JOHN MAHONEY

5 Feb

(20 June 1940 - 4 February 2018)

Lancashire-born actor John Mahoney, who has died from throat cancer at the age of 77, was best known for his role as Martin Crane, Kelsey Grammer’s father in the television series Frasier. When Mahoney’s sister married an American, he decided to emigrate to the US, gaining citizenship there by joining the US Army. He didn’t begin acting until he was in his forties, firstly on stage and notably for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. His film debut was in Hudson Taylor in 1981, after which he mainly appeared on television and in the occasional film. From 1987 he was in some major movies, such as Peter Yates’s Suspect and Norman Jewison’s Moonstruck (both with Cher), Polanski’s Frantic with Harrison Ford, Costa-Gavras’ Betrayed and John Sayles’s Eight Men Out. In the 1990s he was in Love Hurts, The Russia House, Barton Fink, In the Line of Fire, The Hudsucker Proxy, The American President, Primal Fear, She’s the One and The Broken Hearts Club, among many others. Frasier came along in 1993 and he played Martin until 2004. John Mahoney’s last appearance was in an episode of Foyle’s War on British television in 2015. Although he had several relationships, John Mahoney never wed because his parents’ marriage had been an unhappy one.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

JOHN MAHONEY

KENNETH HAIGH

DOROTHY MALONE