's first big television break came in the early 1990s with Norman Lear's The Powers That Be. Pierce played Theodore, a Congressman on the political comedy. 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. 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, 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 plays Meg Ryan's character's brother, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. Upon his sister's admission that she has been fantasizing about the man in Seattle, Hyde-Pierce's character replies, “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, 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 his 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.[3] He provided the voice for Drix, a cold pill in the animated comedy Osmosis Jones. In a deliberate in-joke, he has also voiced Sideshow Bob's brother, Cecil, in an episode of The Simpsons, "Brother from Another Series", in which he and Grammer essentially recreated the Niles/Frasier relationship at one point, Cecil mistakes Bart for Maris, the unseen wife of Niles on Frasier. He once again returned as Cecil in the Series 19 episode "Funeral for a Fiend". "Funeral for a Fiend was, a minor Frasier reunion, as John Mahoney, who portrayed Martin Crane, the father of Frasier and Niles Crane, provided the voice of Sideshow Bob and Cecil's father in the episode. In 2006, he 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 voicing the Tassimo coffee system, an appropriate role as his trademark character Niles Crane was known for being an excessively fussy coffee connoisseur.

In the Family Guy 100th Episode Special, one of the people being interviewed by creator Seth MacFarlane suggested erroneously that Pierce voiced the baby Stewie Griffin, a part played by MacFarlane himself. MacFarlane played along with this mistake, joking later in the episode that cancelling Family Guy would put Pierce out of a job.

Personal life

Pierce's relationship with longtime partner, television writer, director, producer Brian Hargrove, was made public in mainstream media 2007, and later confirmed by his publicist that he and Hargrove were a couple.[4][5] 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."[6]

Pierce and Hargrove live in New York and Los Angeles with two Wheaten Terriers, Maude and Mabel. Pierce is very active in fighting for research into Alzheimer's Disease, as his father and grandfather suffered from the disease. He is also a regular supporter of AIDS charities and LGBT causes.

Filmography

References

  1. ^ "David Hyde Pierce Ahnentafel". Rootsweb. 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-11.
  2. ^ "The Yaddo Medal". Saratoga Springs School District. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-08-17. Retrieved 2008-06-11.
  3. ^ Doug Jones (11 May 2007). (Interview). Interviewed by Staci Layne http://www.horror.com/php/article-1596-1.html. Retrieved 2008-06-11. {{cite interview}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)
  4. ^ The Associated Press (30 May 2007). "'Frasier' brother finds home on stage". CNN. Archived from the original on 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2008-06-11.
  5. ^ "David Hyde Pierce joins list of out gay actors". AfterElton. 30 May 2007. Retrieved 2008-06-11.
  6. ^ "Rants & Raves". The Advocate. 17 July 2007. pp. 26, issue 989. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Hyde Pierce.
Template:S-awards
Preceded by Screen Actors Guild Award
Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy Series
1996
for Frasier 		Succeeded by

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