Why Frasier thinks he can talk to the dead... from his murdered sister to a man who was born before Jesus



Attack: Kelsey Grammer suffered heart problems just weeks after learning his latest sitcom had been cancelled

Rising above the hubbub of a smart ocean-front Malibu restaurant, a familiar, booming baritone voice is regaling the rapt party at his table with revelations of a rather unlikely talent.



Given the identity of the speaker, and the decidedly odd nature of his confession, the diners at nearby tables have long since given up any pretence at conversation and resolved instead to eavesdrop unashamedly.



After all, it is not every day that you are treated to the public admission by Dr Frasier Crane that he has for some time been communicating with the dead.



It is a disclosure delivered with unfeigned solemnity by actor Kelsey Grammer, who is better known as the TV psychiatrist. And no one listening could fail to be moved - for one of the spirits with whom he claims to have made contact is his murdered sister.



His younger sister, Karen, who was raped and stabbed to death 34 years ago by a gang of teenagers, is one of several family members Grammer has told friends he is able to channel during seance sessions. He is also apt to recount his beyond-the-grave conversations with a man called Alex who, he claims, was born 15 years before Jesus.



Talking to the dead may seem far-fetched, but Grammer's bizarre preoccupations become more understandable when you appreciate the extraordinary and macabre travails of the 54-year-old's life.



His is a story of multiple family tragedies, failed marriages, numerous addictions, tabloid scandals and his own candid admission that he was a beaten husband. Indeed, so traumatic and dysfunctional has his life been that Grammer is wont to talk straight-faced about the family curse, which he believes has passed down through the generations.



But it is a nightmare he has been forced to relive in recent days. This week, the actor delivered an impassioned plea to a parole board in a bid to block the release from prison of the ringleader of the gang who committed seven murders, including the abduction and killing of his sister when she was just 18.

By Grammer's own admission, it was a tragedy from which he never fully recovered and which led him into a self-destructive spiral of drink, drugs and women. Given the effect it wreaked on his life, it is hardly surprising that friends tried to persuade him not to put himself through the trauma of coming face to face with her killer, Freddie Glenn, for the first time at the hearing at a Colorado jail this week.

Grammer with third wife Camille - the couple have been together 12 years

As it was, the actor's connecting flight from New York to Denver was delayed because of bad weather and he missed the chance. Instead, a heartfelt letter from the star was read to the panel, in which Grammer wrote of 52-year-old Glenn: 'This is a butcher, this is a monster.'



He went on: 'Please consider when you wrestle with the fate of this man the degree of suffering he has inflicted on his victims, but also the families of the victims. Karen was my best friend. I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her. It very nearly destroyed me.'



His plea led to the panel at the Limon Correctional Facility agreeing to turn down Glenn's application for parole and refusing him leave to apply again until 2014. Nonetheless, while Grammer is said to be 'delighted and relieved' by their decision, sources in the U.S. revealed to me this week that the prospect of facing her killer had been torturing him for months.

'It's been building up since the date of the parole hearing was announced,' said one associate.



'Kelsey's been living under a cloud. It's brought back all the horrific memories of his sister's murder and, as a recovering alcoholic, it's not the sort of pressure he needs, particularly as he had a heart attack last year. We're just thankful they've decided to keep this lowlife in jail. I dread to think what it would do to Kelsey if they ever let him out.'

The tragedy came just seven years after Grammer's estranged father, Allen, was gunned down in a random attack by a psychopath on the front lawn of his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands. His son was just 13.



And five years after Karen's death, heartbreak struck again when Kelsey's two half-brothers, Billy and Stephen, died on a scuba-diving trip. One of the teenagers died of an embolism after surfacing too quickly while trying to defend his brother from a shark attack. The body of the other was never recovered.

Grammer dances with sister Karen at Christmas 1973 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

But it was Karen's death that dealt the 20-year-old Kelsey the biggest blow. A student at the time at the prestigious Juilliard acting school in New York, he had assumed the role of head of the family following the death of his father and grandfather.



