How did Frasier afford his lifestyle?

May 15, 2021 4:46 PM

Obsessive Gabriella Paiella asks how Frasier could afford it all on a radio show salary. Paiella explains her inspiration to ABC Australia’s Jonathan Green.

Another older article from Curbed valued the condo above $3 million in 2018, but what I found especially interesting were the HUGE (yuge!!!) jumps between the 2016 and 2018 valuations.

A favorite previously in this vein.

posted by ec2y (69 comments total)

He was Harvard educated, so could probably charge more when he was in private practice. And his mom was a psychiatrist, too. She probably left him and Niles some money. And yeah, investments. Plus, although the view includes the Space Needle (an impossible view IRL), if he were really spending the big bucks on his condo, he would have bought on the other side of building, where the water view would be.
posted by lovecrafty at 5:16 PM on May 15, 2021 [13 favorites]

Also there is the episode where the producers are trying to get paid more and all the hosts are trying to be shamed into supporting them. Someone walks into the room and asks whose expensive car is this? and all the hosts raise their hands thinking it might be theirs? I know that was an average of the radio jockey salary, but I wonder if it's bimodal or how that distribution works on the salary scale. It's implied that the hosts of the show are making good money.
posted by Carillon at 5:20 PM on May 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

The fellow upstairs has an Eames chair. He bought it for 50$, not knowing it was anything special, he just liked the look of it.

Still, maybe too pricey for a fringe podcaster, the only job Frasier can have after all those ethics violations turn his license to ash.
posted by adept256 at 5:33 PM on May 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

Syndicated radio 'psychologist' Dr. Laura Schlessinger made $15 million a year.
posted by jamjam at 5:34 PM on May 15, 2021 [17 favorites]

Yeah, the amount of money a radio host makes depends entirely on How Famous He Is. Though we don't hear about Frasier having tons of book deals or merch or whatever, so I would assume he was not making THAT much money. (Well, maybe he got one later on, I don't remember any book deals.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:37 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yeah was going to say Dr. Dean Edell was reportedly making $400,000 per year in 1988 but that includes books & TV. Was Fraser's show syndicated?
posted by muddgirl at 5:43 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

How did Frasier afford his lifestyle?

A wizard did it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:44 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

As I’m from the Midwest, my mental benchmark for Frasier’s contract was Don Wade’s and Roma’s. Supposedly they pulled a million a year toward the end. I could see Seattle in the 90s earning a host at least a third of that.
posted by michaelh at 5:46 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

I just checked and the going rate for an Eames chair is $4300. Style is expensive! I've actually spent a lot of time in that chair, and my ass has known many better and cheaper chairs.
posted by adept256 at 5:51 PM on May 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

Grammer played the role of Dr. Frasier Crane in three different television series – “Cheers,” “Wings” and “Frasier” – tying the record for longest-running television character.

Richard Belzer’s Detective John Munch may have something to say about this.
posted by dr_dank at 5:53 PM on May 15, 2021 [11 favorites]

And his mom was a psychiatrist, too. She probably left him and Niles some money.

Although if she did leave Niles money he's long since spent it; his circumstances are greatly reduced -- to a ratty batchelor apartment -- in the period between his separation from Maris and her money and their reaching a divorce settlement.

Was Fraser's show syndicated?

Only to Spokane! and only for a while! One of the running gags in Frasier is that he's really not as well-known for his show as he frequently and confidently believes he is; he often drops it into conversation to impress only to be met with an "oh, my mother listens to you" or similar.

The real question to me is: how did Frasier establish himself as a high-society Seattle socialite? His radio job is neither well-paid not prestigious; he doesn't appear to have an existing social network in Seattle at the start of Frasier, he's basically moving back there to re-invent himself from scratch; so how? My headcanon has always been: Frasier used Niles as a ladder into high society; and previously Niles had used Maris -- and her money -- for the same purpose.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:03 PM on May 15, 2021 [20 favorites]

oh, and this from the article tickles me a bit:

The question of how Frasier could afford his place didn’t come up too often, Keenan told me, though there was another running joke about the apartment. “The funniest thing about that apartment to the writers was the way in which the kitchen was treated like a private space and a separate room in which whispered conversations could happen as if it weren’t completely open to the living room,” he said.

