Niles Crane

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David Hyde Pierce as Niles Crane

Dr. Niles Crane is a fictional character on the American sitcom Frasier, a spin-off of the popular show Cheers. He is played by David Hyde Pierce. Niles is the younger brother of Frasier Crane and the son of Martin Crane.

While it had originally been intended that Frasier be an only child, David Hyde Pierce was hired because Frasier producers saw his headshot and commented on how much he looked like a young Kelsey Grammer. Unlike Frasier, much of whose background comes from the Cheers series, Niles' background is established over the course of Frasier (with additional retcons made where necessary if Niles' existence clashes with previous revelations made on Cheers).

On Bravo TV's countdown of the 100 Greatest TV characters, David Hyde Pierce described Niles as "Frasier if he had never gone to Boston."

1 Background
2 Personality
3 Role in the series
4 Niles Quotes from Frasier

[edit] Background

Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1958, to Hester Crane, a psychiatrist, and Martin Crane, a police detective, the exact date of Niles' birth and the age difference between the two brothers is never revealed. However, we do get some hints. For example, in the episode "IQ," we learned that Niles was given Frasier's tricycle when Frasier was eight. It can be assumed that Niles was several years old at the time, so the age difference cannot be great.

Like Frasier, Niles was named for one of his mother's lab rats. Niles was an unusually sensitive child when growing up, and a frequent target for bullies. As a result, he was quite close to his older brother, and at the same time fiercely competitive with him. Like Frasier, Niles also preferred fine arts, music, and intellectual pursuits to boyhood activities like sports.

Niles attended Yale and then Cambridge for his tertiary education and psychiatric training, and describes his profession as "the saving grace of my life" (in episode "IQ"). Greatly respected professionally, he runs his own Jungian practice and has had his research published in several psychiatric journals.

Interestingly, David Hyde Pierce also attended Yale.

[edit] Personality

Niles is fastidious, snobby and fussy, and has gourmet tastes. Like Frasier, he is an admirer of the fine arts including opera, theatre and classical music, drinks fine wine and enjoys high culture and exclusive social gatherings, and frequently obsesses about knowing the right people and climbing the social ladder, even more so than his brother. Frasier once commented, "I'm a teamster compared to you."

Physically weak and very uncoordinated, Niles has a long list of phobias and medical conditions, many of which are clearly psychosomatic. Most prominently, he is quite mysophobic, given to wiping his hands after human contact and wiping down chairs in public places before sitting on them. His nose bleeds when he tells a direct lie. When extremely stressed, he is prone to panic attacks and fits of hyperventilation which have, on more than one occasion, seen him lose consciousness. He also suffers from a long list of allergies, some exceedingly rare. He is seemingly hopeless at sports, barely able to catch objects even after simple throws. However, in some episodes he is shown to be a fair fencer, and he has had some lessons in kickboxing. The brothers are often seen coming or going to squash matches. Accompanying Martin on the shooting range one day, Niles discovered that he is an excellent marksman. On other occasions he has expressed interest in lifting weights and taking karate lessons, but these ventures are typically laughed at by his father and brother and often amount to nothing.

He drives a Mercedes-Benz with the licence plate 5HRINK.

[edit] Role in the series

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Niles is Frasier's constant companion and rival, and his secret love for their father's physical therapist Daphne Moon is both a source of tension and comedy in the show.

Niles' first wife is Maris, the selfish, haughty, highly-strung and anorexic daughter of a wealthy Seattle family who is never seen on the show, despite being referred to frequently. After fifteen years of marriage, the two separate. Numerous attempts at reconciliation (mainly initiated by Niles), are followed by a bitter and protracted divorce.

Niles then marries Mel Karnofsky, Maris' plastic surgeon, whom he starts dating following his divorce. The two elope, but the marriage falls apart after only two days when Niles confesses his love for Daphne the night before her wedding to lawyer Donny. As a consequence, Mel forces Niles to participate in a prolonged charade of a happy marriage before granting him a divorce after he embarrasses her in front of her society friends.

By far, Niles' most significant relationship on the show is with Daphne, perhaps an unlikely attraction given the significant differences in their tastes, temperament and social standing (he once referred to her as a "working-class Venus"). For numerous reasons during the first six seasons of the show, Niles is unable to confess his feelings for Daphne, who remains unaware of his love for her. Niles' feelings for Daphne are the basis for many gags on the show, including the numerous ways he demonstrates how besotted he is with her (such as being entranced by the smell of her hair or staring at her rear end when she bends over), but develops over the course of the series into an important plotline. Hyde-Pierce engaged in innumerable bits of nearly unnoticeable stage business, displaying Niles' almost trancelike attraction to Daphne even when audience focus of attention is not on the pair. Niles is frequently jealous of Daphne's boyfriends (and even his own nephew, Frederick, who nurses a crush on Daphne as a pre-adolescent).

When the two do attempt a relationship, they must reconcile their many lifestyle differences, and Daphne is so worried she will not live up to Niles' idealistic vision of her that she begins pigging out on chocolate. She gains over fifty pounds, but Niles doesn't even notice until Daphne finally reaches her breaking point and goes to a spa to lose the weight.

Ultimately Niles and Daphne marry in Reno, Nevada, and the series ends with the birth of their son, David. David is named after Frasier co-creator David Angell who was killed, along with his wife Lynn, in the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

[edit] Niles Quotes from Frasier

"Her lips said 'No', but her eyes said 'Read my lips.'"

"While you were over there mixing metaphors like a Cuisinart, I had a breakthrough."

"Oh, I'm sorry - were you talking? I was distracted by your head driving by on a bus." [In response to Frasier asking him if putting an ad in a magazine wasn't too commercial]

"How strange - I usually get some sign when Lilith is in town: dogs forming into packs, blood weeping from the walls."

"I thought all one had to do was draw a pentagram on the floor and chant 'I summon thee' three times" [upon finding out that Frasier cannot find Bebe Glazer, his ruthless agent]

"Oh dear, look at the time. I have a session with my multiple personality. Well, not to worry. If I'm late, he can just talk amongst himself."

"And I stormed out and slammed the door! Of course, it was that fourteenth century Bavarian cathedral door, so I had to get two of the servants to help me, but what it lacked in spontaneity it made up for in resonance."

"She's managed to have her urinal cake and eat it too." [upon Niles' discovery that Maris' family business is based in urinal cakes and not timber as she always claimed]

"He had a heart attack when he was out trimming Maris' elaborate hedge maze. The paramedics never had a chance." [reflecting on the passing of Maris' gardener Yoshi]

" The man who floats like a Lepidopteran and stings like a Hymenopteran!" [Describing how Frasier taught someone an etiquette lesson, after Muhammed Ali's famous catchphrase]

"Although I feel perfectly qualified to fill Frasier's radio shoes, I should warn you that while Frasier is a Freudian I am a Jungian. So there'll be no blaming mother today!"

"Frasier, I've made a fist, and I'm thinking of using it!"

"Don't you dare call me irrational, you know that makes me crazy!"

"[After being asked about sports] Oh yes, I can't sleep until I've found who hurled what ball through what apparatus."

"I drove all the way to the Oregon border, but I had to turn back because I had fruit in the car."

"Last night, I actually had a dream that my flour sack was abducted, and the kidnapper started sending me muffins in the mail!"

"I don't mind telling you we pushed our beds together that night. Which is quite a feat, her room, as you know, is across the hall."

"My taekwondo instructor says I'm two moves away from becoming quite threatening"

"Oh, for god's sake, Frasier don't waste your breath on this hairy, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing troglodyte who's probably the only male in existence who suffers from penis envy!"