everybody knows his name. >> sometimes it's hey frasier, but more often than not, hey, kelsey. >> he's the star ot not one but two successful comedies of all time. >> kelsey grammer is a guy that's been trying to save the world because he couldn't save some things in his own life. >> his highs. >> cocaine was too much for me. brought me to my knees eventually. >> his lows and what he really thinks of his ex-wife. >> the real housewives was my parting gift to her. >> kelsey grammer, an extraordinary revealing hour. what a life you've had. do you feel lucky to have ended up. >> i felt lucky all through life. blessed in some way, even in the darkest days. kelsey grammer is one of the most talked about, one of the most beloved faces in american television history. i'm pleased to say he joins me now. you are really, you're part of the american television consciousness for so long. you must walk around the street and everyone goes, hey, kelsey. everyone must think they know you. >> those things do happen. those events do happen. >> do you like the mass attention you still get or do you say i've done it and i just want to go and -- >> it's always pleasant. it's flattering. it's always meant in an optimistic kind of affectionate way. so i take it that way and return the compliment actually. >> do you enjoy the status of television icon? >> sure. i've be a fool to say i didn't. >> i would. let's be honest with you. i would. better than the alternative. but to spend your time at the top for decades, very, very unusual to have that kind of length on any sort of television. what do you think was your secret. why you? >> i'm not comparing myself to dick van dyke, but i think there's a characteristic that can help you survive in television which is a kind of an af ability, and a vulnerability. you allow yourself to be human. >> the odd thing about you -- and i mean this in the best sense, i don't think i've ever had an american television star sit here who openly admits to being a republican. >> oh, well, you know. >> you're that guy. >> i'm that guy. >> i think musicians -- i don't think i've ever had a tv person. normally the world of television is just infused with liberals. and most movie stars, i'd say. >> i think you're right about that. i'm a bit of a rebel. i don't tend to warm too well to people that tell me how i'm supposed to think. so my life in hollywood, i'm afraid i was destined to be a republican. >> how does it go down with all your famous friends? is it lonely out there? >> pretty lonely, but they seem to tolerate me somehow, because i can at least state myself eloquently and without -- without actually kind of assuming the veneer of what they assume is what a republican is is some kind of nasty, strange villain that, you know, should be vilified and hated. >> it's obvious that has become the way republicanism is now perceived in this country. you know, you are either extremely with them, with all that appears to entail, or you're completely against them. but they're very divisive. to say you're a republican now divides people immediately. didn't used to be like that. you go back 30 years, it wasn't like that. >> the tone of political assessment has changed. honestly, the battle for the hearts and the minds of the american people has taken on a bit more of a violent and narrow approach. i mean, you have to actually make sure that nobody swallows anything of what you are in order to ensure that you get their vote. so it's very easy to understand why you'd want to make somebody hateful. >> are you sympathetic to the tea party element of the republicans? or is that a step too far? >> i'm sympathetic to some of the principles, but i'm not sure that the tea party has behavioral problems other than the ones that have been identified by people who are inimical to them. i'm not sure they say anything i would object to. i've just been told they're lunatics. >> nothing they say be objectionable to you? >> lower taxes are a good idea. always have. so that's what i know they talk about. >> are you as violently opposed to, say, gay marriage as so many of the tea party candidates? >> i don't think the tea party is -- >> most of them are, yeah. >> against gay marriage. >> against it, yeah. actively against same-sex marriage. >> then i wouldn't sign on to that. >> so therare issues there that you wouldn't agree with. >> absolutely, yeah. >> because you played a famous gay character. >> i'm afraid so. >> you'd be effectively banning yourself. >> no, i've always believed -- i guess i'm more libertarian in that way. i think marriage is up to two people that love each other. if you find a church that you want to get married in, go right ahead. or if you don't believe in god, but see, in my mind, the state of marriage is something that's been kind of endorsed by the idea that it's a sacrament within the context of a faith, of a religious faith. the word "marriage" comes out of our religious side of our experience and our society and our history. so i tend to think the government shouldn't be involved in anyway. >> we'll come to your expertise in the world of marriage a little later. if only you'd