Because yes, of course the kitchen conversations wouldn't really be private in the real world. But Frasier plots are often farces that rely on subgroups of the characters having different information, and different understanding, of the common situation they're in; the kitchen as a space that the characters can quickly enter and exit for private conversations is a convenience that we all choose to believe in. Imagine how clunky it'd be if they had to be shown opening and closing a door every time.

(Although that said Frasier has done bedroom-door farce multiple times, most often in "let's go the the cabin for the weekend" episodes. Yes, I have watched quite a lot of Frasier in the last year or so.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:15 PM on May 15, 2021 [18 favorites]

How much "high society" was there in Seattle in 1993? I always thought that was part of the joke--that Frasier was so desperate for status that he'd settle for being "high society" in a town when he would've never cracked it in Boston (or New York. Maybe LA, being an entertainer and being able to write scripts for exciting pills...). Seattle's big run-up in wealth happened starting not too long after the show did, I think.

I think the article underestimates the money a private therapist could make in Boston, but also at 40 Frasier would've just been hitting the years when the loans are paid and the practice is well-established.
posted by praemunire at 6:16 PM on May 15, 2021 [8 favorites]

Yes, I have watched quite a lot of Frasier in the last year or so

I recently rewatched the plumber episode and the fencing-adultery episode and...except for Frasier's rancid attitude towards Roz's sex life, they held up pretty well.
posted by praemunire at 6:18 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

The plumber episode is far and away the best Frasier episode. Includes this exchange:

Frasier: NILES! Niles, get a hold of yourself! Stop it! Stop, stop. It's all right. You're no longer an awkward teenager, you're a renowned psychiatrist. Danny Kreizel may have won a battle or two back in junior high, but that's where he peaked. You won the war. You know the expression, "Living well is the best revenge"?

Niles: It's a wonderful expression. Just don't know how true it is. Don't see it turning up in a lot of opera plots. "Ludwig, maddened by the poisoning of his entire family, wreaks vengeance on Gunther in the third act by living well."

Frasier: All right, Niles. [heads into the kitchen]

Niles: [follows him] "Whereupon Woton, upon discovering his deception, wreaks vengeance on Gunther in the third act again by living even better than the Duke."

Frasier: Oh, all right!

And even though the boys don't really believe it shows trade work as being as rewarding (and financially successful) as white collar work. A rarity in television.
posted by Mitheral at 7:03 PM on May 15, 2021 [28 favorites]

I always just assumed his mother came from a rich family and he and Niles had trust funds which they invested well.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:05 PM on May 15, 2021 [6 favorites]

Includes this exchange:

That one always stood out to me as the relatively rare Frasier joke that didn't feel like a joke from another show that just had "Biedermeier furniture" substituted in for "other high-status object." (That maybe sounds like I think it's a devastating critique. I don't. The plumber episode is definitely in the top 25 funniest sitcom episodes I've ever seen. But for a show supposedly about a super-civilized, highly-educated man, and his even-more-so brother, the jokes were rarely actually about the rarefied subjects the brothers were supposedly so interested in.)
posted by praemunire at 7:13 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Plus surely his father has a police pension? And also isn't Daphne paid for through his police retirement insurance?
posted by hippybear at 7:14 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh, nevermind. It's Niles and Maris paying for the home healthcare worker.
posted by hippybear at 7:15 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm sure Marty is contributing to household expenses (he's definitely not the type to freeload), but I'm equally sure he didn't help buy any of that furniture he so loathes.
posted by praemunire at 7:16 PM on May 15, 2021

None of this factors in that his father lives with him, and his father presumably has multiple pensions and retirement funds. Martin Crane was retired from the Army, and then went on to become a police detective and retired from that job. Both of those together could result in significant sources of income and benefits. Martin Crane was also married to a high-profile forensic psychiatrist who had passed away, so presumably there's money there as well.

Could Frasier afford his lifestyle and pretensions without his family money? His decidedly blue-collar father doesn't seem terribly interested in using it for anything other than basic comfort, required care (which may be covered under medical plans at the time), and occasional fun.

