Daphne Crane (née Moon) (born September 1961) is a
fictional characterA character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr through its Latin transcription character, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its...
on the American television sitcom
FrasierFrasier is an American sitcom broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993 to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Paramount Television.A spin-off from Cheers, Frasier stars Kelsey Grammer as psychiatrist...
, played by
Jane LeevesJane Leeves is an English actress.After beginning her career on the Benny Hill Show, Leeves moved to the United States, where she performed in small roles until she secured a recurring part in the television sitcom Murphy Brown....
.
Daphne is a recent immigrant from
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
who is employed by
Frasier CraneDr. Frasier Winslow Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on American television sitcoms Frasier and Cheers. He was played by Kelsey Grammer for twenty years, tying the record for the longest-running character on prime-time American television, which was set by James Arness, who...
as a live-in housekeeper and physical therapist for his father,
MartinMartin "Marty" Crane is a character on the American television show Frasier. He is played by Lancashire-born actor John Mahoney. Martin is the father of Frasier and Niles Crane.- Biography :...
. Her quirky personality and claims of psychic abilities provided comic relief on the show, while her relationship with Frasier's brother
Niles CraneDr. Niles Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on the American sitcom Frasier, a spin-off of the popular show Cheers. He was portrayed by David Hyde Pierce...
was a major dramatic plotline during the run of the series, progressing from Niles' secret infatuation at the beginning of the show to their marriage at the beginning of season ten.
Daphne Crane (née Moon) (born September 1961) is a
fictional characterA character is the representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr through its Latin transcription character, the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its...
on the American television sitcom
FrasierFrasier is an American sitcom broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993 to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Paramount Television.A spin-off from Cheers, Frasier stars Kelsey Grammer as psychiatrist...
, played by
Jane LeevesJane Leeves is an English actress.After beginning her career on the Benny Hill Show, Leeves moved to the United States, where she performed in small roles until she secured a recurring part in the television sitcom Murphy Brown....
.
Daphne is a recent immigrant from
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
who is employed by
Frasier CraneDr. Frasier Winslow Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on American television sitcoms Frasier and Cheers. He was played by Kelsey Grammer for twenty years, tying the record for the longest-running character on prime-time American television, which was set by James Arness, who...
as a live-in housekeeper and physical therapist for his father,
MartinMartin "Marty" Crane is a character on the American television show Frasier. He is played by Lancashire-born actor John Mahoney. Martin is the father of Frasier and Niles Crane.- Biography :...
. Her quirky personality and claims of psychic abilities provided comic relief on the show, while her relationship with Frasier's brother
Niles CraneDr. Niles Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on the American sitcom Frasier, a spin-off of the popular show Cheers. He was portrayed by David Hyde Pierce...
was a major dramatic plotline during the run of the series, progressing from Niles' secret infatuation at the beginning of the show to their marriage at the beginning of season ten. The role was originally to be filled by
Lisa MaxwellLisa Maxwell is an English actress and television presenter. She is engaged to sculptor Paul Jessup and has one child, a daughter who was born in October 1999....
who left before production began due to a dispute with producers.
Biography
Daphne was born in
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2007, the population of the city was estimated to be 458,100...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the only daughter in a large, working-class family of nine children. She spent much of her childhood playing nurse and housemaid to her brothers. She has a complex love-hate relationship with her domineering and ever-complaining mother, Gertrude Moon (played by
Millicent MartinMillicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedian.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...
); her relationship with her father, Harry (played by
Brian CoxBrian Denis Cox, CBE is a Scottish actor.-Early life:Cox was born in Dundee, Scotland, the youngest of five children. His mother, Mary Ann Guillerline , was a spinner who worked in the jute mills and suffered several nervous breakdowns during Cox's childhood. His father, Charles McArdle Campbell...
), is much warmer and closer.
