DAVID HYDE PIERCE
Name: David Hyde Pierce.
Born: 3 April 1959 Saratoga Springs, New York, United States
David Hyde Pierce (born April 3, 1959) is a Screen Actors Guild, Tony and Emmy
Award-winning American actor, best known for his co-starring role as
psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier alongside Kelsey Grammer.
Pierce was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, the youngest child of George Hyde
Pierce, an insurance agent and aspiring actor, and Laura Marie Hughes. 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, 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 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 menial 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.
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, the walking stick 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 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.
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 (of note is the fact that Pierce refused credit for his Hellboy role,
because he felt that it was Doug Jones’ performance, 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 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, in fact, 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.
On February 3rd 2008 reports speculated Pierce was in preliminary talks with
Warner Brothers pictures over the possibility of playing Batman villain The
Riddler in any future sequels to the movie series. These reports are, as of yet,
uncomfirmed.
Name: David Hyde Pierce.
Born: 3 April 1959 Saratoga Springs, New York, United States
David Hyde Pierce (born April 3, 1959) is a Screen Actors Guild, Tony and Emmy
Award-winning American actor, best known for his co-starring role as
psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier alongside Kelsey Grammer.
Pierce was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, the youngest child of George Hyde
Pierce, an insurance agent and aspiring actor, and Laura Marie Hughes. 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, 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 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 menial 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.
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, the walking stick 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 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.
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 (of note is the fact that Pierce refused credit for his Hellboy role,
because he felt that it was Doug Jones’ performance, 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 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, in fact, 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.
On February 3rd 2008 reports speculated Pierce was in preliminary talks with
Warner Brothers pictures over the possibility of playing Batman villain The
Riddler in any future sequels to the movie series. These reports are, as of yet,
uncomfirmed.