I would assume that they had all invested well and never discussed it further.
posted by erst at 7:17 PM on May 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

Martin Crane was retired from the Army

Did he serve 20 years, or did he just serve in the Korean War? I don't actually know the show's lore particularly well, so feel free to correct me, but you don't get a pension just for doing a couple of wartime tours, I don't think.
posted by praemunire at 7:29 PM on May 15, 2021

you don't get a pension just for doing a couple of wartime tours

I don't know how it worked in the time setting of the show, but I have relatives and friends who did ~20 years in the military at various times from the Korean War onwards, and then went on to have very successful non-military careers afterwards, and wound up with multiple pensions.
posted by erst at 7:54 PM on May 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oh wow. It seems so clear to me that it’s trust funds. I can’t imagine working harder at it than that.
posted by Miko at 8:09 PM on May 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying I didn't get the impression that Martin did more than wartime service. Korean War was only three years. But I definitely am not deep in the trivia, so if someone knows better, they're probably right.
posted by praemunire at 8:13 PM on May 15, 2021

I've thought about this, perhaps too much.

It's possible his mom left him some money, but that makes it odd Martin doesn't have much. His dad often feels unable to afford things including nice dinners. It's also implied that he can't live alone and neither brother can afford to give him his own apartment with room for himself and Daphne, or they would have jumped at that solution long ago.

Martin must have some kind of police pension, but possibly he was shot before is got very big? He was shot/retired at 60. He never mentions a career outside of service and the police force. But it's possible he started a little late and he may have taken some time off and dipped into retirement funds to help when his wife got sick. That could explain why he was still a beat cop at 60. The time off, plus medical debt from his own injury and his wife's cancer may have tapped him out.

As for Frasier's money, I don't think he has a book deal. He tried with his brother once and he was pretty jealous of Dr. Mary, so if he did have a book it wasn't nearly as popular or successful. I think Martin and Hester had enough money when in the early 70s to pay their kids way through college and let them graduate debt free. And while Frasier was married to Lilith, they were a high earning dual-income couple for long enough to get some solid investment income set up.

There could be a less ethical income stream as well. We often hear Frasier tell listeners to stay on the line so he can refer them to help. He could be getting kickbacks from therapists for those recommendations.

But of course, the real reason he gets paid so much is his agent, Bebe.
posted by Garm at 8:41 PM on May 15, 2021 [10 favorites]

Imagine how clunky it'd be if they had to be shown opening and closing a door every time.

That's why sitcoms always have those weird swingy doors into the kitchen that you only see in sitcoms.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:08 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

Martin seems like the type of man who would have insisted that the family live on his salary alone when the boys were young, in a time and place where that would have been what was expected of a man with a wife and children. I think the very most he would have conceded would have been letting Hester pay for private school tuition.

So any money she inherited from her own family, plus probably at least some of what she earned herself, would have gone to the sons.

Of course, then there’s the question of how much child support Frasier is paying, but it doesn’t seem to be anything onerous.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:21 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

That's why sitcoms always have those weird swingy doors into the kitchen that you only see in sitcoms.

We had those in one house we lived in! It was always weird in that one cat had no trouble opening them, but the other one never even tried.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:23 PM on May 15, 2021 [7 favorites]

That's why sitcoms always have those weird swingy doors into the kitchen that you only see in sitcoms.

Hey! We had one! They're so you don't have to turn a knob while your hands are full of dishes.

I don't know why everyone is assuming that Hester had a lot of money. She was a forensic psychiatrist, wasn't she? That's a middle-class profession. I figured she was a classic ostentatiously cultivated middle-class person. The main indication of any family money is the boys going to private school, but (a) scholarships and (b) that seems like something the family might prioritize. (I have a number of friends who send their kids to private school, but won't be leaving them large sums of money. Private school tuition is one of the first things you'll spend more on once you've achieved financial stability, but that doesn't necessarily translate into an estate of the size we'd need here.) Also, if she'd had money, one would think she would've left most of it to Marty, who doesn't have it.
posted by praemunire at 9:30 PM on May 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

MeFi: If someone knows better, they're probably right.
posted by fairmettle at 9:57 PM on May 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

Eddie. The dog is the source of the money. Follow the dog.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 10:06 PM on May 15, 2021 [22 favorites]

The real question to me is: how did Frasier establish himself as a high-society Seattle socialite?

I've never lived in a big city, but in all the medium sized cities I've lived in, media personalities definitely run in society circles.
Add in an interest in opera, theater, etc and I can easily see someone with a "name" being invited to fundraisers and other soirees.

