Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Kelsey Grammer
Episode Date: October 23, 2024Dr. Frasier Crane is with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson today, and they’re listening! Their old Cheers colleague Kelsey Grammer joins them to talk about overcoming the loss of loved ones, his party...ing days with Woody, spirituality, and the process of making season 2 of Frasier on Paramount Plus.  Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.
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I certainly used to love partying with you.
Oh yeah.
We had some fun.
I was way too chicken.
Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name.
Today on the show, Woody and I had the joy of speaking with a
beloved colleague, Kelsey Grammer. Haven't sat down and talked to him for
years and Woody's in Budapest at the moment shooting a film, but he was able
to zoom in. I mean that's the amazing thing about Cheers. It was so much fun to
do and it was, you know, the beginning of our careers basically all of us and we
shared so many experiences and so many laughs the bond is so thick that as soon
as you sit down you're you know it's like 40 years ago and like we had hadn't
missed a beat so I've had the best day talking to them.
Frasier fans rejoice season 2 of the Frasier reboot is streaming now on Paramount+.
Here they are, Woody Harrelson and Kelsey Grammer.
["The New York Times"]
It's so strange.
Here we are.
The three of us spent, what, eight,
at least eight years together.
Yeah, I was on the show for nine.
Nine, Woody came.
Which came in the third year, right? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, show for nine. Nine, Woody came. Woods came in the third year, right?
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah.
And every day making each other giggle, laugh,
sharing our lives.
And I know what about you really.
Well.
I mean, no, I mean.
But I know what you mean, yeah, yeah.
Compared to the body of your work is just astounding.
Thank you.
Theater, films, the works.
Yeah, all that, yeah. Books. Yeah, films, the works. Yeah, all that.
Books.
Yeah, books, yeah.
Anyway, we should reminisce first.
Yeah, we should.
I mean, I remember, well, you were a theater guy.
No.
Weren't you?
I tried to be a theater guy.
Yeah, wasn't, didn't Kathy McGrath do Cheers once
and weren't you in a production with her previously?
I try to remember that,
because I'd done some Shakespeare with her,
so we were old pals when she came and did Cheers.
It was just so funny.
We had a bit of a relationship on and off again.
Just recently we watched the rerun,
and Kate said, you know, how do you know her?
Here we go again.
You know, indictment of her 35 years before.
It just never goes away.
My go-to is to immediately get embarrassed and lie.
Well, I just realized that wasn't gonna do me any good.
It just never does.
Oh, I'm just riffing now.
It's a similar story.
I used to have a sailboat.
I used to have it during cheers
and then definitely during Frasier
and went sailing all the time.
I'd go twice a week when we were in the beginning years of Frasier.
And when I met Kate, I finally said, you've got to come see the boat.
It's my pride and joy.
And so I took her down to the marina and stepped aboard.
And I said, come on, babe, you know, step on board.
I helped her up.
I went and pulled the hatch open and slid it forward and went down the ladder, stepped into the cockpit
or down below in the galley.
And from behind me, I hear a voice that says,
have you ever had sex on this boat?
I just froze and I thought, what could I possibly say?
I just froze and I thought, what could I possibly say?
I had the boat for 25 years. So I just bit it and turned around and looked her in the eye
and I said, yes.
And she said, well, then I'm not going out on it.
Hey.
So I sold the boat.
But you know, more power to her.
Yeah.
It was the right thing. You guys are there aren't many kids for a good reason. Yes, exactly
She's that's inbound. No, she's not she's the sacred relationship. I was looking for
No, it's it is great. I will say about Kate. It's like it's like
Finding the Holy Grail just like Teddy. It's Jimmy, like you guys, you know, you had some...
Oh, yeah!
Yeah, yeah!
...sometimes as well.
And then you just hit the jackpots, you know, with Debbie and Mary and...
Thanks, buddy.
Hey, let's throw Laura in there for goodness sake.
And Laura, too.
We watched Back to the Future 3 last night at home with the kids.
Yeah, saw Mary, of course.
You know, hanging off of a steam engine.
She was so proud of that moment because she did all of the stunt right up until the transfer.
Right. Smart.
That would have been foolish.
That's good. She's lovely in it.
She's so good in it.
They're wonderful in that movie.
You know, the two of them.
The love is really something.
It's really wonderful to see.
Yeah.
And just because you didn't say his name, I just totally blanked on his name.
Lloyd.
Lloyd.
Christopher Lloyd.
Yeah, of course.
Christopher Lloyd.
Yeah. That, of course. Yeah.
That's so funny. We should just talk about co-stars
and see if all three of us have worked with them.
Well, you know what?
Actually, that's not a bad idea.
I bet we crossed in quite a few places.
But Christopher Lloyd and I are actually related.
Oh, did you do a follow your roots?
Well, you know what?
Kate punches in once in a while,
people who are related to other people, blah, blah, blah, well, you know what? Kate punches in once in a while, you know, people who are related to other people,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And because I did do that show,
who do you think you are?
Right, with Lisa.
Yeah.
They got my 23, you know, they got them.
So it keeps coming up.
It goes all the way back,
Christopher Lloyd's in there,
Meghan Markle's in there,
Henry VIII is in there. It's pretty funny. It the way back. We've got Christopher Lloyds in there, Megan Markle's in there, Henry VIII is in there. It's pretty funny.
It goes way back.
Yeah.
You and I, once you connect into either church or royalty, the paper trail goes forever.
Yeah, it's huge.
Yeah.
That's our latest.
If you're like Mary, who's, she did Find Your Roots, and her big thing wasn't, God, I hope we don't have slavery in our family,
which was at that time was a,
people were ducking that like crazy, you know,
and hers was, oh dear God, don't let me be boring.
And the first thing, first thing came out was,
did you know what your great grandfather did?
No, no, and you're on camera, so you have to get excited.
No, what?
He was a woodchopper.
Ah!
That's about it.
She's going, shoot me now!
That's ridiculous.
It got better, it got better.
That's funny.
Woody, what are you eating, buddy?
You're on camera, you know, we can see you.
Oh, just, oh, see that I'll stop right now,
stopping right now, Teddy.
So do you enjoy paprikash over there?
You enjoying the paprika?
I mean, the Hungarians are really good at it.
The paprika?
Yeah, you know, Hungarian paprikash is, you know,
it's paprika.
Yeah, but it's mostly on meat, right?
Yeah, mostly on meat.
Oh, that's right, he's doing the raw. Well, you should still use the spice, buddy. You know but it's mostly on meat, right? Red pepper, yeah, mostly on meat. Oh, that's right, he's doing the raw.
Well, you should still use the spice, buddy.
You know, it's local spices.
No, I can't wait to get some of that.
Yeah, no, straight away.
Straight away.
Paprika, okay.
All right, just for fun, because people.
You guys are sitting there together.
I wish I was there, man.
I wish you were too.
Hey, can I go back to, cause you know, I didn't know until I was researching that you went
to this preparatory school in Fort Lauderdale and that's where you started singing and dancing.
