The following are significant members of the Crane family, excluding Frasier, Martin, Niles, and Daphne Crane. Although most of the series revolves around Frasier Crane and his immediate family, occasionally members of Frasier's extended family appear. These are listed below.
David Crane David is
Niles' and
Daphne's son. He was born in the two-part episode "
Goodnight, Seattle". During Daphne's pregnancy, it is implied he takes very much after his low-brow maternal uncles (Daphne's brothers); for example, he kicks away classical music and jumps at the mention of a pub. He was born in a veterinary clinic and is named after show's creator
David Angell, who died along with his wife Lynn aboard
American Airlines Flight 11 during the
September 11, 2001 attacks. David appears in the
2023 version of Frasier as a main character, played by Anders Keith. He is now attending
Harvard University, following in the footsteps of his father and uncle by studying psychology. He has inherited his father's mannerisms and neuroses, but his mother's optimistic outlook and cheerful attitude. In the revival show, David is depicted to be very intelligent like his father, uncle and cousin Frederick, to the point of
straight A student, as he is shown having an existential crisis after Frasier gives him a B on a paper, saying he's never gotten a B before, and claiming that Niles would threaten to send him to a "trade school" (what Niles calls
University of Pennsylvania). Frasier allows him to do a rewrite, which he does (with help from Frederick), upon which Frasier would grade it and average the two grades together. However, for the second essay, David only gets a B−, so he shows up at Frasier's apartment and threatens to throw him out of a window, saying "I'm not explaining a B to my father!" When Frasier is stung by a bee, David agrees to give him his
EpiPen only if he agrees to listen to his oral defense. Frasier agrees, but after listening, only agrees to give him a B+. Later, horrified that he nearly harmed his uncle, David decides to atone for his actions by dropping out of Harvard. Frederick visits him and they briefly discuss "the Crane Curse", of Frasier and Niles always putting high pressure on their sons' academic achievements, and that for the Cranes, "there's always a shinier object just out of reach" and "always having to get the highest grade and win every award". However, Frederick asks David if he's happy at Harvard despite the high expectations placed upon him, and when David says he is, Frederick convinces him not to drop out.
Eddie Eddie (born May 15, 1990) is a male
Jack Russell Terrier. Eddie was originally played by
Moose, and later by Moose's son,
Enzo. Eddie is known for responding to Martin and Daphne with human-like understanding, and often seems to taunt Frasier. In one episode, "
Three Dates and a Break Up", Eddie eats the meals Frasier prepared for his dates as if he, Eddie, knew that Frasier's dates would not be staying for dinner. An early recurring
gag had Eddie staring unceasingly at Frasier, often wanting something, to Frasier's increasing annoyance. Frasier's ex-wife Lilith is the only one who scares Eddie, and whenever she is around, Eddie does exactly as Lilith says. In a flashback in the episode "
The Return of Martin Crane", Martin (shortly before being shot) is shown having just bought a goldfish named "Eddie". His partner suggests that he should have got himself a dog instead, to which Martin responds that he is not a dog person. In the series finale, "
Goodnight, Seattle", Martin mistakenly reserves the date of a wedding venue, not on the intended day of July 15, but on May 15 - Eddie's Birthday.
Frederick Crane Frederick Gaylord Crane (born October 1989; played by twins Christopher and Kevin Graves in
Cheers,
Luke Tarsitano in 1995,
Trevor Einhorn from 1996 to 2003, and
Jack Cutmore-Scott in 2023) is the son of Frasier and
Lilith Sternin. "Freddy" was born in the
Cheers episode "The Stork Brings A Crane"; he appears in several episodes throughout the show's run. In the episode "Breaking In Is Hard to Do", which aired a year after his birth episode, he speaks his first word: "
Norm!" He lives with his mother in Boston but often comes to visit Frasier in Seattle on the holidays. Through his mother, he is Jewish; his
bar mitzvah was most notable for his mother's emotional breakdown and his father's ill-advised attempt to make a speech in Hebrew (but in fact in
Klingon) (as seen in the tenth-season episode "
Star Mitzvah", which reveals Freddy's middle name, Gaylord). In his first appearance, he has Lilith's hair color, but when he returns, he has Frasier's. Frederick was born during
Cheers' eighth-season episode "The Stork Brings a Crane". He was delivered in a taxicab while Lilith was on her way home from the hospital after an episode of
false labor. Lilith tolerated the pain by biting down on one of the cab driver's
fuzzy dice. Initially, his personality is very undeveloped since he is just a small child. In early seasons, he is portrayed as having numerous rather debilitating allergies and being rather inexpert when faced with a number of more or less mundane social situations (as seen in the fourth-season episode "