Maybe not the super old money who would look down on someone who works for a living, but I don't think he'd hurt for invitations.
posted by madajb at 10:20 PM on May 15, 2021 [9 favorites]

Chercher le chien.
posted by Carillon at 10:29 PM on May 15, 2021 [8 favorites]

Regarding Frasier's social climbing in Seattle High Society- he's a Harvard and Oxford Grad. Safe to say that it's not just Maris, but also his own aggressive networking in the Harvard clubs that gets him into society circles. The celebrity just further validates it, along with his interests in opera and theater.

Let's also ad up his revenue streams:

Syndicated Talk Radio Host (less famous): Maybe 400K/ year?
Ongoing psychiatric practice: $60K?

And invest that well, as the showrunners say, especially if you get in on the ground floor of Microsoft and Amazon portfolios (maybe he gets stock tips from his high society friends) and Frasier could manage all the things he seems to manage.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 11:09 PM on May 15, 2021 [5 favorites]

I seem to recall it being mentioned on the show that Frasier had lucked into buying some Microsoft shares very early in the company's history. This was given a somewhat hand-wavey explanation by stressing his background in Seattle.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:48 AM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

In the 'suspension of lifestyle disbelief in film and TV' stakes, the winner has to be An American Werewolf in London, in which Jenny Agutter, a nurse, lives alone in an apartment overlooking Piccadilly Circus.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:40 AM on May 16, 2021 [13 favorites]

Excuse me, his dad's a retired cop who only wants his own chair. He paid for everything.
posted by parmanparman at 2:05 AM on May 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

I've long been of the opinion that we just have to accept that situation comedies take place in a parallel universe where everyone's living room (or apartment if it's all one room) is, coincidentally, the same size as the stage of a theatre that comfortably contains several hundred people and three large cameras.
posted by Grangousier at 2:13 AM on May 16, 2021 [17 favorites]

I've long been of the opinion that we just have to accept that situation comedies take place in a parallel universe where everyone's living room (or apartment if it's all one room) is, coincidentally, the same size as the stage of a theatre that comfortably contains several hundred people and three large cameras.

Similarly a lot of Americans don't understand that not all British people speak like Princess Diana trying to escape alive from Benjy's nightclub in Mile End.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 4:13 AM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

I always thought it was because he had such a good agent.
posted by freakazoid at 6:37 AM on May 16, 2021

Frasier was embezzling funds from the wine tasting club and that was why he was so nervous about leadership changes. QED.
posted by drezdn at 7:19 AM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

”I can’t imagine working harder at it than that. “

I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you, to discover that people are overthinking Frasier.

It’s almost as if poor people don’t understand where rich people get their money.
posted by Revvy at 8:14 AM on May 16, 2021 [5 favorites]

Transitioned to being a sports anchor and the Arkansas version of Mr. Rogers.
Aw, c'mon, you can't just leave us hanging like that!
posted by xedrik at 8:23 AM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Forget Frasier, I always wondered how Lois Lane could afford a penthouse with rooftop terrace on the Upper East Side on a reporter's salary. Kal-El's OPSEC is certainly not firing on all cylinders.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:45 AM on May 16, 2021 [6 favorites]

Trust funds don't only come from parents.
posted by Miko at 9:13 AM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Anecdotal of course, but my roommate moved to Seattle in 2006 maybe, bought a big one bedroom condo, that was super nice and was a few blocks from the space needle and the fish market and the Sonics stadium (I think, it’s been a while- he moved there the season before they moved to Oklahoma) and it was about $250k, which was a huge purchase then. So $1m in the 1990s seems really high. I’d guess half that. I wish I could recall the address to see how much it is now. Roommate didn’t like Seattle and moved to downtown San Diego and then the SD suburbs since then.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:04 AM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

That tiny apartment is the only sitcom apartment I would ever want to live in.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 10:53 AM on May 16, 2021

Tiny? There were three bedrooms and at least two bathrooms off that big kitchen/lounge area.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:08 AM on May 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

Make that three bathrooms. Here's a floorplan.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:13 AM on May 16, 2021

The Poor Frasier account on Twitter explores a world where Frasier and Niles and Daphne just can't quite make ends meet.