That's right, Pinecrest, yeah, Pinecrest Preparatory School.
At age, at age what?
14?
Yeah, so tell me about it.
What was it, how was it?
I mean, was it like hard to get in?
Well, I don't actually, you know, I was used to,
I was a smart kid when I was little, you know,
when I was younger.
Uh, I, you know, put that to rest after I reached adulthood,
but my grades were always good.
I was always in the honor roll when I was a boy,
so it was easy for me to get into those kind of places,
and I had a pretty good record.
In fact, when I came from New Jersey,
I went to sixth grade in New Jersey
to a place called Rumsome Country Day School,
and that was a year ahead of Pinecrest.
So when I got to seventh grade,
I basically coasted for a year,
and that may have been a mistake.
But in eighth grade, a guy came to school,
named Richard Mitten was his name.
Fabulous guy, he's no longer with us.
But he walked into every classroom and he said,
I want every boy in here to come and audition for choir.
So we all thought, well, what the hell?
OK.
And went in and most of the boys sang,
yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
And we'd come out and he said,
what's your voice? And he said, oh, you're a lyric tenor or you're this.
And I was a bass baritone.
So that was when I started singing.
And we started a thing, there was a thing called the singing pines because of pinecrest.
So we wore tuxedos and roughly, you know, the frilly little shirts and stuff.
At one point they, we rescinded the hair code because I was on the 10th grade student council
and we got rid of the hair code.
So we all grew our hair out.
But then the next year a new guy came in and said the hair code was reinstated.
So I asked if they would mind if I wore a wig and they said, well, no, as long as the collar, you know,
long as the hair doesn't go over the collar.
So I bought, I went down and bought a Jane Fonda wig,
which was basically the haircut from Barbarella.
And I took it home and I cut off the back of it.
And I wore it over my hair, I put it in a ponytail
and put it on top of my head, I'd put it in a ponytail
and put it on top of my head, stick the wig on top of that
and they weren't embarrassed to have me walking around
looking like that, so I wasn't embarrassed either.
It was pretty awful.
You came from music, right?
I mean, your mom was a singer.
My mom and dad were musicians, yeah.
And your father is a musician?
Yeah, yeah.
So was that not foreign to you?
Were you around that?
Did you?
Well, you know, my mom had us play, do some piano lessons when we were pretty young.
Took us to tennis lessons, swimming.
We used to swim a lot.
Pinecrest was a big swimming school and I started swimming there and did the diving
team for a while.
But it was a huge school. It was a school where the coach of the women's Olympic team was the coach there.
And he was a big deal, Jack Nelson.
We had a kid there, Andy Something, who was the first swimmer to prove that the butterfly was actually faster than the crawl,
which was amazing.
And he set, like, state and world records for awhile.
So it was a school of overachievers.
It was a great place to go to school, honestly.
And then I got, you know, I went to Juilliard out of there
and they were all very impressed at that.
And of course I got thrown out
and they were all very sad about that.
Yeah, you got thrown out for a reason though.
Can we back up just a little bit?
Yeah. I know you're just a little bit? Yeah.
I know you're writing a book about some of the tragedy
and in your life, in your family,
which we can talk about or not later,
but you had a lot going on as a kid in your family.
Yeah.
Do you think there's any sense of finding harbor in creativity because of having to deal with divorce and death and all of that?
What's great is, I mean I did finish the book on my sister, it's just called Karen,
and it'll be published pretty soon. We're working on the final draft and pictures
now. Well, mention it. Do you want to talk about it now or is that all right?
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So I stepped away from that right now.
I just have to do some notes that they're going to try to give me, but I mean, I'm pretty
recalcitrant.
I'm not going to really change the book a lot at this point.
But it does cover most of the stuff that you're asking about.
So in the early days, yeah, my mom and dad divorced when I was two and a half, basically.
I moved in with my grandfather, Gordon.
He was my light.
In the book, I actually discover, as I've never really quite enumerated it, I've never
really said that I actually came here, I think, for my grandfather to be his son.
And I was.
And that was great.
But then, of course, he died when I was 12.
And that was a big, big hit
that took the air right out of us.
And then a couple of years later,
that was the year we actually started at Pinecrest.
And then a couple of years later, my dad got shot
and I didn't really know him very well.
I'd gotten to know him a little bit.
As a young adult or when you were a kid? When I was 12. got shot and I didn't really know him very well. I'd gotten to know him a little bit.
As a young adult or when you were a kid?
When I was 12. When I was 12, just after Gordon died. Gordon's my granddad. My dad got...
Was that political? That was a political? I always thought that...
You know what it was honestly?
He was panicking stuff against government.
Yeah, he was a bit of a loud mouth, I guess you could say.
He had a radio show down in the Virgin Islands, and he taught a lot of fairly famous reggae
guys and calypso music guys, gave them music lessons.
But he was killed by a taxi cab driver who, it was a couple days after Martin Luther King was shot.
And so there was a political overtone to it.
Where are we?
What city was that?
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
But I heard years later that they actually drew straws who was going to kill him.
So it was that sort of a strange grouping there.
I don't know the full story of it.
There's the Arawaks and the Caribs down in the Virgin Islands and in that Caribbean area.
One side apparently was always very violent and the other side was always very peaceful.
But so once in a while, every few years, there's kind of like a surge in whatever it is.
I mean, maybe it's bigger than us.
Maybe it's some sort of rhythmic tide that comes into people's beings and then they go
on a bit of a rampage and maybe he got swept out.
Some of that.
My buddy John Miller's dad was shot in St. Croix one year on a golf course.
It was a famous incident, but they took a machine gun and killed like three golfers.
It was just, you know, it's just odd stuff. Oh.
Right. Wow.
So you're with your mom at that point.
Mom and Gam and Karen, yeah.
Yeah, my three, the three women.
And even though you had just kind of reunited
with your dad?
Yeah, it was really only the one meeting.
We saw him for one dinner
just about six months before he was killed.
Can you think back to that 12 year old, 13 year old?
I mean, I put my adult brain and go,
oh my God, what a hit to my life, who I am,
or what does this mean about life?
Was there, did you put weight
other than the tragedy of losing your father?
Did it start to inform you in some way?
Or did you? No, no.
What did happen was I was a math student.
I was really good at math.
And then the death of Gordon and the subsequent loss
of my dad and stuff like that.
It just seemed like those were the turning points
for me to start moving toward art.
I do think that happened as a result.
Let me turn that off.
Is that another job?
Yeah.
No, it's bad news. More bad news.
Never stop.
But it was...
That turned me toward art.
Shakespeare turned me toward art the first time I read it.
Julius Caesar turned me toward the idea that, you know, there's a way to sort of endure the whips and scorns of time, you know, and do it with dignity.
And that was, you know, whatever dignity, whatever dignity I've been able to muster.
But tons, my friend.
Thank you.
But it was nose.
Yeah.