It was the devastated Kelsey who had to fly to Colorado to identify the body of his sister, who had been kidnapped by the gang outside the restaurant where she worked, held hostage and raped. Her throat was cut with an army bayonet before she was thrown out of a moving car.



The trauma led to him going hopelessly off the rails. He was expelled from Juilliard, ended up sleeping rough in Central Park and admits he considered suicide. It also coincided with his introduction to the twin temptations of drink and drugs.



Before long, he had added to his list of addictions an equally dangerous compulsion in the form of his taste for unsuitable women.



The first of his three marriages was to Broadway dancer Doreen Alderman. Though it nominally lasted eight years, the relationship was effectively over after less than 12 months, but they stayed together for the sake of their daughter Spencer, now 25.



It was not helped by Grammer's drinking or the fact he was scraping a living as a theatre actor.



The couple sought marriage counselling, but Grammer later admitted: 'The doctor just looked at us and said: "You guys don't have a chance." '



His second marriage, to stripper Leigh-Anne Csuhany, was equally disastrous. The couple met in the bar where she worked, but Grammer later claimed that almost as soon as the relationship began, his volatile wife started beating him up.



They married in 1992 with the groom sporting a black eye from an earlier attack, and the union disintegrated after nine months.



In his autobiography, the actor wrote: 'To be sure I'd never leave her, Leigh-Anne had to convince me I was nothing: unattractive, untalented, undeserving of love and incapable of being loved by anyone but her.



'She'd spit in my face, slap me, punch me, kick me, break glasses over my head, break windows, tear up pictures of my loved ones, threaten to kill me or herself.'



As the relationship imploded, he began an affair with make-up artist Barrie Buckner and she bore him a daughter, Greer, now 17, whom he never sees. Shortly after their split, Leigh-Anne attempted to commit suicide and miscarried his baby.

The actor went on to have a series of short-lived relationships, including one with Playboy model Tammi Alexander. It ended when rumours of his alleged affair with a teenage babysitter surfaced.



Miss Alexander did a series of embarrassing kiss and tells, sharing tales of how Grammer wore her underwear to meet President Clinton.



The actor was by then one of the highest-paid stars in the U.S., after finding fame as the pompous Dr Crane, first in Cheers and then for more than a decade in the hugely successful spin- off, Frasier, which, by the time it ended in 2004, was netting him more than £1million an episode.

With fame and wealth came more temptation. He became addicted to alcohol, cocaine, Ecstasy and Valium. In 1988, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for drink driving and cocaine possession. Two years later, he was given three years' probation, again for cocaine possession.



His love of drink and drugs was matched only by his obsession with fast cars. It was a lethal cocktail and in 1996 he was nearly killed when he crashed his sports car while drunk outside his Hollywood Hills home. It was the incentive he needed to tackle his addictions - he checked into the Betty Ford clinic.



Grammer credits his continued abstinence to his third marriage to another Playboy model, Camille Donatacci, 40, whom he wed 12 years ago. The couple have two children, who were born to a surrogate.



Grammer had a near-fatal heart attack last summer. Medics had to give him electric shocks to restart his heart and two months later he had another heart scare.



His first heart attack came three weeks after he learned that his new sitcom, Back To You, in which he played a Pittsburgh news anchorman, was being axed after just 15 episodes following scathing reviews and poor audience figures.



Attempts to transfer his earlier TV success to the big screen also hit the buffers. Last year's Swing Vote, in which he starred as a U.S. president alongside Kevin Costner, was an unmitigated flop and was mauled by critics.



But that has certainly not stopped Grammer, a close friend of George W. Bush, from hinting that he may consider running as a Republican candidate for presidency in 2020.



Given the dramatic highs and lows of his rollercoaster life so far, who would bet against the eccentric Grammer fulfilling his wish?