15 Gay Actors Who Play Straight Characters
6. David Hyde Pierce
David Hyde Pierce stepped into the supporting actor role behind Grammer as Frasier’s younger brother, Niles Crane. Throughout the show’s run, Pierce played a meager man who began the show as the timid partner in a failing marriage.
During the latter years of the series, his character finally found love in the form of their father’s live in assistant and maid. When the series concluded in 2004, Niles Crane was married again and the father of a son.
In real life, the series was off the air for just a few years when Pierce publicly announced that he was gay. Following that announcement in 2007, Pierce married his partner Brian Hargrove in 2008. The couple has been together for more than 20 years.
Although he is an accomplished actor and comedian whose credits also include numerous roles on stage during his career, he will be forever remembered by many as Niles Crane. During the series’ run he was nominated for a record eleven consecutive awards as the Best Supporting Actor at the Emmy’s. He claimed the prize four times, in 1995, 1998, 1999, and during the show’s final season in 2004.