No, I mean, it just seemed like an unnatural amount of calamity, you know, between
Yeah, there was that.
Your dad, your half-brothers.
Yeah, early death.
Yeah, my half-brothers in a shark attack.
That was strange, yeah.
That was in the Virgin Islands, too.
And they, of course, the city, they went and caught a bunch of sharks after that.
And there was one of them they caught that actually fit the bite marks, fit the scarring
on their diving equipment and they didn't
want to know about it so they covered it up.
You know, because it's tourism.
But I've got a letter about that.
And were you close with them?
No, no.
I hardly knew them.
I got to know them a little bit when Gordon died after we went on that visit and then
they came up and visited once after dad was gone. Right. And I was the oldest child so I sort of filled in a little bit of a male presence thing for
them a little bit but not really.
And your sister was alive when you were born?
Right.
She died just before she turned 19.
And you were how old?
I was 20. So you were how? I was 20.
So you were a Juilliard or?
I've been a Juilliard, just got thrown out.
Now, but, all right, before we get to Karen,
if that's okay.
Yeah, that's fine.
Let's, you say that with a good laugh.
So why did you get thrown out?
Well, I'm still trying to figure it out.
I think it was because I wasn't going to acting class.
Ha ha ha ha.
Being in acting school about my daughter.
Maybe that's.
Ha ha ha.
Why, why were you?
Well, I didn't really like the guy
that was teaching the class,
because it seemed to me he was a lot more interested
in the girls in the class than the boys,
and I thought, well, you know what, okay.
I'm not gonna cast aspersions past that. I've actually talked about interested in the girls, the classes, and the boys, and I thought, well, you know what, okay. I'm not gonna cast his versions past that.
I've actually talked about this in the book some.
He taught me a couple of things,
quite by chance, that stayed with me,
which is kind of fascinating.
I've written about that in the book.
So the book about Karen is basically about me as well,
our time, sort of our corresponding time together and in the same lane and in
our different lanes until of course she was taken. And how I have carried her ever since.
That's really what the book is about. I discovered a lot of things I didn't know about.
What do you mean, say more about carried her?
Carried her with me. She's been with me in my heart ever since then. You know, always. All things were about Karen in a lot of ways.
My ability to move on in life was hindered by the loss of her,
but also my sense of sticking with things
was also colored by the fact that Karen had been taken
and that I wasn't going to quit.
That was, and due in large part to some of her.
Some of our story together, we were really close.
We were a close brother and sister, maybe made closer by the fact that Gordon died so
young.
I didn't, half the things I got to discover in writing the book was, and it was a great,
it's been two and a half years I wrote, I worked on it, was how connected she was to
other people in the family.
And I'd actually had the, you actually had the arrogance of my own story,
you know, it was always like, oh, I lost Gordon.
And I realized for the first time, well, so did she.
And that was a great discovery for me.
Because they were closer than any two people
I've ever seen in my life.
And that was a beautiful thing to see.
And then it was also beautiful to understand
that it must have really, really broken her too. And that was a hard time for both of us.
What's the name of the book? Do you have one yet?
Karen.
And that's, I don't know, months before it comes out.
It's ready to publish, honestly. I don't know what they're waiting for.
Wow.
Good for you for riding. It's like, it's really cool that you've taken this journey because I know for myself, I
tend to anything that's too hot an issue, I just try to avoid it at all costs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I admire you for-
Thanks, buddy.
Thanks, man.
Just doing this this dude.
It's amazing.
Thanks man.
Thanks.
It was a great experience for me.
It was really wonderful.
And my wife is really supportive of it.
I'd walk in and for a while I was not available through some of it.
And she'd say, what are you doing?
And she'd say, okay, you do what you gotta do.
But I could always pull myself out a couple hours a day,
was what I was doing.
And I'd be with the kids and working some.
Right.
Well, you amazed me because not everybody gets hit in life
with as many really earth-shattering stuff that you have.
And I know you went through a period where we all knew you, where I guess it was, you
could say, or is it trite to say, self-medicating?
Yeah, I think that's probably right.
I think it's just a self-... I was engineering escape is really what it was.
I mean, medicating, yeah, it was more radical
than medicating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was radical.
And listen, some of the stories are great stories.
I mean, I had a wonderful time in the midst of it,
which is kind of extraordinary,
because that sort of lust for life thing
is part of what drove it as well.
But then you realize, well, there's only so many of these
you can keep doing without just finally just collapsing.
And yeah, I got pretty close on it.
That's how we grew to know and love you
partly during that period,
which when you say it wasn't all bad or whatever,
it was magnificent from my vantage point.
I certainly used to love partying with you.
Oh yeah, we had some fun.
I was way too chicken.
Oh my God.
But you know, I remember,
do you remember that time we went to Idaho?
Absolutely, I was just thinking about it now
because I was in, I relieved in, I went, I relieved
myself just before I came in. And honestly, as I was sitting there, I thought to myself,
I remember that time in the men's room in McCall, Idaho with Woody. And I was talking
about how beautiful America is and how wonderful Americans are and how they embrace the extraordinary.
We are a group of people that love exceptional behavior. And that's who we are. I remember talking about Olga Corbett.
This little kid from Romania, wherever she was from, comes in and blows people
against the first ten in the history of the Olympics in gymnastics. And America
loved her.
What was her name? Nadia Comaneci.
Oh, Comaneci. Was Comaneci first?
Yeah.
Okay. But anyway, it was...
I was the first one to get the 10.
But it was just amazing, you know, and I realized this sort of monologue that I delivered from
the throne on this day with Woods. We were in some club somewhere and it was just a
magnificent memory for me and you, I mean, just the greatest time.
It was so fun.
We were actually going, Teddy, I don't know if you remember, because there was someone connected to Cheers.
The sound guy.
The sound guy at Cheers, yeah.
And he was doing a radio station and he said, we come do an interview and blah, blah, blah.
Of course we come guns blazing.
Yeah, we barreled into Idaho.
We were going hard.
And they know how to go hard in Idaho.
They do.
But I do remember that in the bathroom so well,
because I remember at the time,
I was so upset about America and all the,
I mean, you gotta, you gotta separate America, the people from America, the
government, which the government's properties, they never cease to amaze me.
But, but then, you know, when we were there, you know, I was conflating
everything and you were like, no America, Americans, you know, and that
speech had a huge impact on me.
I still believe that about us, you know, I really do.
Me too.
I just follow the goodness.
I've been doing this sort of, he's called an angel healer, this guy, and just recently
in one of our sessions, he said, well, I asked the angels one time,
I asked him, you know, what's the ratio?
And of really, really crappy people to really good people.
And he said, honestly, it's about 70-30,
which is, you know, 70 is good.
I thought, well, that sounds about right.
And we both sort of laughed a little bit and said,
I've spent a lot of time with the 30s.
It's because 30s are drawn to people of great passion and success and we arguably have all
sustained that or achieved that and the 30s are around in these areas.
You used to hang out with some very questionable folks.
