Fredrick Lawrence Grandy (born June 29, 1948) is an American actor who played Burl "Gopher" Smith on the TV series The Love Boat and who later became a member of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Iowa. Grandy was most recently the host of The Grandy Group, a morning drive time radio talk show on 630 WMAL in Washington, D.C.
Early life, family and education
Grandy was born in Sioux City, Iowa, the youngest of three sons of William Grandy, who worked in his father's insurance business, and his wife, Bonnie. When Grandy was eleven, his father died of a heart attack. His mother died of an aneurysm a year later.
The young Grandy was then raised by Margaret Avery, his mother's best friend (a widow who later married his father's doctor).
He attended public schools until ninth grade, after which he attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, as his father and brothers had done.
Grandy holds a master of fine arts (MFA) degree from the Washington Shakespeare Theatre and George Washington University, graduating at age 50.
Acting career
Grandy played purser Burl "Gopher" Smith on the American television series The Love Boat. The series aired for nine seasons (1977–1986). He wrote several vignettes for the show.
In 1982, while visiting Turkey to film scenes for the show, Grandy suffered severe burns when a balloon filled with hydrogen exploded.
Before gaining prominence on The Love Boat, Grandy had guest roles on many shows, including Love, American Style (1969); The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970); Maude (1973); Phyllis (1975); and Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). Grandy also acted in the 1973 made-for-TV movie The Girl Most Likely to..., as Ted Gates.
He starred in the Saturday morning TV series Monster Squad (1976) as Walt, a criminology student working as a night watchman at "Fred's Wax Museum". He also appeared in a number of episodes of the TV game show Match Game from 1979 to 1981. He usually sat in the male guest-star seat in the top row left. He later appeared in a week's worth of episodes on its sequel, the Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour.
In May 2013, Grandy returned to the stage, starring in a production of Sleuth at the Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven, New Jersey. In 2014 Grandy had a recurring role as Dr. William Ledreau on Season 3 of The Mindy Project for which his son, Charlie Grandy, is a writer. He has also had recurring roles in two TV series, Knight Squad and Sprung. He performed around the country in regional theatre productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, On Golden Pond, I'm Not Rappaport, and Give 'em Hell, Harry!.
Political career
Grandy's political interests preceded his acting career. Between 1970 and 1971, he served as a speechwriter for Wiley Mayne, the Republican congressman from his home district, .
With Mayne's successor, Democrat Berkley Bedell, deciding not to run in 1986, Grandy, a Republican, campaigned for the open Iowa United States House of Representatives seat, beating Clayton Hodgson by two percentage points (51.0% to 49.0%).
Although Grandy tried to distance himself from his acting career (at the time), he said to People magazine, "if there were no Gopher, there would be no Fred Grandy for Congress."
Grandy was also the host of a show on Retirement Living TV called Daily Café (with MSNBC anchor Alex Witt). Since then he has been a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, a far-right, anti-Muslim, Washington, D.C.–based think tank, developing and managing projects on domestic terrorism and counterintelligence.
Personal life
Grandy has been married twice. He married Jan Gough in 1969, a student at Radcliffe. They had a son, Charlie Grandy, and a daughter before divorcing in 1983. On March 28, 1987, Grandy married novelist Catherine Mann, whom he had met when she interviewed him as one of the first reporters for Entertainment Tonight. They have one daughter (born 1988). In 1993, Grandy and his wife sporadically toured Iowa with a stage production of the play Love Letters for charity (especially children's charities).