David Hyde Pierce (born David Pierce; April 3, 1959) is an American actor. Known for his portrayal of psychiatrist Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier from 1993 to 2004, he received four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series as well as two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Pierce has also received five Golden Globe Awards nominations for Best Supporting Actor for the role. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role of Lt. Frank Cioffi in the Broadway musical Curtains (2007).
Pierce acted in such films as Crossing Delancey (1988), The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Wolf (1994), Nixon (1995), Down with Love (2003), and The Perfect Host (2010). He voiced roles in Disney Pixar's A Bug's Life (1998), Osmosis Jones (2001), and Treasure Planet (2002). He portrayed Henry Newman in the comedy film Wet Hot American Summer and reprised his role in two series from Netflix in 2014 and in 2017. From 1992 to 1993, Pierce starred in the NBC sitcom The Powers That Be. He has since acted in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife (2014–2015), the ABC docu-drama When We Rise (2017), and the HBO Max series Julia (2022–23).
Besides his performance in Curtains, Pierce also had Broadway roles as Sir Robin in Monty Python's Spamalot (2005), Vanya in the comedic play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2013) and Horace Vandergelder in the revival of Hello, Dolly! (2017). For the latter two, Pierce was nominated for a Tony Award. He made his Broadway directorial debut with the musical It Shoulda Been You (2015).
David Hyde Pierce was born in Saratoga Springs, New York. His father, George Pierce, was an aspiring actor, and his mother, Laura Marie Pierce (née Hughes), was an insurance agent. He is the youngest of four children: he has two older sisters, Barbara and Nancy and one older brother, Thomas. He adopted the middle name Hyde in 1993 to avoid confusion with another actor named David Pierce. As a child, Pierce frequently played organ at the local Bethesda Episcopal Church. He attended Kabeyun, an all-boys' summer camp, where he acted in their camp productions of Gilbert & Sullivan and directed their production of H.M.S. Pinafore.
After graduating from Saratoga Springs High School in 1977, Pierce attended Yale University. He originally majored in music with an emphasis in piano performance, but later changed to a double major in English literature and theater studies. While attending Yale, Pierce performed in and directed student productions, appearing in the Yale Gilbert & Sullivan Society's production of H.M.S. Pinafore. Pierce also directed the Gilbert & Sullivan Society's operetta Princess Ida. Pierce graduated from Yale in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
After his college graduation, Pierce moved to New York City. During the 1980s and early 1990s, he was employed in various jobs (such as selling ties at Bloomingdale's and working as a security guard) while pursuing an acting career and studying at Michael Howard Studios. During this period, he played Laertes in an off-Broadway production of Hamlet, with Kevin Kline in the title role. Pierce made his Broadway debut in 1982 in Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy. In 1988, Pierce played Yasha in Peter Brook's production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a cast that included Brian Dennehy, Linda Hunt, and Erland Josephson, Kate Mailer, and Jan Tříska.
Pierce's first big television break came in the early 1990s with Norman Lear's political comedy, The Powers That Be, in which Pierce played Theodore Van Horne, a Congressman. Despite positive reviews from critics, the show was canceled after a brief run. This did free Pierce up for his breakthrough role in Frasier, and the producers of that show did in part hire Pierce based on his performance in The Powers That Be.
1993–2004: Breakthrough with Frasier
In part owing to his close facial resemblance to Kelsey Grammer, the producers of the Cheers spin-off Frasier created the role of Niles Crane (Frasier Crane's younger brother) for him. Prior to Frasier going into production, Pierce had petitioned the Screen Actors Guild to change his billing to David Pierce–the name he had used on the stage–concerned that the use of his middle name in the show's credits would typecast him, saddling him with the character's "snooty" image. For his work on Frasier, Pierce was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Emmy a record eleven consecutive years, winning in 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2004. Pierce received praise for his skilled physical comedy and rapid fire comedy reactions. David Bianculli of New York Daily News declared, "Not since Jack Benny has TV seen such a great reactive comedian as Pierce, and whenever he and [Kelsey] Grammer share the same stage, Frasier is undiluted magic.
Pierce also appeared alongside Jodie Foster in Little Man Tate, with Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995), and with Ewan McGregor in Down With Love (2003). He provided the voice for Doctor Doppler in Disney's 42nd animated feature, Treasure Planet; Slim, a stick insect in Pixar's A Bug's Life; and Abe Sapien in Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy. In his role in Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Pierce played Dennis Reed, the brother of Meg Ryan's character Annie Reed, a professor at Johns Hopkins University. The film was released three months before the start of Frasier. In 2001, he starred in the cult 1981-set summer camp comedy Wet Hot American Summer, as the befuddled astrophysicist Prof. Henry Newman.
Pierce has played a number of roles as a voice actor. These include the narrator of the film The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human in 1999, the walking stick insect "Slim" in A Bug's Life, Dr. Delbert Doppler in Disney's film Treasure Planet, and amphibian Abe Sapien in Hellboy. Pierce declined to be credited for his Hellboy role because he felt it was the performance of Doug Jones, and not his own voice, which ultimately brought the character of Abe Sapien to life. He was the voice for Drix, a cold pill, in the animated comedy Osmosis Jones.
In a deliberate in-joke, he voiced Cecil Terwilliger, the brother of Kelsey Grammer-voiced Sideshow Bob, in The Simpsons' eighth season episode "Brother from Another Series", in which the two characters parallel the Frasier–Niles relationship. At one point in the episode, Cecil mistakes Bart Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) for Maris Crane, the unseen wife of Niles on Frasier. He returned as Cecil in the Season 19 episode "Funeral for a Fiend" where Frasier co-star John Mahoney voices Dr. Robert Terwilliger Sr., the father of Cecil and Sideshow Bob.
Pierce provided the voice of Mr. Daedalus in the 1998 Disney show Hercules: The Animated Series. Pierce narrated an audio tour guide, Napa Uncorked, in 2002. In 2006, he co-starred in the animated pilot for The Amazing Screw-On Head as the Screw-On Head (Paul Giamatti)'s nemesis Emperor Zombie; however, the series was not picked up. His commercial voiceover work included ads for the Tassimo coffee system, Seattle's Metro Transit, and home furnishings retailer IKEA Canada.
In 2005, Pierce joined Tim Curry and others in the stage production of Spamalot. In August and September 2006, he starred as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi in Curtains, a new Kander and Ebb musical staged at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. In March 2007, Curtains opened on Broadway and on June 10, 2007, Pierce won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance. In his acceptance speech, Pierce said the first words he spoke on a Broadway stage were, "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
On November 19, 2007, Pierce was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Niagara University in Lewiston, New York. In 1999, he was awarded an honorary degree from Skidmore College, located in his native Saratoga Springs. Pierce was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2010 for his narration of The Phantom Tollbooth.