I had a good batch.
I remember.
Yeah, I had a good batch.
We were just about two steps ahead of the law.
I'm listening to you and I feel like people can see
that I'm actually wearing a nun's habit
because I am so, I am so safe in my world.
I go, oh no, no, no, no, thanks.
I'll catch up with you later.
I'll meet you in Idaho,
but I won't actually get on the plane.
Yeah.
I always thought you should have been on the plane
once in a while.
I know, I should have.
I've heard some good things in the world, you know?
Good stuff, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And met great people too.
But that's, I always believed in the 70.
I always thought the 70 were, that's who we are.
And you know what?
Cause who you are is, a flood comes through.
And, or no, you're having an argument
about whether there's climate change or not.
And then a flood comes through
and everybody drops their point of view
and rescues each other and has so human,
their bounty of love and caring and nurturing
and they pull people out of the water.
Don't ask each other what your politics are,
what your belief system is.
None at that time.
But you know, just-
Maybe we're getting there.
Maybe we're getting to where like,
excuse me before I pull you out of there.
Uh, would you vote for?
You know.
Oops, sorry.
Let him go.
You know, one of my first, going back a little bit to reminisce about Cheers, you showed
up full blown as, you know, Fraser Crier Crane, and you were just magnificent, always were,
but you walked in kind of like Woody.
You both walked in and hit a home run
the first time we saw you.
You know, first time the audience.
But my personal memory of that time, those first,
we were basketball players or so we thought.
Oh yeah, yeah, I know, right.
Perhaps Woody was, but we all thought of ourselves.
And we would play vicious basketball with each other
right before we were supposed to run and start performing.
But you, on this asphalt, plain basketball court,
were barefoot.
You played barefoot.
I grew up in Florida.
With the flattest shoes, feet I've ever seen in my life.
Flatest feet in history, I still have them, yeah. I grew up in Florida. With the flattest shoes of feet I've ever seen in my life.
Yeah, I still have them, yeah.
Dead flat.
Dead flat.
Suction on button floors.
How did you do that?
I don't know, you know what?
It's your beachcomber days.
That beachcomber thing, yeah.
I mean, my feet were really tough back then.
I mean, I'm talking to a guy on Monday
about getting my feet fixed finally.
Here's another example of you two renegades.
Renegades is your motorcycles.
Oh yeah.
Both of you.
Woody, who I saved his life the other day,
came in wounded from a very serious.
I heard something about this.
Yeah, very serious.
I thought, what the hell?
But you.
The last vestige of the.
Oh, there it is. So did you land on your hand? Is that what happened? But you. The last vestige of.
Oh, there it is.
So did you land on your hand?
Is that what happened?
Did you just.
I landed on this hand, yeah.
It's good, yeah, yeah.
Shit, sorry man.
That's tough.
It would have been much worse.
No, no, no.
I tell you, I ended up very, very lucky.
So.
I got it.
But speaking of luck, you used to jump on your motorcycle, if I remember correctly,
in shorts, a T-shirt,
and flip-flops.
Absolutely, that's how I ran.
And roar off to work,
where we were always about 15 minutes late.
About 15, yeah.
But didn't you get run off the road once
by somebody who was pissed off?
Oh God, yeah, in New York City that happened.
It happened a couple times, around the country,
I mean, across the country a couple times,
there was one trucker, I was drafting off of him, he didn't like me doing that, so he would drive off into
the shoulder a little bit and spray pebbles on my face, you know, a hundred miles an hour,
I thought, oh, this is fun.
I actually saw him pull into a truck stop, I followed him.
I walked up to him at the counter where he was having breakfast and says, excuse me,
I understand that you have an issue about this.
I said, honestly, I'm trying to make the next
couple hundred miles in as little stress as possible.
Drafting off of you was really helping me.
Would you mind if maybe we arranged this
so we're both happy about it?
And he said, no, okay, I'd be glad to help you.
Damn!
Yeah, that's that good part about Americans.
That's what's in there.
But by the way, yeah, that's the good part about Americans,
if you was an American, like, you know, me,
I just would have walked up and shout at the guy, you know?
Or worse, you know?
Like, I love how you can, it's amazing how you can do that.
Well, I love people, and I love Americans, you know? This is the thing, I really do love you. it's amazing how you can do that. Well, I love people and I love Americans.
You know, this is the thing I really do love.
That's the right way.
I don't think maybe Woody's is the right way
and mine certainly isn't.
I would have gone up and apologized
for getting in the way of his gravel.
One time, what do you know,
when we were in London, we went to some club.
What was it called?
Was it called the Palladium?
No, it was the Hippodrome.
Hippodrome, okay, so the Hippodrome.
So Woods and I are kind of trying to get in and this girl says something about, I don't
know what happened to sort of lit her off a little bit, but you know, English people
and Americans, we're still having trouble with that.
But she looked at Woody and said, well, that's rude.
And he said, oh yeah, how's this for rude?
And he grabs a handful of candies right in front of her
and sort of throws them.
I said, oh shit.
And I saw these two huge like cockney guys
start moving toward Woods.
And I said, we're out of here, let's go.
We gotta get to out of here.
So Dave just decked them.
What you didn't know is I was there
and I came in after you guys and picked up all the candy
and bought them some more.
Made them all.
And guys profuse.
That was lovely.
I'm so fired.
Well, we had fun there too.
I mean, that was true.
All right, here's another, this is all things Kels.
Okay, here's one of the things about you
that I hope is not as incredible as it used to
be because it would still piss me off.
Your photographic memory of you would walk through rehearsals at Shears with a script
in your hand because you genuinely didn't know the lines up until then you would go
have dinner and you'd come back and we'd start performing
and it would be word, comma, perfect.
And we all kind of marvel, how the fuck did you do that?
And you would do it also when, if I might say,
under the influence during that period
and you would look like you couldn't possibly
get through a performance,
you turn around and come back and be astoundingly brilliant.
Thank you.
What is that brain thing?
Are you photographic memory?
What is that?
It's probably just a muscle that approximates photographic,
but it's not.
If I have to, I can get it in there.
I still do it.
I do it at Frasier now because, you know, you play the same character for so long, like I have, and I just find it kind of more exciting to not be on book, to not know it,
to sort of have a general idea, and because I played the role for so long now,
I mean, I pick better words than most of the guys can. And I trust that the process is gonna actually
spill out the best result.
If it's a really good joke and it's written really well,
I'll remember it.
If it's one that is, I can trust to approximation
and then sort of wait for the creative spirit to strike
in the midst of it, I do that.
So it's a kind of improvisational memorization,
but it does unnerve people.
Yeah.
My definition of a well-written joke
is one that I can totally fuck up and it's still funny.
It's still funny.
That's actually good.
That's about it.
Yeah.
That's a good definition.
It was wild how, I mean, I guess it's okay.
We broached the subject,
but like you used to be under the influence of all
these things and still, and, and, you know, you know, how it would kind of get you
in a high state of, and, and then to see you just nail it.