married a good british girl earlier, all this could have been saved. this trouble you've had. >> exactly. >> talk politics. what do you think of barack obama? despite your allegiances, were you excited to see first black president? and did you buy into all the hope, the audacity that came with it? >> i think barack obama's election is a milestone for this country and a wonderful thing. the hope thing, i don't think hope can be given by a politician or by a vote. i think that comes from god. and it's not a policy. there's no politic al cachet in hope except it may get some votes, but there's no direction in it. >> is that right? >> i think it was a bit of a scam. >> don't presidents inspire their people? >> inspire, certainly. >> isn't that the same as hope in a way? >> well, you're offering them something that's a contradiction to what you might think of the other guy. but hope itself is not a policy. it never has been. there's no policy in hope. we can all hope. we can hope for free. >> what do you think's gone wrong with america in terms of its business model? why is america tanking economically in the way that it is, do you think? what is the simple answer? >> i would say greed. greed that is at a profound level. we vote based upon what money will get for it. democrats and republicans. >> what kind of politician do you gravitate to? who do you like? >> right now i'm not gravitating toward a lot of people right now. i wouldn't actually say i've thrown my hat in the ring with anybody else at this point. >> the republican ring is, you know, we're getting to the stage where zigtss have to be taken. >> right. >> and the election year begins in a couple of months. someone has to take on barack obama. there's a clear split developing on the republican side between the tea party element, whether rick perry or michele bachmann or sarah palin or somebody and the moderates like mitt romney, you know, there's a choice to be made by the party, isn't there? which way they're going to go, which type of politician they think can best beat obama. >> right. >> if you were advising them, who do you think is more electable? >> if i were advising them, i'd tell them that they must inspire people to assume that they have a right to make their own decisions about what dreams they wish to dream. and the dream as big that's possibly can. >> what was your dream when you started out? >> what was my dream? just to be a working actor. >> really? >> yeah. >> nothing more glamorous? >> no, just wanted to be a working actor. >> have you fulfilled that? >> yeah, i got a few more extras than i counted on. >> you got all the superstardom. >> i got the fame. >> in terms of your acting aspirations, have you ticked all the boxes you wanted to tick? >> not quite. >> what's left on the acting block that you'd like to do? >> i started out wanting to be a dramatic actor, ended up being a comedic actor, now i've gone back to being a dramatic actor now. i have shakespeare stuff i want to play. >> if you have one role left to play what would it be? >> one role left to play. >> i can award you any role and you can have any cast you like, the greatest performance of your life, what would it be? >> isn't that funny? >> what's the role? >> what's the role? >> they say your character in "boss" is king herlear-esque. you look like king lear. >> the character doesn't have a beard, at least not this season. i just grew the beard because kate likes it. what one role, gosh, i don't know. but probably a villain. maybe a tiago. tiago is an interesting character because it's the character that has the most words of any character in all of shakespeare. almost every sentence is not i have a pentameter, i am the pentameter and a half. it's very dense, very full language. what is most appealing about playing the role is for as evil as he is, he is so well liked by the audience. >> do all actors in the end quite fancy playing evil? is it just more fun being evil? >> sure. >> it is, isn't it? >> yeah, no, it's a ball. but you always want it to be in context because honestly virtue should win. >> eventually. >> eventually, yes. >> let's take a break and i want to take you back to when the acting all started, then get into the phenomenon of "frasier" there's no other way to describe it. you're a phenomenon, kelsey. 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"frasier" like "cheers" they were phenomenal shows, popular, global shows. when you first started making them, did you get an inkling early on, this is going to be huge? this is going to change my life? or did it just happen? >> well, i'll tell you a story that david hyde pierce has repeated. after we shot the pilot, we got a standing ovation and everything went away. and we all felt pretty good about it. he said to me, so what do you think? what does this mean? and i said, for you? it means you're going to buy a really nice house. and then he said, well, what does it mean for you? it means i'm probably going to buy a couple. you do have a sense -- you know when you know. you can tell. and there's a beauty about releasing it to the public to just saying, okay, here it is. love it or