The death of John Mahoney was caused by a number of serious health problems an autopsy revealed on Wednesday.
Mahoney, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 77, was suffering from brain and kidney diseases, lung cancer, seizures, and diabetes at the time of his death.
Those complications all played a role in causing the actor’s death according to TMZ.
The Frasier star was receiving hospice care in Chicago when he passed away.
Gone too soon: John Mahoney’s death was caused by multiple complications brought on by a host of health problems (Mahoney above in 1998)
Mahoney in the gay romantic comedy The Broken hearts Club in 200 (clockwise top left: Billy Porter John Mahoney Ben Weber Timothy Olyphant Andrew keegan Dean Cain Zach Braff and Matt McGrath)
Mahoney had fought off cancer twice in his lifetime, with his first battle occurring in the 1980s when he was diagnosed with colon cancer.
‘I had made some of my biggest movies when I was diagnosed. I wasn’t going to let this cancer get me. I waited too long to do this,’ revealed Mahoney.
‘When I was told I had cancer, I said “I don’t care. Let’s do whatever we need to do to beat it. It’s not going to get me.” And the doctors have always said that my attitude had a great deal to do with my cure.’
He went on to state: ‘I just absolutely refused to be beaten by it. It sounds like I’m daring fate. But it’s the truth. It made me work 10 times harder, 10 times more. I turned nothing down and instead tried to do almost everything I was offered to make up for the years that I hadn’t been doing it when I should have.
‘I think that had quite a bit to do with my recovery. I did recover.’
Mahoney was already a celebrated theater actor when he was diagnosed, having been a member of the esteemed Steppenwolf Theater alongside the likes of Laurie Metcalf, John Malkovich, Gary Sinise and Joan Allen.
He won a Tony for his role in the Broadway production of The House of Blue Leaves in 1986, one year after he made his debut on the Great White Way in Oprhans.
And it was a theater writer who gave him one of his first big breaks in film, when he was cast in a crucial supporting role in John Patrick Shanley’s 1987 film Moonstruck.
Mahoney played a detestable Lothario who was put in his place in one memorable scene opposite Olympia Dukakis, who along with the film’s star Cher won an Oscar for her work in the movie.
That film was followed by roles in such beloved classics as Say Anything, Eight Men Out, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy and Reality Bites.
It was around the time he wrapped production on Bites that he landed the role of Martin Crane on Frasier, which ran for 11 seasons and 263 episodes on NBC.