Yeah.
Energize.
Yeah.
Let's say energize.
And then seeing you nail it was like that, what he just did was actually impossible.
Like I don't understand how he could do that.
Because you didn't have the...
We're the slow dumb joke. We were the slow dumb funny joke.
Oh yeah, that's true. No, Frazier had to have the...
You were saying paragraphs of complicated shit and nailing it.
You really were amazing.
Well, I like language.
That was always a strong point for me.
I mean, honestly, I did cocaine and booze.
Those are the two things I did.
I never did anything else really.
I mean, I was never into marijuana or some of that other stuff.
So cocaine with Jackie, I was boozing slow, you know.
Somewhere in the middle is where I'd end up.
But I always would go to bed.
There were a couple of times when I stayed up, oh, a couple nights.
But mostly I had, there was some sort of a governor that was saying, you got to go to
bed now.
You got to go to sleep.
You got to catch up.
You got to stay, I was still working out most of the time.
So I stayed fairly robust, even during a time of great sort of, you know,
self self-destruction.
I have to
In fairness, in fairness, when you say you had this governor inside you saying go to
bed, you'd go to bed at 630 in the morning.
Yeah, get a couple hours and go.
Get a couple hours in and boom.
Yeah, it's funny.
A lot of people who can get away with what you did have the constitution of an ox.
Yeah.
I mean, your body, I know you had a moment where your body went, yo, no more.
Yeah, right, right, yeah.
But by and large, how old are you now?
Strong, 69. Yeah, I mean are you now? Strong. Uh, 69.
I mean, you're a magnificent beast. Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Yeah, you really are.
Do you think it also had to do with that?
Cause I've always credited the way you would eat.
Like you would, it would take you, you know, you'd just still be on your first, uh, first
school when we were done with our food.
Yeah.
And even that day I do, I do.
I always savored food.
So slow, no rush.
And I just felt like that kind of helped you.
It probably did.
Cushing as well.
So very good. Uh, good, very observant.
I think that may actually be something, maybe onto something there.
Yeah.
I mean, I've gone up and down with weight a little bit, but I think mostly that was
probably booze.
Actually, I think that was probably, when my weight would balloon a little bit, it was
like during a, I was on a traveling kind of spree.
I was going to New York City a lot or whatever.
I was in Manhattan, a little bit of debauchery,
a little bit of food, maybe a little overindulgence
in that kind of stuff as well.
And then I picked up some weight and then I finally thought,
no, I'm going to, so I weigh around 210 most of the time now.
That's about where I like to be.
So.
Yeah.
Whatever it is, it's working.
Thanks, buddy.
Yeah.
I wish, you know, I make jokes and I swore to myself that I would not be the self-deprecating guy,
which is a problem I have and I noticed it on podcasts.
It's like they spend hours trying to cut it out.
But this isn't self-deprecating.
But I feel like I got stuck a little bit
with you during the cheers years.
I have a memory of getting angry at you once.
You came and told me that one day.
And it's stuck in both of our memories.
But I feel like, I fuck, I don't know.
I feel like I missed out on the last 30 years of Kelsey Grammer.
And I feel like it's my bad, my doing.
And I almost feel like apologizing to you.
I know I don't feel like I apologize.
Thank you.
You and me.
I wish we'd spent more time together.
That I sat back, you know, and didn't.
And I really do apologize.
Thanks.
Yeah.
You said something wonderful to me, though, too, that I've always, I quote to other people.
When I turned 40, you came up and you said,
you know what it means, don't you?
Now that you're 40,
it means you're finally worth having a conversation with.
Oh, that was fucking brilliant.
Ah.
I always loved that.
And I thought, and I've repeated it.
And my love for you has always been as easy as the day.
You know, as easy as the day. As easy as the sunrise.
Mine too, you.
So whatever.
What an amazing thing that time we all spent together.
You can go off in different directions.
You can have different lives.
But that bond, that love of making something really funny
and really good and cracking each other up
and going through life
and still showing up.
Like Jimmy said, I don't care what you crazy people do during the week.
Just show up on shoot night and be funny.
Just once.
That's all I need.
He recently said, we were doing an interview together, and he said, you got to have an
oar in the water.
I'd never heard him express this before.
He said, yeah, as long as everybody's got their oar
in the water and they're pulling, then I'm happy.
I thought, yeah, makes a lot of sense.
And that's, we're still working together.
I mean, he's done, you know,
he does four shows in the last bunch,
and it's been great working with him.
Yeah, he's like my daddy in show business.
Probably all of ours to some extent.
Yeah.
Good question.
Well, my God, what a man.
What a fucking guy.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Yeah, so how many, have you started on your second season?
We finished the second, so we've got 20 shows.
I mean, it's so weird, this new sort of model of the streaming thing.
10 shows is all they kind of do.
Oh, you already did.
Yeah, we're finished.
Second season, there are just 10 shows.
Yeah, it's a little odd.
So it's kind of like finishing the first season.
So what's been fun about it is I've gotten to stand back and watch a little bit,
and that cast is really
coming together.
They're really fun to watch.
We've hit some stuff that I thought we might hit, but it happened faster than I anticipated
and the shows have been as good as anything I've ever done.
What's that like?
I mean, you have this template, two or three different templates for Frasier.
Is it hard to let go of your expectations or memories of what it, you know, and compare
it to others and let it be what it is?
No, it's been, it's, that's been easy for me.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Cause this one, you know, I was, I was in the birthing room for this one.
I was pulling the baby out of the, you know.
So literally in the writers room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's been, it's been really good.
It's been really, really fun.
And I still leave the writers mostly alone,
but in the very first draft of the pilot,
but we did a lot of back and forth for that.
Speaking of kids, Spencer.
Spencer, yeah.
We all met Spencer early on.
41 years old now.
Kate, you remember my daughter Kate?
Of course.
She's 44. Same boat, right? Yeah, yeah, fantastic. About to have a baby. Oh, good. Yeah, do you remember my daughter Kate? Of course. She's 44.
Same boat, right?
Yeah, yeah, fantastic.
About to have a baby.
Oh good.
Yeah, it's very cool.
Oh good for her.
Is this the first one?
Yeah.
Oh no kidding, wow.
Very exciting.
Oh that's great.
Well it's great that people can have babies,
you know, a little bit further along now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's really lovely.
Yeah.
And we had, we, I mean honestly Kate and I,
we were pregnant three times before we had a baby.
It was natural.
We started to lose, we lost a couple of babies, and we thought, boy, this is tough.
It's not good.
But then God smiled on us, and we had a beautiful girl named Faith, which is what did it.
And then the two boys came along.
And the second boy came along.
We were twins originally with Faith, and then we lost the boy when he was like 14 weeks.
We had to do some stuff that was not a good thing for us.
But when Kate was pregnant the second time, I was kind of proud.
I kind of got her.
I thought, yeah.
And you know, I said, so what do you think we're having?
