LEEVES'EM LAUGHING
Cable TV guide UK OCT 1999
by Eirik Knutzen
"I wanted to be the big swan up front," recalls Frasier start Jane Leeves , who as an 18 year old dancer had already been invited to join the London Festival Ballet. The dream evaporated one day when she was doing stretch exercises before a class. Her foot wedged between the bar and the wall and she felt the agonising pain of tendons ripping in her ankle. The doctors at the hospital shook their heads . There was nothing they could do , the ankle would never support a prima ballerina.
"I wasn't totally devastated because I thought I could make it as a actress within a couple of years," explains the earthy actress, who was raised in East Grinstead. With modest financial support she started knocking on producers doors in London. Her first paying Job , besides a handful of gigs modelling and dancing in industrial shows was a short stint on Benny Hill , playing inept secretaries and stupid maids "I only worked with Benny for a few days" the 37 year old explains “every scene I did was with him ..... I thought he was a very strange , lonely and quiet man with no friends or family to speak of . He kept himself very isolated ..... I don't think anybody ever found out what kind of man he really was"
In 1984 Leeves went to live with a dancer friend in Los Angeles. "Looking back , it was a very brave thing to do," she says laughing "I had no connections and very few dollars but I thought I was invincible and the world was my oyster. Thank goodness I did it because it enabled me to eventually end up doing exactly what I wanted to do. But at the time I was motivated by blind ambition , youth and stupidity."
Leeves discovered she had a natural flare for comedy and honed her talents on the music industry sit com Throb , Murphy Brown - a serise revolving around a TV news show - and on her guest appearances on Seinfeld . But her big break came in 1993 , when she was cast as Daphne Moon in the hugely popular Cheers spin off Frasier. She has earned to Emmy award nominations for her work as the Manchester-Born physical therapist for Frasier's father Martin , who is played by genuine Mancurian John Mahoney.
In Frasier , there was much debate about the form of British accent Daphne should be given , "We tried a number of dialects including cockney and eventually decided on the soft Mancurian - because it is a fairly easy working class accent for Americans to understand." A warm woman who adores children , Leeves almost adopted as a single mother about 6 years ago "But John [Mahoney] talked me out of it, claiming I would be married within a year or so" she laughs "I thought he was crazy but sure enough . I met Marshall [Coben] at the Christmas party on the Paramount studios lot where Frasier is taped. We were married in a civil ceremony in Los Angeles just for the paper work , then at a church wedding in England because I wanted my father to walk me down the aisle"
Meanwhile , Daphne may be making wedding plans of her own in the new season et to air in the states . These will probably include her lawyer fiancé Donny. But there could be changes , including Daphne finally taking notice talking Niles (David Hyde Pierce) seriously. "Either way the whole cast is campaigning to have the wedding if there is one in England. Then we could finally meet Daphne's family"