hate it. we did our best. and you know, honestly, that's all i've done my whole life in my career, is just done my best. sometimes it fell short. and sometimes i've been really happy with it. >> are you good at analyzing yourself? you played this famous psychologist. probably the most famous in the world. are you any good at doing that yourself? >> i'm probably okay at it. >> what have you worked out about kelsey grammer? >> kelsey grammer is a guy who cares about people that has been trying to save the world because he couldn't save some things in his own life. and i've now actually gotten to a point -- and this is a very good time in my life, where i've forgiven myself for my shortcomings and for thins i used to look on as failures. and i am really luxuriating in a kind of sense of approbation about my whole life and my love and where my days are. >> let's take another break. i don't want to take you out of this utopian thing. >> that's all right. >> i want to go back to some of the slightly darker times and see where you've come from. [ female announcer ] lactaid milk is easy to digest. it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk. you walk into a conventional mattress store, it's really not about you. they say, "well, if you want a firm bed you can lie on one of those, if you want a soft bed you can lie on one of those." we provide the exact individualization that your body needs. welcome to the sleep number year-end closeout event. not just ordinary beds on sale, but the bed that can change your life on sale. the sleep number bed. it calibrates precisely to your body and your comfort zone. now you can feel what happens as we raise your sleep number setting and allow the bed to contour to your individual shape. oh yeah. it's really shaping to my body. save up to $800 on selected 2011 bed sets. and now through saturday only, receive 24-month financing. you can adjust it however you want so you don't have to worry about buying the wrong mattress. once they get our bed, they're like, "why didn't i do this sooner?" hurry this week to the year-end closeout event and save on the bed that can change your life. the sleep number bed. only at the sleep number store, where queen bed sets now start at just $899. back with my special guest kelsey grammer. when i researched your life for this interview, i could almost at times barely believe what i was reading about the stuff that's happened to you, the really bad stuff. most people go through life and they have a bit of trauma along the way. i apologize advance for going through this in almost like a list form, but when i read that your parents divorced when you were 2. your father, who you had barely seen since then, was shot and killed. in 1975 your younger sister karen was abducted, raped and murdered. she was 18. in 1980 your younger twin half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident. in 2001, your close friend, producer of "frasier" david angelo, died in the 9/11 attacks. i got to the end of this, and i didn't know, to be honest with you, how you had even come through that. i don't know how any human being comes through that kind of thing. i mean, put it in some kind of overall context for me, to be hit by so much tragedy. >> yeah, well, we touched on it a littleit before, though i was being general. and one that's really important is my granddad died, too, when i was 12. he raised me. that was the -- that was the big impact until my sister was killed, of course. that one just seemed like an absurd topping on the situation that i thought was just impossible. and it was that incident that sort of propelled me into a -- at least a phase. i mean, i lost faith. i lost myself. when i was a boy -- it's sort of like that old walt whitman poem about everything a boy saw he became. i had a love affair with the universe. with a blade of grass, with a rising sun, went surfing, i used to surf all the time when i was a kid. and my life was a joy. it was a joyful experience. it was full of sort of affirmation and encouragement, and i loved being alive. and i was consciously in love with being alive. and then these deaths took place. you know, these deaths occurred. and when i lost gordon, i went very quiet for a long time. that's my granddad. and i didn't really speak to anybody for a couple of months. >> he'd been the father figure. >> he was my father, yeah, basically. and when i finally sat one night -- this is in ft. lauderdale where we had moved. and i got this overwhelming sense that i was just going to be alone for the rest of my life. which made me kind of sad. and when i was 18, i packed it all up and went to juilliard to find my fortune, whatever. but it was that year, two years later, actually, when karen was killed, that, you know, sent me into kind of a tailspin. and it was a horrible nightmare for her. i mean, it was. the three young men that abducted her, raped her repeatedly, said that she would, you know, maybe they'd let her go. you know, this, this and more documentation about what happened. and i being the big brother i'd always been thought that i had some responsibility for that. and that haunted me