And she said, if we're not having a boy,
then everything I believe is bullshit.
We had a boy.
Nice.
So, and that's Gabriel.
You had seven kids, right?
Seven total now.
So really lockdown was just like normal life.
You had so many people around.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much it was, yeah. You had so many people around. Yeah, yeah.
Pretty much it was.
Yeah, you know, some were coming and going.
But yeah, our house is still full of kids.
I mean, I got my second child, Greer is in the home with us.
Jude's with us some of the time.
He's 19.
He's going off to Emerson College in a couple of weeks.
I'm going to drive him up.
Mason's now here, my 23-year-old.
I think she's 23.
I always add a year. They always get pissed off at me.
Um, but I think, I think she's 23 and, um, she's starting to work at the company now.
So, you know, it's kind of like an apprentice kind of stuff to when, yeah, doing
production.
I love that you said when you were describing your life, the ups and downs,
but you're never happier than when you have all of your kids in the same room.
And it's the truth.
When we're surrounded by, we're 13 to table
when you count spouses and grandkids and everything.
It's the best.
Yeah, but I don't do so well with the ex-spouse thing.
We haven't really tried to curry that.
Oh, we nailed it.
You guys did great.
Well, I remember your vows with Mary.
I mean, we're like, everybody's involved. I was so impressed by that. I really loved it. You guys did great. Well, I remember your vows with Mary. I mean, we're like, everybody's involved.
I was so impressed by that.
I really loved it.
Yeah, you're our family too.
I thought, wow, that's great.
Were you part of the chairlift
that Jimmy Burrough started for us?
Yeah.
Both you guys were there.
I remember, it was one of the best moments Mary said
in the entire wedding was when,
I guess it's a Jewish tradition of lifting you up in a chair,
but it was so tangibly being supported literally
by people you love and who love you in that moment.
It was so symbolic.
Yeah, it's a wonderful thing.
Yeah, it was a great event, Martha's Vineyard.
It was a lovely, lovely event you guys put on. And it worked. Yeah, it's a wonderful thing. Yeah, it was a great event, Martha's Vineyard. It was a lovely, lovely event.
Yeah.
You guys put on.
And it worked.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
It was fantastic.
We met on a movie.
It could be rare you get the president as your best man or whatever.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, there was all that going on.
It cut down on paparazzi.
Yeah, it did, didn't it?
To have cruise missiles around.
Yeah.
Pretty amazing.
Yeah, it was a good weekend.
Where did you meet Kate? Where did you meet Kate? You could have cruise missiles around. Yeah. Pretty amazing. Yeah, that was a good weekend.
Where did you meet Kate?
Are you guys living in Nashville?
No, used to have a place there.
Ah, got it.
Because Mary's writing music.
That's what I thought.
Yeah, yeah.
That's great.
How'd you meet Kate?
We met on a flight to England.
She was a flight crew for Virgin Atlantic.
Did you make the move?
Yeah, let me tell you.
Excuse me, then what?
Well, we were talking and we just ended up sort of chatting.
She made me a drink, you know, and I thought, boy, I'm in the mood for a B-52.
Do you guys ever remember a B-52?
Well, they didn't have those ingredients on the plane, but they did have Benedictine and brandy and I thought, well, okay, that's a B&B, do you guys ever remember a B-52? Well, they didn't have those ingredients on the plane,
but they did have Benedictine and brandy,
and I thought, well, okay, that's a B&B, they call it,
and I thought, yeah, put a little cream in that,
a little bit of Kahlua, I think that's gonna be a great drink.
So we started with that, and then we started talking,
I got up, went to the bar on the plane,
and we talked through the night,
and arranged to have a coffee maybe a few days
after I got there, because I was going to see if
I wanted to do La Casha Fall on Broadway, take the production from London to New York.
And I had to rehearse a little bit.
We were going to do kind of a weird little commercial thing that was, of course, I never
saw.
It just seemed like a very odd thing to do.
But so I was busy for a couple of days and then I got a message at the hotel, give Kate
a call. So I give Kate a call.
So I gave her a call.
And...
What year is this?
This is 2009?
Wow.
Yeah.
I think so.
I think I was 54.
It was great.
It was just great.
And you know, I was in my previous relationship had gone kind of belly up, you know.
There were some issues.
There was some stuff going on that wasn't really fun or good.
And I knew that it was probably going to have to end.
I'd had a heart attack.
That was not a great experience, but it was actually a very
positive experience in the end because it made me realize
what I wanted.
And I was doing a show called Hank at the time.
Not very funny.
And I knew it.
And so we'd finished shooting the, I think I even directed it, I thought it was the ninth
episode, and it just wasn't funny.
A terrific writer named Collie had come from Everybody Loves Raymond.
His rhythms and stuff like that were not mine, and there was just no way for us to gel. I couldn't make his stuff funny.
He couldn't write funny for me.
So that's what happened.
And I called Peter over at Warner Brothers.
We were at Warner Brothers at the time.
And I said, Peter, you gotta put a bullet in this show.
I mean, I'm sorry, man, it's not funny.
We gotta end this.
He says, I have obligations.
I gotta shoot at least the first 13
and then see what happens,
because I've got foreign, I've sold it to,
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he says, I'm sorry, I wish I could help you out.
Literally the next morning, the head of ABC at the time called and put a bullet in it.
And one hour later, I got a call from Barry Weiser in New York City.
He says, what are you doing?
Are you busy?
I said, as it turns out, I'm not busy.
And he said, I want you to fly to London
and see this as this production for me.
So in about eight hours, my whole life was gonna change.
And I knew it was.
And I knew when I got on that plane
that I was going to a new life.
And I met Cain.
Wow. Yeah.
I love that. I love love stories.
It was pretty cool.
Yeah, it was pretty great.
Oh, and I'll go even further. This is fantastic. So love love stories. Yeah, that was pretty great.
Oh, and I'll go even further.
This is fantastic.
So what happened was we go for this cup of coffee and I'm in a bar.
I'm in a hotel that the time it used to be the part that it was the Mandarin Oriental.
It had been the something the Hyde Park or something before that.
And it used to have a great restaurant that was gone.
All that was over, it had been shifted into a kind of
a new kind of Mandarin hipster kind of place.
I walked in and I checked in, the concierge looks at me
and there's about a six foot eight Russian girl
with hardly any clothing on.
And he looked at me and said, Mr. Kramer,
you know, anything you'd like, anything at
all.
I was like, oh dear, this is not going to go well if I accept this guy's offer.
So I said, thank you very much.
That's very kind of you.
No, thank you.
And I just headed up to my little room.
So as I came down to meet Kate for our drink, I looked in the bar, and it was just loaded with what clearly was
a professional group.
I thought, yeah, I thought there is no way
I'm gonna meet this girl here.
So I walked down to the street, and I just waited for her.
I knew she'd be getting out of the tube stop
right below Harvey Nichols.
So I'm sitting there, or standing there rather, in the little median between the hotel and
Harvey Nichols, and sure enough she comes up and I see her and she stops and re-applies
her lipstick.
