Whatever Happened To Daphne From Frasier?

When people think of the '90s sitcom boom, plenty of shows come to mind, but one smart, snappy series stands out from the pack — Frasier. A spinoff of Cheers, one of the most lauded sitcoms in television history, the show focused on Frasier Crane, Kelsey Grammer's wisecracking therapist, making his move from Boston back to his hometown of Seattle to start a new career in radio and reconnect with his father and brother. Running for a whopping 11 seasons, Frasier won an astounding 37 Emmy Awards during its reign.

Kelsey Grammer was already well-known before the show, but it made stars out of the other three leads, including David Hyde Pierce, Peri Gilpin, and Jane Leeves, who played Frasier's neurotic brother, his radio producer, and his brother's girlfriend, respectively. However, after the show ended, some of these actors fell off the radar a bit, and if you haven't been paying attention, you may have lost track of Leeves, who played the enigmatic Daphne Moon for all 11 seasons. The end of Frasier hasn't stopped Leeves from working consistently in Hollywood, and from her animated film and voice work to the next generation of television comedies, here's what she's been up to over the years.

In 1983, Leeves got her first break in television on The Benny Hill Show, a long-running British sketch comedy that aired in more than 140 countries for over three decades. Living in London, Leeves worked on the show for two years as one of "Hill's Angels," a group of beautiful, scantily-clad women who danced and appeared in the background of many sketches.

However, Leeves still struggled to find work, and in 1985, she moved to Los Angeles with barely any money or belongings to enroll in acting classes, learning alongside future stars like Jim Carrey and Winona Ryder. Despite her newfound training, she still had trouble booking roles, and worked odd jobs like babysitting, working as a cashier in a souvenir store, and even a stint in a factory where she assembled nail accessory kits (though she was let go for talking to her co-workers more than she worked). Suffering from depression, Leeves toiled in obscurity for some time until she landed a role on Throb, a syndicated sitcom that ran for two years, playing Prudence "Blue" Anne Bartlett, who worked at a small record company. With a cast that included Paul Walker during the first season, Throb was a moderate success, and marked the first time most American audiences would meet (and be charmed by) Leeves, who kept her British accent for the role.

Gaining more exposure and notoriety in Hollywood, Leeves stayed busy before booking her most well-known role. In the early 1990s, she was cast in the American adaptation of the popular British science fiction comedy Red Dwarf — even though the show aired on PBS in the United States, NBC wanted to create their own version. Leeves was cast as Holly, the ship's computer, alongside American actors like Craig Bierko and Chris Eigeman. However, after a long series of script rewrites, studio dissatisfaction, reshoots, and negative reactions to the casting, the pilot never aired on any television network.

Leeves also branched out into film during this time, appearing in To Live and Die in L.A., the 1985 action thriller directed by William Friedkin and adapted from Gerald Petievich's original source novel (which was inspired by Petievich's time working in the United States Secret Service). Appearing as Serena, a dancer, Leeves only had a small role, but the film has remained notable for featuring her alongside other future stars like Willem Dafoe (who has since appeared in everything from Oscar-nominated indies to blockbuster films) and John Turturro (a skilled actor who bridges the gap between films by the Coen brothers and the Transformers franchise).

Now a famous TV star, Jane Leeves chose a modest slate of film and television work following her Frasier breakthrough. Using her distinctive voice and now-famous British accent, Leeves lent her voice to animated films, beginning with the stop-motion film James & the Giant Peach in 1996. Based on Roald Dahl's famous children's novel and produced by distinctive director Tim Burton, this big-screen Peach featured Leeves as Mrs. Ladybug, one of James' insect friends, alongside big names like Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss, and David Thewlis. Leeves sang in the film as well as providing voice work, and thanks to the clever storytelling and amazing animation, it premiered to positive reviews.

One of her next animated roles was a return to television in the Penguins of Madagascar series, where she played Lulu the chimp for two episodes in both 2009 and 2011. She followed this up with recurring and varied voice work on Phineas & Ferb, where she appeared as Wanda Acronym, the head of the OWCA (Organization Without a Cool Acronym), who is in charge of a secret agent that just happens to be someone's pet chihuahua.

Thanks to their success on Frasier, Leeves and her fellow female lead Peri Gilpin (who played Roz Doyle, the producer of Frasier's radio show), decided to take charge of Hollywood on their own and start their own production company. The two founded Bristol Cities, which Leeves later confessed was a dirty Cockney rhyme.

The company's most notable project was intended to be the American remake of the popular and beloved British series The Vicar of Dibley, which the two produced in 2007. The original, which ran for four years in the 1990s on BBC One (with a series of specials in the years since), focused on a small fictional English village called Dibley and its female vicar (which was notable in the 1990s, after the Church of England began permitting women to be ordained). With star Kirstie Alley and producer Richard Curtis on board, it seemed a surefire success, but Fox, where it was supposed to air, ended up passing on the pilot.

In 1996, Leeves married Marshall Coben, a television executive, and when she became pregnant with her first child, Isabella, during her time on Frasier, the writers adapted quickly, writing her pregnancy into a plot that found the character gaining weight thanks to her stressful relationship with Niles. The couple's second child, Finn, was born in 2003.

Leeves' pregnancy being a part of Frasier isn't the only impact that the show had on her family life. Peri Gilpin and Leeves have been close friends for a number of years, and not only was Gilpin present at the birth of Leeves' daughter, she is Isabella's godmother (while Leeves serves as godmother to Gilpin's daughter, Stella), and the two former co-workers live next door to each other. When Leeves' son Finn was born, she named John Mahoney and David Hyde Pierce as his godfathers, proving that the relationships on Frasier went far beyond the set and, truly, gave many of the cast members relationships that would go on to become the foundation for a real-life family.