Early Life and Family Tragedies
Grammer was born in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, the son of Sally (née Cranmer), a singer, and Frank Allen Grammer, Jr., a musician and owner of a coffee shop and a bar & grill called Greer's Place. Grammer was two years old when his parents divorced. Grammer attended Pine Crest School, a private preparatory school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and later spent two years at the Juilliard School. Grammer's personal life has been affected by several tragedies: in 1968, his estranged father, whom he had seen only twice since his parents' divorce, was shot dead; in 1975, his younger sister, Karen, was abducted, raped, and murdered by spree killer Freddie Glenn; in 1980, his twin half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident; and David Angell, close friend and producer of Frasier, died in the 9/11 attacks.
Read more about this topic: Kelsey Grammer
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, family and/or tragedies:
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.... I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by the electric media—movies, Telstar, flight—far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world’s a sage.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“O comfort-killing night, image of hell,
Dim register and notary of shame,
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell,
Vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)