John Mahoney spoke about cancer battles in final interview

John Mahoney said in a final interview a few months before his death that he thinks he was able to beat cancer twice because of how much he loved being an actor.  

”I wasn’t going to let this cancer get me. I waited too long to do this,’ he told Fox News in a final interview about his life in October.  

The 77-year-old, who starred as the cranky patriarch Martin Crane on the popular TV sitcom ‘Frasier,’ died Monday in the hospital.  

Mahoney’s longtime manager, Paul Martino, said Monday that Mahoney died in Chicago after a brief spell in hospital.

The cause of death was not immediately announced, but The Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where he served as an ensemble member for nearly 40 years, said it was related to cancer complications. 

His friend Anna Shapiro said he was ‘fragile,’ at the time of his death. 

‘He was supposed to be having a routine procedure. But having just beat stage three throat cancer, I think he was just too weak.’

The 77-year-old, who starred as the cranky patriarch Martin Crane on the popular TV sitcom ‘Frasier,’ died Monday in the hospital. Mahoney’s longtime manager, Paul Martino, said Monday that Mahoney died in Chicago after a brief spell in hospital

During the interview he also explained that he would be spending the final months of 2017 acting in ‘The Rembrandt,’ which ended up being his final role (pictured)

In the interview with Fox in October, Mahoney spoke about being diagnosed with colon cancer in the mid-1980s – explaining that even when it happened, he knew he wasn’t going to let it impact his career. 

‘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,’ he explained. 

‘And the doctors  have always said that my attitude had a great deal to do with my cure.’ 

He said that he spent those years during treatment working ’10 times harder, 10 times more.’  

In 2014 he was diagnosed with his second bout of cancer, this time in his throat,and doctors told him it was stage three. 

‘Doctors said it was inoperable,’ Mahoney said. 

‘It sounded really, really terrible, like I was on the way out. And now, according to my doctors, I’m clear of it now.’ 

He said that along with going through chemotherapy and radiation, he thinks that being able to do what he loves every day played a role in his health 

‘I think it took over my healing an awful lot,’ Mahoney said. ‘I refused to yield to it because i love what I’m doing so much. And I refuse to sit at home and feel sorry for myself.

‘Instead, I just want to get out there and do another job.’  

And that’s just what he did. During the interview he also explained that he would be spending the final months of 2017 acting in ‘The Rembrandt.’

He described it as one of his favorite projects he’d undertaken in recent years. The role wrapped up on November 11. 

His final role was in a production of The Rembrandt in Chicago, which he described as one of the best projects he’d undertaken

And speaking about his career in its entirety – Mahoney fondly remembered his time on ‘Frasier’, which ran from 1993 to 2004. Pictured left to right are Mahoney, Jane Leeves, Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce and Peri Gilpin

By the time the show ended, Mahoney said he was ready to move on, because he ‘thought we had taken the show as far as we possibly could. He said he didn’t think he could miss anything as much as he missed his home in England until he left his friends and cast-members on”Frasier’

And speaking about his career in its entirety – Mahoney fondly remembered his time on ‘Frasier’, which ran from 1993 to 2004.    

By the time the show ended, Mahoney said he was ready to move on, because he ‘thought we had taken the show as far as we possibly could.

‘But, leaving [the cast] was a heartbreak of immense proportions.’

Mahoney is originally from England and move to the United States as a teenager. He became a citizen in 1959 after serving in the US Army. 

Though they stopped seeing each other as frequently after the show came off the air, in the years before his death he said he kept in touch with his former co-stars

And though he has previously described his home as ‘bleak and dark,’ he told Fox that he didn’t think he could ever miss anything more than home until he had to leave his friends and cast-members on ‘Frasier’.

‘It was just as bad to leave “Frasier” and those friends behind,’ he explained. 

‘I can’t tell you how close we were every single day for 11 years. We just adored each other and still do.’ 

Though they stopped seeing each other as frequently after the show came off the air, in the years before his death he said he kept in touch with his former co-stars. 

‘Kelsey [Grammar] is so busy, I rarely get in touch with him… But it’s always a pleasure when we do finally meet up or call each other,’ he said. 

And he said he sees David Hyde Pierce, Jane Leeves and Peri Gilpin ‘constantly.’ 

‘I’m a godfather to Jane’s son Finn and I was just talking to Peri a few days ago to see when she would be back in Chicago,’ he said. 

‘I keep in touch with them all constantly. I miss them every day.’ 

The only cast-mate he didn’t miss, he said, was the show’s dog, Moose, who played Eddie.  

Mahoney said they didn’t get along, but that they did tolerate each other. 

‘We got along all right,’ he joked. ‘He bit me twice.’ 

Before coming to ‘Frasier’, Mahoney taught English and spent time editing a Midwestern medical-magazine through the 1960s and 70s. 

‘Kelsey [Grammar] is so busy, I rarely get in touch with him… But it’s always a pleasure when we do finally meet up or call each other,’ he said. And he said he sees David Hyde Pierce, Jane Leeves and Peri Gilpin ‘constantly. ‘ Pictured left to right are Butler, Mahoney, Gilpin, Grammar, Leeves and Hyde Pierce

He finally quit in his 30s to take up acting, which he said was ‘always something he wanted to do.’  

Mahoney said it took him so long because of his upbringing. He explained that he was born as the seventh of eight children in Blackpool, England, and came to the United States with his sister when he was 19. She was a war bride. 

‘I just didn’t want to be living off them. I took what I guess you could call the easy way out,’ he told Fox in October. 

‘When I got out of the army, I went to school with the idea of becoming a teacher.’ 

After years of graduate school and working as an orderly at a hospital, he moved to Chicago and took a job as an associate editor of a medical journal. 

‘[It was] what I knew,’ he said. ‘But I just got to a point in my life when I realized I just didn’t want to do it.’ 

So he said he decided to drop what he was doing an enroll in an acting class.

Before he knew it, he was cast. ‘Everything just fell into place,’ he described.