John Mahoney

John Mahoney
Mahoney in 1994
Born	(1940-06-20) 20 June 1940 (age 76) Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Citizenship	British and American
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1977–present

John Mahoney (born 20 June 1940) is a British-American actor. Born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, Mahoney started his career on the stage in 1977 as the body double for Steve McQueen and moved into film in 1980. He played Martin Crane in the American sitcom Frasier on NBC from 1993 to 2004. He has also worked as a voice actor, and performed on Broadway and in Chicago theatre.

Mahoney, the seventh of eight children, was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The family was evacuated to Blackpool from the Mahoneys' home city of Manchester, when it was heavily bombed during the Second World War. He started school at St Joseph's College, Blackpool. After the war, the Mahoneys moved back to Manchester. Mahoney grew up in the Withington area of the city and discovered acting at the Stretford Children's Theatre. His Irish father, Reg, was a baker who played classical piano, and his mother, Margaret, was a housewife who loved reading. His parents' marriage was not happy and they either would not speak to each other or have heated arguments. The family situation combined with the war fueled Mahoney's interest in acting and he vowed to leave Manchester. Mahoney moved to the United States as a young man when his older sister, Vera, a war bride living in rural Illinois, agreed to sponsor him. He studied at Quincy University, Illinois, before joining the United States Army to speed up the U.S. citizenship process; he received citizenship in 1959. He lived in Macomb, Illinois, and taught English at Western Illinois University in the early 1970s, before settling in Forest Park, Illinois, and later in Oak Park, Illinois. He served as editor of a medical journal through much of the decade.