Then she's doing that, she notices I'm there standing there.
And she's like, oh shit.
And I said, listen, I don't want to take you for a drink in there.
Let's go take a walk.
And it was just before Christmas.
So they had the winter wonderland thing
that they do in Hyde Park.
And we started walking toward the park
and the snow started to fall.
I looked at her and I said, this is just,
this is too perfect.
And we had our first kiss and we got together a while later.
I don't really know her, but she looks beautiful.
I love her smile.
She's a great girl.
She's a great, great person.
That's so cool.
Well done.
Thank you.
And I love the stepping on the boat story.
I know that's about us.
And you know what?
It's nice to have your mate care that much about you.
No, I don't wanna lose you.
So, here are the rules.
It was great.
Yeah, that was really great.
I ran into you then, Kels,
and you were just about ready to start that.
I remember, I was in London.
Right.
But I had a sense that I met Kate then.
You might have. You might have said hello then
Yeah, I think did we go have we had a martini at the American bar, right?
Yeah
Yeah, she probably I didn't know she I didn't know she you guys had just started that well
we we actually that was the prologue.
And then we actually waited about seven or eight months,
almost a full year before things really shifted.
But by then, my previous wife had gone off to,
she was involved with somebody else and that was fine.
That's what happened.
That's okay.
But I needed to make sure we did it
as best as I could because as I said to Kate
when I first met her, I said,
you're too important to be somebody's secret.
And I don't want to do that to you.
So we're going to have to play this above board
and take our time.
So we did.
It was a long time before we got, you know, actually, I guess the best word is consummated.
But when we did it was finally, that was a good thing.
You know, it wasn't anything we had to like hang our heads about or even dodge, you know.
So you like, you had this discipline discipline about this you wanted to make sure.
Yeah the other head. Yeah the other the other. A man of few minds.
I never would have guessed that. I mean maybe you're just now telling it this way because
you have to officially. I don't know. I don't know, I remember, I think it was Robin Williams who said-
You're dancing on the street and the snow's coming down.
Yeah, it was amazing, that was amazing.
But, oh, that's where it ended that night.
I think Robin Williams is the one who said,
man doesn't have enough blood flow for two heads at the same time.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
The nun over here is blushing.
Yeah.
Well, I remember some stories that were so nun like.
Yeah, I'm trying to push the nun story.
Okay.
They're bad nuns.
They're bad nuns.
Sure.
Nuns who go wrong.
It's a bad habit.
Yeah. Hey, you, uh, I, this, we're talking about all those things that, you know, you're not
supposed to talk about.
We did a little bit of politics, not much, but you, uh, I notice credit, not credit,
but religion as part of what enabled you to put it all together or move on or
heal yourself. Is that anything to talk about?
I had an abiding sense of faith. It was an interesting thing. It was a sort of a wrestling
match, you know, that was like, oh, I still hear you over there. But I grew up in Christian science.
As a little boy.
As a little boy, yeah, Sunday school.
And maintained it and my grandmother or her aunt, my grandmother's aunt actually kind
of knew Mary Bakeretti who was the progenitor of that discipline of examining the miracles
of Jesus through this lens of science and faith at
the same time, which is pretty fascinating and very metaphysical and the kind of stuff
that appeals to my head anyway.
And so I was brought up in that.
I hung onto it.
I mean, I read it every day, almost even through the bad times.
Sin, disease, and death are not real.
All is infinite mind and it's infinite manifestations.
Stuff like that just kept me alive.
It kept me connected.
It was very empowering.
Yeah, it really was.
And so I maintained that.
Now, my active faith, my relationship with Jesus, if you will, was not something I was
even comfortable declaring.
It wasn't something we was even comfortable declaring.
It wasn't something we did.
That's not the way we talk, basically, the Christian scientists.
And so it always seemed a little odd to me.
And then when I was writing the book about Karen, I had this wild moment on a plane where
Jesus is sitting down right next to me and talking to me. And it was undeniably true and real and reassuring and uplifting.
And I got to surrender and I started, tears were just dripping down my face on a plane all by myself.
Well, I mean, there's, you know, people around, but it was an extraordinary moment.
And it just was that thing, that thing that happens, you know.
And suddenly it was revealed to me and there I was.
And I guess I was saved.
But he'd been there all along.
Right.
And that was the real trick.
Because I'd been fighting the fight of like, well, I've got this.
I got this.
And then of course, he was basically saying, no, I got it because I can.
And that was great.
It was fantastic.
And at the same time, I did that movie, Jesus Revolution, which got a lot of response and
then a lot of good feedback, but I was having a kind of a meditative evening in my home one night
in my living room, about 3 a.m.
And I thought to myself, I want to do something that's important, something important.
I don't know what it is, but I just sort of just gave up and said, you know, guide me.
This is before I had sort of the moment with Jesus on the plane.
And the next morning, the Jesus Revolution script came to the door.
I sat down, read it, and said, yeah, I'm doing it.
And it was a big thing for me.
Wow.
I have to see that.
It's a good movie.
Yeah.
And it's actually what's funny is that at the time in our lives that we would, you'd
probably remember because it was 72.
And I remember in Florida, there were these girls, I just came off the beach.
I'm just standing there one night just watching the waves because I was surfing then.
And these two magnificent women come off the beach and say,
Hi, have you met Jesus?
Well, I'm ready. Oh.
Where are we going?
Which one of you is she?
Who's close here?
I did.
But what was funny was because I had that sort
of ongoing relationship with Christian science at the time,
and I was always still reading it,
I said to them, well, honestly, I think I have.
But they said, well, we're gonna go to a service right now. We're gonna just praise the them, well, honestly, I think I have. But they said, well, we're
going to go to a service right now. We're going to, you know, just praise the Lord,
blah, blah, blah. We're born again. And I thought, well, good for you. You know, that's
great. But I said, honestly, I'm okay. I'm sure I was tempted. But that was what it was
about, that whole movement, all those young people getting baptized and looking for meaning in a world where everything had sort of taken a spiral
into hallucinogenics and stuff like that.
That was pretty popular then.
I don't think I use the same words, but who does, as you?
But I have the same exact feeling.
One of my moments that was really kind of quite lovely Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. and we got the VIP treatment where the pilot came running out
and said, we're gonna beat the storm.
Come on, Ted, come on, Mary.
And so, you know, the VIP treatment always sucks.
Little questionable.
Yeah, don't do it.
Don't be making mistakes.
And we got on the plane and it was a massive storm system
that was sweeping the entire north-south
of the United States.
And we flew smack dab into it and it was, system that was sweeping the entire north-south of the United States and we
flew smack dab into it and it was you couldn't see out the airplane it was pure
white it was thunderous from the rain Mary cracked two ribs from the the
turbulence and the bouncing you had to hold on as if you were riding a you know
I've never ridden one but a bull,
you know, it was that kind of bouncy.