As a young girl, Daphne was an actress in the fictional hit British sitcom
Mind Your Knickers (a show about "ethnically diverse" twelve year olds in a private girls
boarding schoolA boarding school is a school where some or all pupils not only study, but also live during term time, with their fellow students and possibly teachers. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board", that is, food and lodging...
, possibly named in reference to the 1970s British sitcom
Mind Your LanguageMind Your Language is a British comedy television series, that premiered on ITV in late 1977. Produced by LWT and directed by Stuart Allen, it is set in a school for adult students in London, focusing on the English as a Foreign Language class taught by Mr. Jeremy Brown, portrayed by Barry Evans,...
). Her career ended at age 16 when she became too tall and busty to play her short, pre-teen character. During her youth, she gained considerable skill at
billiardsCue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
, claiming to have won many tournaments. After working at a convenience store (which she implies was robbed) Daphne then took up a career as a physical therapist, working one-on-one with various invalids and shut-ins. At an indeterminate time, she migrates across the Atlantic to live in Seattle, seeking a new life free of her domineering family. In the third season finale "You Can Go Home Again", it is revealed that prior to being hired by the Cranes, she had a chance encounter with them at Cafe Nervosa. In the first season premiere "The Good Son" Daphne is hired by Frasier Crane to assist Frasier's father, Martin Crane, with his daily activities and exercises. Martin suffers pain and discomfort from a bullet wound he received years ago while working on the Seattle police force.
Personality
Like most characters on
Frasier, Daphne has many eccentricities. She often tells rambling stories about her family, cheerfully remembering rather grim or traumatic events, to the considerable discomfort of the Crane family. She is also a firm believer in the
supernaturalThe term supernatural or supranatural pertains to an order of existence beyond the scientifically visible universe. Religious miracles are typically supernatural claims, as are spells and curses, divination, the belief that there is an afterlife for the dead, and innumerable others...
, and believes herself to be "a bit
psychicA psychic is a person who claims to have the ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception, or is said to have such abilities by others...
". Daphne's apparent psychic abilities are often treated with ambiguity on the show, and her various 'visions' are sometimes shown to have come true, often in a somewhat roundabout way, and sometimes very accurately. As the series progressed, Daphne's psychic abilities were considerably played down.
Role on the series
Daphne's most significant developing relationship over the course of the series is with Frasier Crane's younger brother,
Niles CraneDr. Niles Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on the American sitcom Frasier, a spin-off of the popular show Cheers. He was portrayed by David Hyde Pierce...
. Unbeknownst to Daphne, Niles falls in love with her in the third episode, when they first meet; despite the increasing obviousness of Niles' infatuation, Daphne remains utterly oblivious to Niles' feelings towards her, though they become increasingly close friends. Niles says nothing to Daphne, at first because he is married, later because she is involved with numerous (frequently unsuccessful) relationships with other men. Even when she is not, Frasier has one excuse or another to prevent Niles from telling her anything.
Niles' feelings are ultimately, and accidentally, revealed by Frasier in Season 7. Shocked to discover Niles' true feelings towards her, Daphne finds herself falling in love with Niles in return, placing her in the position Niles had been in for many years: in love with someone unaware of her true feelings.
Heartbroken to discover that he had, on impulse, married his girlfriend Mel, Daphne intends to go ahead with her own marriage to Niles' divorce lawyer Donny, until Frasier intervenes. In a two-part episode closing Season 7 and opening Season 8, Niles finally confesses his feelings to her, and although she initially rejects him, Daphne eventually changes her mind, abandoning Donny at the altar.
The guilt she suffers as a result, and the difficulties in Daphne and Niles' new relationship, cause Daphne to begin overeating (a previous episode established her as eating junk food when upset, causing her family to believe she's pregnant). She gains sixty pounds (4 stone 4 pounds), but Niles is so blinded by love he doesn't notice until Daphne falls to the floor and is too heavy to get up without the help of Frasier, Niles and Martin (who remarks "it took three Cranes to lift you"). The weight problem was written into the show to allow Leeves to continue working while pregnant. During the episode "It Takes Two to Tangle" in which she did not appear while at the hospital, Niles tells Roz that Daphne had lost 9 pounds, 12 ounces (the weight of Leeves' baby).