Sample episode:

Frasier finally scrapes together enough for a MacBook, but is dismayed to see there’s no drive to rip his ancient CD collection. While he proudly Tweets that they “no longer spark joy”, he quietly tries to sell them on eBay... one disc at a time. Kondo guests as “eBay lowballer”
posted by thelonius at 11:18 AM on May 16, 2021 [8 favorites]

There could be a less ethical income stream as well. We often hear Frasier tell listeners to stay on the line so he can refer them to help. He could be getting kickbacks from therapists for those recommendations.

You are all so trusting. Our esteemed doctor had to leave Boston after years of insider trading on the therapy-session confessions of Harvard and MIT alumni when his dad on the force tipped him off that the Feds were closing in and taking the first offer he got from as far across the country as he could go. That’s why his dad lives with him - he got forced out of his job for it, given his pension to quietly sweep it under the rug. This was pre-internet, before the world was hyperconnected so it’s plausible, and nobody would believe that the same guy who’d been extorting the Boston elite, scamming them for their valuables while they were vulnerable and maybe blackmailing them would take such a high profile job in the far side of the country, in a second tier market like Seattle of all places. Or maybe they were all just relieved to put the whole unfortunate episode behind them.
posted by mhoye at 11:22 AM on May 16, 2021 [7 favorites]

LR resident here, recognized him at 'morning show DJ.'
posted by box at 12:17 PM on May 16, 2021

Make that three bathrooms. Here's a floorplan.

You've put a knife in my heart you swine. There are rooms to the left of the lounge? I thought it all just stopped at the door.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 12:34 PM on May 16, 2021

Did you think the three of them shared a bed?
posted by Sys Rq at 1:32 PM on May 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

Also, Fraser saved a lot of money on groceries with his predilection for tossed salad and scrambled eggs.
posted by dr_dank at 1:51 PM on May 16, 2021 [7 favorites]

But he don't know what to do with them!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:47 PM on May 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

Did you think the three of them shared a bed?

No. I thought the rooms were on the other side of the piano.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 3:12 PM on May 16, 2021

Back royalties from collaborations with his first wife, Nanette "Nanny G" Guzman.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:14 PM on May 16, 2021 [5 favorites]

I’m pretty sure Fraser went big into Bitcoin 20 years before it was invented, capturing all that sweet inverse-temporal-gains!
posted by blue_beetle at 4:34 PM on May 16, 2021

I think the show leaves it a bit murky who is paying Daphne's salary. It's mentioned early on that Niles wanted to "help" pay for a PT, so it's split at least 2 ways, maybe 3 if Marty is also kicking in some pension money or something. And since Daphne seems to be getting free room and board, her salary is probably pretty low.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:36 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

I feel compelled to point out that Hester was a psychologist not a psychiatrist.
posted by jeoc at 8:36 PM on May 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

I had always assumed that the dad was a reluctantly willing captive who owned property and had investments that Frasier sold and is living on. Like maybe Dad had a piece of Seattle real estate that he bought for pennies and then the developers came through and the brothers sold it out from under him and now he is either living with Frasier or forced into a nursing home, so he's just making the best of a bad situation while his son fritters away everything he build and had.
posted by Tchad at 6:08 AM on May 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

A showrunner once explained that Fraiser bought shares in a 'Seattle computer company' before it went big, but it was never part of the show. I have no link, but it was mentioned in E373 of No Such Thing as a Fish.
posted by FranzKanner at 8:57 AM on May 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

...does raise the question of how the failure of Les Freres Heureux didn't ruin Frasier, though!
posted by praemunire at 11:27 AM on May 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

@praemunire: the absolute perfection of any episode of any series ever. That half hour is damn near the funniest half hour of episodic tv I have ever seen.
posted by MacD at 3:41 PM on May 17, 2021

Roz’ apartment is a carbon copy of Mary Tyler Moore’s, with updated furnishings.
posted by Miko at 8:14 PM on May 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

I happened to be rewatching the series when this thread came up. There’s an episode that includes Frazier’s mother, and she’s very patrician. They also allude to her cheating on Martin at some point. So I’m standing on the “family money, via mom” thesis.
posted by Miko at 6:59 PM on May 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

"Family money" can skip spouses via descendent trusts.
posted by muddgirl at 7:38 PM on May 22, 2021 [2 favorites]