And usually when you're with your mate,
one of you will be in fear and maybe the other one isn't.
So the one who isn't can go, it's okay.
We're gonna make it.
That's right.
We looked at each other and neither one of us could say,
we're gonna make it.
And I remember, it's not that I only pray
in scary situations, but we tend to.
Turbulence brings out Jesus very quickly.
But I remember saying, putting myself in your hands, Lord.
And our please watch after and, you know, our please watch after,
and then our whatever, how I phrased it in my head.
And then the next thought was, you've always been
in his hands, her hands, whatever hands.
Whatever you want to call it, man.
Whatever you want to call it.
Father, mother, whatever.
And it relaxed me so much.
It's brilliant.
That it wasn't, you know, anyway.
Yeah. No, it's, you know. There's that thing again, you know, anyway. Yeah.
No, it's, you know.
There's that thing again, you know, there it is.
Mortality is not a bad thing.
Yeah.
Gravity is not a bad thing.
If it weren't for gravity and mortality,
we'd all be partying like crazy
and we wouldn't have a spiritual thought in our head.
Exactly.
But yeah, are we lucky?
Are we lucky?
Really?
Yeah.
You know, it's interesting because I grew up quite,
you know, religious and quite, quite, you know,
I was Christian and then-
But you even trained, sorry, Woody,
I don't know if Kelsey knows this,
you trained to be a priest, is that not right?
Or started it?
I was thinking about becoming a minister, yeah.
Well, I didn't see that.
Not a priest, we weren't Catholic.
But you know, I had given some, a couple of sermons
and up to when I was in my early 20s.
But then just before I moved to New York,
I suddenly found a new religion, hedonism.
It was just right on time.
And, uh, but anyway, I, I, I had a long time where I just wasn't sure.
You know, we got, I don't know that I've ever talked with you guys about religion
or Christianity, but, but I, I really, I had a long time where I was just like, I
don't know what, what the situation is.
So I'm just going to say I don't know.
Yeah.
Now, and I'm going to back off from my whole rather religious mentality.
Then ironically, I read Autography of a yogi and I was like,
okay, Paramahansa Yogananda is either a fraud and a, and a total fate.
Or he's exactly what he appears to me, deeply spiritual man who is telling
the truth, which means there is a God.
Yeah. is telling the truth, which means there is a God.
Yeah, oh yeah.
And so that's why I don't discount what you're saying, but to say you were sitting on a plane
and then Jesus was next to you,
I really need you to kinda,
I mean, you felt like you physically saw him
sitting in the seat next to you.
No, I guess I could have, but you know, that wasn't what I needed at the time.
It was clearly in my head, but it was unmistakably the voice of something other than in my head
or me.
Right.
So that was the energy.
You were hearing the voice.
Yeah.
It was just, it was a conversation, you know, that was not being dictated by me.
Right.
Yeah, it was just there.
Wow.
So let me have it.
That seemed incredible.
Yeah, it was remarkable.
And then of course I look back to all the other things that have happened in my life
and, you know, recognize it.
I see the footsteps, the fingerprints.
And I go, oh, okay.
Thanks for being around.
Because it is a miracle that all three of us are here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Truly, I mean, not in a silly way.
It's a miracle.
No, no, no.
I remember what my-
Especially Kels.
Yeah, especially Kels.
Thanks.
Bless you.
We're still working on you, Woody.
My mother came home to die.
She had a choice of going to the hospital.
She had really bad pneumonia and she went, no, no.
Wanted to come home.
Good for her.
And for two weeks, she had the most,
she had the passing the last weeks of her,
this is how she wanted to go.
There were nuns that she knew from Colorado who came down and sang evening prayers every
night with her and hung out with her, people hoping Navajo would come say goodbye to her
who knew her.
It was like the perfect passing for her.
And I remember I had the night shift.
My sister did the days and she lived next door
and I would be there after she had really kind of
could no longer be really present,
but her body was still going.
And I remember looking at her
and realizing that moment of, I don't know.
All of my readings, my teachings, my philosophy, all the things that mentors have told me,
all the things that I've used to heal over the years went flying out the window.
And I went, I don't know, she may or she may be about to,
but I don't, I really truly don't know.
And it boiled down for me to kind of
try to do the best you can in every moment.
Cause you do know what the best choice is in every moment.
Yeah, you do. You really do choice is in every moment. Yeah, you do.
You really do.
And if you just, you know, slow down and listen and try to do the best thing,
that's as much as I know.
Try to be a little better every day, you know.
That's good.
And that to me, I can wrap my brain about, around.
No, bless you.
But I know there's...
There's something.
Yeah.
I mean, even though... But I know there's something. You try to explain how this planet and this universe could possibly be if you didn't put
something higher than ourselves.
It's really funny.
I mean, of course, I mean, bless your mom.
I was just thinking about your mom.
That's a beautiful story actually. Even the most advanced string theory guys that exist
say, oh no, there's something.
Yeah, of course there is.
Here's why I love that we're all kind of in the business
of making people laugh, or find something witty
or ironic or something in life.
That we all, hearing that story, and then I walk out something witty or ironic or something in life,
that we all, hearing that story, and then I walk out the door and I think,
I'm in control of my day and I actually know.
It's so, no.
But I do think we're meant to enjoy the ride
and we're supposed to have free will.
We are definitely here for free will.
And then, so we get to make a choice.
Yeah.
Some of us are maybe not gonna choose wisely.
You know?
And some of us are lucky to turn around and make a choice.
To be around long enough to get to make the right choice.
Yeah, that's my story.
What a great life you have, Kelsey Grammer, really.
Thank you, you too.
Yeah, yeah, us too.
What a wonderful thing to be,
just to spend time with you, Kelsey.
I don't get to see you enough, man.
Every time I see you is great.
It's always a real occasion when we get together.
I always love it.
I love seeing you.
You always got something going on.
Your brain's always thinking some way
that most people's don't.
And it is a joy to know you.
And it always has been.
And the feeling is mutual.
Yeah, you too, Kels.
You too, I love you very much.
I love you too.
Yeah.
I love you.
That's good.
You know what, we should just do a little moment of
thank you, Jimmy, Les, and Glenn.
Yeah, absolutely.
We've all gone on and done many other amazing things
and our life.
It isn't only Cheers, but without Cheers, I would not be sitting here talking to you
guys.
I would not be pretty much doing anything in my career.
It was such an amazing platform for us to jump off of.
That's what the everybody knows your name thing.
They burnt our careers.
Yeah, they did.
They did, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Kelsey Grammer, ladies and gentlemen,
I hope you enjoyed it.
I had the best hour and a half that I've had in weeks.
It was just so sweet.
Cheers gave us such a platform to jump off into life
and it was fun to reminisce.
Anyway, that's it for this week's show.
Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco.
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where everybody knows your name.
You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson
sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leal. Executive producers are Adam Sacks, Colin Anderson,
Jeff Ross, and myself. Sara Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is We'll have more for you next time, where everybody knows your name.