Fred Grandy
Grandy in 1993
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromIowa
In office January 3, 1987 – January 3, 1995
Preceded by	Berkley Bedell
Succeeded by	Tom Latham
Constituency	6th district (1987–1993) 5th district (1993–1995)
Personal details
Born	Fredrick Lawrence Grandy (1948-06-29)June 29, 1948 (age 77) Sioux City,Iowa, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouses	Jan Gough ​ ​ (m. 1969; div. 1983)​ Catherine Mann ​ (m. 1987)​
Children	3, includingCharlie
Education	Harvard University (BA) George Washington University (MFA)

Fredrick Lawrence Grandy (born June 29, 1948) is an American actor who played "Gopher" on the TV seriesThe Love Boat and who later became a member of theUnited States House of Representatives from the state ofIowa. Grandy was most recently the host ofThe Grandy Group, a morning drive time radiotalk show on 630WMAL inWashington, D.C.

Grandy was born inSioux 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 aheart attack. His mother died of ananeurysm a year later.^[1][2]

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 atPhillips Exeter Academy inExeter, New Hampshire, as his father and brothers had done.^[1][2] At Exeter, Grandy was the roommate ofDavid Eisenhower, the grandson of PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, and was later best man at Eisenhower's wedding toJulie Nixon, the daughter of then–president-electRichard Nixon, in December 1968.^[2]

Grandy graduatedmagna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in English studies fromHarvard University in 1970. In 1971, he joined The Proposition, animprovisational group at Harvard, and then rejoined the show when it movedoff-Broadway in 1971. Among his co-stars was futureSaturday Night Live starJane Curtin.^[1][2]

Although of service age, Grandy had a highlottery number and was not drafted for Vietnam.^[3]

Grandy holds a master of fine arts (MFA) degree from the Washington Shakespeare Theatre andGeorge Washington University,^[4] graduating at age 50.^[5]

Grandy playedpurser Burl "Gopher" Smith on the American television seriesThe Love Boat. The series aired for nine seasons (1977–1986). He wrote severalvignettes 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.^[6]

Before gaining prominence onThe Love Boat, Grandy had guest roles on many shows, includingLove, American Style (1969);The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970);Maude (1973);Phyllis (1975); andWelcome Back, Kotter (1975). Grandy also acted in the 1973 made-for-TV movieThe Girl Most Likely to..., as Ted Gates.

He starred in the Saturday morning TV seriesMonster Squad (1976) as Walt, a criminology student working as a night watchman at "Fred'sWax Museum". He also appeared in a number of episodes of the TV game showMatch 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, theMatch Game/Hollywood Squares Hour.

In May 2013, Grandy returned to the stage, starring in a production ofSleuth at the Surflight Theatre inBeach Haven, New Jersey. In 2014 Grandy had a recurring role as Dr. William Ledreau on Season 3 ofThe Mindy Project for which his son,Charlie Grandy, is a writer. He has also had recurring roles in two TV series,Knight Squad andSprung. He performed around the country in regional theatre productions ofHow to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,On Golden Pond,I'm Not Rappaport, andGive 'em Hell, Harry!.^{[citation needed]}

Grandy's political interests preceded his acting career. Between 1970 and 1971, he served as a speechwriter forWiley Mayne, theRepublican congressman from his home district,Iowa's 6th congressional district.^[7]

With Mayne's successor,DemocratBerkley Bedell, deciding not to run in 1986, Grandy, a Republican, campaigned for the open IowaUnited 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 toPeople magazine, "if there were no Gopher, there would be no Fred Grandy for Congress."^[2]

During his four terms in Congress, he served on a variety of committees, includingWays and Means, Agriculture, Standards of Official Conduct, and Education and the Workforce. While a member of Congress, Grandy won eight "Watchdog of the Treasury" awards.

In 1994, Grandy declined to run for another Congressional term and instead enteredthe Republican primary race forgovernor of Iowa against incumbentTerry Branstad, but lost the election by nearly four percentage points.

Grandy served as president and CEO ofGoodwill Industries International from 1995 to 2000. He later became a political commentator forNational Public Radio and served as a visiting professor teaching a course onnonprofit organizations at the School of Public Affairs at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park.

From 2003 to 2010, Grandy and radio veteran Andy Parks were the hosts ofThe Grandy & Andy Morning Show, a conservative radiotalk show on 630WMAL inWashington, D.C. In May 2010, the program was reconfigured and was afterward calledThe Grandy Group. On March 3, 2011, Grandy resigned from the program allegedly over a dispute about his and his wife's statements aboutIslamic extremism or lowlistenership.^[8][9]

Grandy was also the host of a show onRetirement Living TV calledDaily Café (withMSNBC anchorAlex Witt).^[10] Since then he has been a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at the Washington-basedCenter for Security Policy,^[11] afar-right,^[12][13] anti-Muslim,^[14][15]Washington, D.C.–basedthink tank, developing and managing projects on domestic terrorism and counterintelligence.^[16]

Grandy has been married twice. He married Jan Gough in 1969, a student atRadcliffe. 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 forEntertainment Tonight. They have one daughter (born 1988).^[1][2][17] In 1993, Grandy and his wife sporadically toured Iowa with a stage production of the playLove Letters for charity (especially children's charities).^[1]

• United States Congress."Fred Grandy (id: G000371)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Fred Grandy atIMDb
• Appearances onC-SPAN
• Interview with Fred Grandy by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, November 11, 1996

• 1948 births
• 20th-century American male actors
• 20th-century United States representatives
• Actors from Sioux City, Iowa
• American actor-politicians
• American male television actors
• American nonprofit chief executives
• American speechwriters
• American talk radio hosts
• Harvard College alumni
• George Washington University alumni
• Living people
• Members of Congress who became lobbyists
• Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
• Politicians from Sioux City, Iowa
• Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Iowa
• United States congressional aides

• Articles with short description
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