A Lilith Thanksgiving"). He is known to be intelligent, achieving high academic scores, and is accepted to the Marbury Academy, an exclusive Boston private school. In addition to his intelligence, he shares several family traits, including a talent for chess and his mother's talent at Machiavellian scheming based on an understanding of behaviorist psychology. He shares his Uncle
Niles's lack of coordination and his spelling skill, becoming one of the two final contestants on the
National Spelling Championship. As he gets older, more traits begin to develop. At around seven, he develops a crush on Daphne, much to Niles's jealousy. As he gets older, he begins to get somewhat spoiled and surly and enjoys Frasier's company less and less, prompting Frasier to fear a growing
generation gap, particularly when Freddy becomes a
goth, but father and son are able to bond over their mutual bad luck with the opposite gender. At the end of the series, he is 15 years old. Frederick's chronologically last appearance in the
Cheers/
Frasier universe is during the epilogue of the tenth-season
Cheers episode "I'm Okay, You're Defective", described as taking place "many years later". It shows an older Lilith and adult Frederick (played by Rob Neukirch) sitting for the reading of Frasier's will. Frederick appears in the
2023 version of Frasier as a main character, played by
Jack Cutmore-Scott. Sometime since the ending of the original series, Frederick, now going by Freddy, was accepted to and dropped out of Harvard, deciding he didn't fit in. He instead took after his grandfather and entered civil service as a firefighter. He missed Martin's funeral because he was suffering from survivor's guilt following the death of his best friend, a fellow firefighter, and has moved in with his friend's girlfriend and infant son to help them financially. Frasier gives him the flag that flew over the Washington State House in honor of Martin. Soon after, he is persuaded to move in with Frasier after the latter buys their apartment building.
Hester Crane Dr. Hester Rose Crane, MD (née Palmer; played by
Nancy Marchand in
Cheers,
Rita Wilson in
Frasier) was Martin's wife and
Niles's and
Frasier's mother. By the time the
series begins, she has been dead for approximately six years. Hester Crane died in 1987 of lung cancer. As they did not know better in the 1950s, Hester smoked during at least her first pregnancy. Hester had an affair with a family friend when Frasier and Niles were still children, and she and Martin were subsequently separated for a time. Hester was the inspiration for both Frasier and Niles to go into the profession. She named her two sons after favorite
lab rats. Both her sons take after her more than they do their father, being
intellectually pompous, which causes Roz and Martin — especially given her infidelity — to consider that Hester's one-time lab assistant Leland Barton (
David Ogden Stiers) might be the boys' biological father. (Without knowing Martin's concerns, Barton reveals he is gay, implying he is not their father). For example,
Frasier and
Niles quote her as saying "a handshake is as good as a hug." When his snobbish sons embarrass him at "The Timber Mill", a rustic
steakhouse chosen by Martin, Martin points out that his wife "may have had fancy tastes, but she had too much class to ever make me or anybody else feel second-rate", and was willing to eat hot dogs and watch ballgames with him. While her sons mostly took after her, certain aspects come from neither Hester nor Martin. According to Martin, both he and Hester always hated sherry, which Frasier and Niles love. as well as spoiled, dominating, and neurotic. Many of the characters pointedly dislike her (to Niles' consternation), with Frasier contributing in the show's first episode, "I like her from a distance. You know, the way you like the sun. Maris is like the sun ... except without the warmth". As a child, Maris was
overweight, but started losing weight and soon became very thin. She is described as small, very pale, and pathologically emaciated; Roz originally mistook her for a hat rack, and Niles noted that she once sat on a
whoopee cushion without setting it off. Her bodyweight is too low to open automatic doors that are activated by a person. According to Niles, she also likes to speak in a fictional language called "G-speak" at parties, something she shares with her Aunt Patrice as mentioned in Season One. She is also mentioned as having a sister named Bree who was born with only one nostril (whom Frasier once went on a disastrous date with). Maris lived in her family's
mansion, which has been in the family for four generations. She claimed they made their fortune from timber, though Niles divorce lawyer discovers it actually came from
urinal cakes. She met Niles during his
internship in
Seattle when he stopped to help her as she was banging on the
electric gates to get into her home. They were married three years later, in 1986. Maris makes only two onscreen "appearances": once in the episode "Voyage of the Damned" when her shadow is seen through a shower curtain (she is spoken to but makes no reply), and again in "
Rooms with a View", where she appears in Niles' memory, almost completely covered by bandages after cosmetic surgery. In "
The Seal Who Came to Dinner", the pass-code to Maris's seaside home is described as her "ideal weight", and "what she weighed at her débutante ball" during her pageant years. The series of numbers that Niles punched in would mean that Maris, at that time, was 45 pounds and 12 ounces (20.8 kg). Aside from her low weight, Maris is subject to various medical problems: she has abnormally tight