At some point in Season 10, she becomes a U.S. Citizen. In the first episode of Season 10, Daphne and Niles marry in a small, private ceremony in
Reno, NevadaReno is a city in and the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The population was 180,480 at the 2000 census; in 2008, its population was estimated at 217,016, making it the fourth-largest city in the state after Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas, and the largest outside of...
. The rest of Season 10 and early Season 11 show Daphne and Niles adjusting to their new life as a wedded couple. Daphne and Niles have their first child, David, in the final episode of the series, "
Goodnight, Seattle"Goodnight Seattle" is the title of the series finale of the long-running American sitcom Frasier. It aired on May 13, 2004, in the 11th year of the series...
". (He is named after the show's co-creator
David AngellDavid Lawrence Angell was an American producer of sitcoms. Angell won multiple Emmy Awards as the creator and executive producer, along with Peter Casey and David Lee, of the comedy series Frasier...
who died in the
September 11, 2001 attacksThe September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners...
.)
She initially drives a small Ford, based on the UK Focus, which she uses to take the family to the burial plots which Martin purchases for Frasier and Niles. In the episode where her room is violated by the family, Frasier is forced into buying her a Ford Mustang convertible. We later see this vehicle in the episode where Martin is looking for replacement shoes. When she marries Niles, she clearly benefits from the wealth he secured in his divorce settlement. She drives a BMW X5, which is surprising considering Niles' fondness of Mercedes.
Family
Daphne grew up in a very large dysfunctional family. They are often the subject of her long-winded tales that sometimes leave the Cranes somewhat perplexed. Although frequently mentioned, the first time one of her family members appears on the show is in the season 7 episode "Dark Side of the Moon", in which Donny surprises Daphne with a visit from her brother, Simon (
Anthony LaPagliaAnthony M. LaPaglia is an Australian actor. He is known for his Golden Globe Award-winning role as FBI agent Jack Malone on the American TV series Without a Trace, and for his Emmy Award-winning portrayal of Simon Moon on the TV show Frasier.-Early life:LaPaglia was born in Adelaide, South...
), not knowing that she dislikes him (her favorite brother, Stephen, never appears until the final episode, where he is played by
Richard E. GrantRichard E. Grant is a Swazi born English actor, screenwriter and director.-Early life:Grant was born Richard Grant Esterhuysen in Mbabane, Swaziland. He adopted the surname Grant when he moved to the UK as an adult and registered with the British Actors' Equity Association...
). In "Something Borrowed, Someone Blue" Daphne's mother makes her first appearance, while her father only makes his debut in Season 9.
Five out of Daphne's eight brothers have appeared on the show; unfortunately, few of them maintained consistency with Daphne's Northern accent. LaPaglia, an Australian actor, faked a
CockneyThe term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
(London) accent, while
Robbie ColtraneRobbie Coltrane, OBE is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is most widely known for his role as Dr Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald in the British TV series Cracker...
, who is Scottish, played Daphne's brother Michael with a muddled Brummy (Birmingham) accent. Most of the brothers are portrayed as lawless, alcoholic ne'er-do-wells and womanizers, except for Billy, who is implied to be gay, such as in the episode Daphne's Room, in which Daphne said "All of my brothers would peek at me in the shower, all of them! Except for Billy that is..." When Daphne talks with her mom Gertrude about resuming her sex life with Niles after his heart surgery, Gertrude tells her to "use your feminine wiles - that’s how your brother Billy landed Kevin." According to Daphne, Billy rejected the family's traditional fishing background by announcing that he "hated the smell of fish, and was going to teach ballroom dancing." Daphne also has an uncle who lives in San Francisco, and who is said to be both a priest and a transvestite.