ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607090011
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: BOB THOMAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
It's strange sometimes how actors land Emmy-winning roles. David Hyde Pierce got his because he resembled Kelsey Grammer.
As fate would have it, casting director Sheila Guthrie submitted a photo of Pierce for a new series to be based on the character Grammer had created on ``Cheers.'' The show would be called ``Frasier.''
``If you're ever going to have a brother for Frasier,'' she told the producers, ``this guy looks like him.''
At the time, Pierce relates, executive producers and series creators David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee were not planning a brother for the pompous psychiatrist Frasier. They had created ``Wings,'' which had a supply of brothers.
``They didn't know my work,'' Pierce recalled. ``So Sheila showed them some videotapes of `The Powers That Be,' which was another NBC show that I had done. The seven people who saw it remember it very fondly.
``The producers seemed interested, so I met with them and casting director Jeff Greenberg for a half-hour to 45 minutes. We just talked.
``Afterwards, I called my agent and said it went pretty well. She said, `It must have gone well, because they offered you the part.' But there wasn't a part, which is the strange thing.''
With a month to go before pilot time, the producers created the role of Frasier's sibling psychiatrist Niles, an intelligent, snobbish man with a bad marriage (his aloof wife Maris is never seen on the show).
The role won Pierce an Emmy for best supporting actor at the last awards. He cherishes even more the Screen Actors Guild award he just received, since it is bestowed by his fellow performers.
Grammer and Pierce became acquainted in 1983 when both were appearing in plays at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn. At that time, their resemblance was profound.
``I remember walking into the room where the two casts of our shows were having dinner,'' Pierce said. ``I saw him sitting down and thought I was already eating.''
``Frasier'' will be entering its fourth season this fall and, once again, it will be pitted against ABC's monster hit ``Home Improvement.''
``When we moved to Tuesday night, the question was: `What's going to happen? Is ``Frasier'' going down the tubes, or is it going to wipe ``Home Improvement'' off the face of the earth?'
``Neither thing happened. There's actually enough audience to make us all happy. And send us into syndication, which really makes us all happy.''
Pierce enjoyed a happy childhood in the resort town of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The youngest of four children, he became the ``black sheep'' in his family by going to Yale - the others went to Brown. At first, he dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but he tired of being a music major and turned to theater arts and English.
After graduation, he headed for New York, supporting his acting lessons by selling ties at Bloomingdales.
``I was the worst,'' he confessed. ``I am so much not a salesman that it boggles the mind. It was Christmas time, so the only people buying ties were unhappy, desperate people who hadn't been able to find what they really wanted. I was miserable, and I had to push these jelly-bean ties, because Ronald Reagan was president.
``I loathed every minute of it. When Christmas was over and they asked some temporary help to stay, they didn't ask me. I was devastated.''
It was a good lesson in how to cope with rejection, something all young actors must face. Pierce was luckier than most, working at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the New York Shakespeare Festival and elsewhere.
His Broadway break came with ``The Heidi Chronicles.'' That helped bring him roles in such films as ``Little Man Tate,'' ``The Fisher King,'' ``Sleepless in Seattle'' (as Meg Ryan's stuffy brother), ``Wolf'' and ``Nixon'' (as John Dean).
How much longer will he stay with ``Frasier''?
``I think we're all contracted for six years,'' he said. ``If the writing holds up, I think we'll make it.''
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