There are many things that are enviable about the life of Frasier actor John Mahoney, who died this week at the age of seventy seven.
From 1993 to 2004, he played the curmudgeonly father of Niles and Frasier, in the spin off from Cheers which has often been declared ‘the greatest sit com of all time’.
In a show distinctive for its strong characters, it was generally Martin Crane – a police detective, forced to retire after a gunshot wound – who emerged as the star of an episode, transcending his lurid green reclining chair and Eddie the dog.
Off-screen Mahoney was also an intriguing character: the seventh of eight children, born in Manchester but determined to make a life of his own design in the United States.
But perhaps the most alluring thing about Mahoney, though, is that he is a brilliant and surprising example of blissfully happy, late-in-life career change.
In his thirties he was the...