quadriceps, a rigid
spine, many and very specific
allergies (meats, cream, spices), she cannot produce
saliva, and has a slight
webbing of her hands that made her self-conscious enough to shy away from their physical touch. She frequently travels to
Switzerland for
cosmetic surgery and expensive, eccentric health treatments. In 1993, Maris and Niles refer Frasier to
Daphne Moon (Niles' future wife) as a live-in
physical therapist for Martin. Two years later, Maris goes shopping to
New York (actually to Dallas, the site of the first
Neiman Marcus store) without telling Niles, who worries greatly and is then infuriated by her rash, selfish disappearance (with encouragement from Frasier). On her return, Niles finally stands up to Maris, and she promptly kicks him out of the house, beginning a two-year separation. Maris eventually reunites with Niles, but immediately has an affair with their marital
therapist, Dr. Bernard Shenkman. In 1998, Niles finally files for
divorce. In spite of the finalized divorce, Maris and Niles continue to be
codependent for some time, until Niles finally breaks completely free, largely due to Daphne's aggravation. In 2003, Maris becomes romantically involved with a violent Argentinian
polo player, Esteban de Rojo (
Victor Alfieri), whom she kills in
self-defense. Consequently, she is jailed for a few months on suspicion of
murder. In 2004, shortly before her trial is scheduled to begin, she escapes to her family's private
island from which she cannot be
extradited, effectively stranding her for life. The character was not originally meant to be unseen. The creators of the series intended to show her after only a few episodes of referring to her, but nothing came of this. The writers of the show decided that they had created so many quirks for the character – both mental and physical – that the character had become uncastable. They therefore decided to make the character permanently unseen.
Nikos Crane Nikos Crane (
Joseph Will) is the son of Walt and Zora Crane. He is Martin's nephew, and Frasier and Niles' cousin. Nikos was originally going to attend medical school, but became a juggler after receiving some advice from Frasier, about which Zora was quite angry.
Walter "Walt" Crane Walter "
Walt"
Crane (John Mahon) is Martin's brother and the uncle of Frasier and Niles. He appears only once, in an episode in which he and Martin meet again, only to become separated again by the end of the episode. In the episode "Author, Author" when Frasier and Niles are having a fight, Martin tells them a story about a dispute he once had with a partner. His first words are "Now, I never had a brother..." However, the story that Martin tells the boys turns out to be a lie, which he reveals to Daphne after the boys make up and leave.
Zora Crane Zora Crane, (
Patti LuPone) a Greek woman, is Walt Crane's wife, Martin's sister-in-law, and the aunt of Frasier and Niles, and the one responsible for Walt and Martin's
estrangement. Savagely domineering, she is notable for having violent outbursts. According to family
lore, when the
Nazis invaded Greece, the five-year-old Zora joined the
partisans just to strangle
Nazis with her
jump ropes.
Lilith Sternin Lilith Sternin (
Bebe Neuwirth) is the ex-wife of Frasier Crane and mother of their son, Frederick. A cold, remote woman, she is disliked by most of his family and friends. Lilith appeared as a prominent character on
Cheers, in which Frasier also first appeared. Her relationship with ex-spouse Frasier is polite yet distant in the early seasons, becoming more cordial in the final seasons.
Nanette Guzman/"Nanny G" Nanny G is Frasier's first wife and a well-known children's entertainer. She first appeared in the tenth-season episode of
Cheers, titled "One Hugs, the Other Doesn't", played by
Emma Thompson. She then appeared in the
Frasier Season 9 premiere episode "
Don Juan in Hell" in a fantasy sequence as a young
hippie from Frasier's memory (played by
Dina Spybey). Her final appearance was in the final season of
Frasier in the episode "
Caught in the Act", this time played by
Laurie Metcalf, who proclaims, "Do you have any idea what it's like to play the same character for twenty years?!" – an in-joke reference to Grammer's own twenty-year portrayal of Frasier Crane on
Cheers,
Wings and
Frasier (and years later, Metcalf would find herself in the same situation, in the role of
Jackie Harris on
Roseanne and
The Conners). Frasier and Nanette were briefly married while he was an undergraduate; the ceremony occurred at City Hall. The two experienced a strong sexual chemistry, but Frasier claims that the marriage could not work because of their youth and
naïveté.
Aunt Vivienne An unseen character central to the episode "Beloved Infidel". Her nickname is "The Mouth" and
Niles describes her as the "keeper of the Crane family skeletons". When
Frasier and Niles suspect
Martin of having an affair in their childhood, Niles plans to call her to find out, but Frasier stops him. Niles suggests Frasier is worried what he might find out; he replies "Yes; that she knows where I live and that she still drives!". == KACL staff and professionals ==