Representative Frederick Lawrence Grandy

Fredrick Lawrence Grandy (born June 29, 1948) is an American actor, nonprofit executive, radio commentator, and politician who served as a Republican Representative from Iowa in the United States Congress from 1987 to 1995. Best known to television audiences for his portrayal of purser Burl “Gopher” Smith on the long-running series The Love Boat, he later represented his home state in the U.S. House of Representatives for four terms, contributing to the legislative process during a significant period in American history. In later years he became a prominent figure in nonprofit leadership and political commentary, including as host of the morning drive-time radio talk show The Grandy Group on 630 WMAL in Washington, D.C.

Grandy was born in Sioux City, Iowa, the youngest of three sons of William Grandy, who worked in his own father’s insurance business, and his wife, Bonnie. His early life was marked by personal tragedy: when he was eleven years old, his father died of a heart attack, and his mother died of an aneurysm the following year. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by Margaret Avery, his mother’s best friend, a widow who later married his father’s doctor. Grandy attended public schools in Sioux City until the ninth grade, after which he followed a family tradition by enrolling at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where his father and brothers had also studied. At Exeter, he was the roommate of David Eisenhower, grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he later served as best man at Eisenhower’s December 1968 wedding to Julie Nixon, daughter of then president-elect Richard Nixon.

After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, Grandy attended Harvard University, where he studied English and was active in campus theatrical life. He graduated magna cum laude in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in English studies. In 1971 he joined The Proposition, an improvisational comedy group associated with Harvard, and continued performing with the troupe when it moved off-Broadway that same year. Among his colleagues in the group was future Saturday Night Live cast member Jane Curtin. Although he was of draft age during the Vietnam War, Grandy received a high lottery number and was not drafted. Many years later, reflecting his continuing interest in the performing arts, he earned a master of fine arts degree from the Washington Shakespeare Theatre and George Washington University, completing the program at age 50.

Grandy’s political interests predated his acting fame. Between 1970 and 1971, shortly after graduating from Harvard, he served as a speechwriter for Wiley Mayne, the Republican congressman representing Iowa’s 6th congressional district, which included his home area of Sioux City. He then pursued an acting career, appearing in guest roles on a variety of television series in the 1970s, including Love, American Style (1969), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), Maude (1973), Phyllis (1975), and Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). He appeared in the 1973 made-for-television movie The Girl Most Likely to… as Ted Gates and starred in the Saturday morning series Monster Squad (1976) as Walt, a criminology student working as a night watchman at “Fred’s Wax Museum.” From 1979 to 1981 he was a frequent celebrity panelist on the television game show Match Game, usually seated in the top-row male guest-star position, and later appeared in a week of episodes of the combined Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour.

Grandy achieved national recognition with his role as Burl “Gopher” Smith on The Love Boat, which aired for nine seasons from 1977 to 1986. In addition to acting, he wrote several vignettes for the series. During a 1982 location shoot in Turkey for the program, he suffered severe burns when a hydrogen-filled balloon exploded. Despite his growing fame as an actor, he maintained an interest in public affairs and Republican politics. In later years he continued to work in theater and television, performing in regional productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, On Golden Pond, I’m Not Rappaport, and Give ’em Hell, Harry!, and returning to the stage in May 2013 in a production of Sleuth at the Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven, New Jersey. He also took on recurring television roles, including Dr. William Ledreau in the third season of The Mindy Project in 2014, for which his son Charlie Grandy was a writer, as well as roles in the series Knight Squad and Sprung.

With the retirement of Democratic Representative Berkley Bedell in 1986, Grandy entered electoral politics in his own right. Running as a Republican for the open U.S. House seat from Iowa, he campaigned in what had been his home district and won the election, defeating Democrat Clayton Hodgson by a narrow margin of 51.0 percent to 49.0 percent. Though he attempted during the campaign to distance himself from his acting persona, he acknowledged the importance of his television fame to his political career, remarking to People magazine that “if there were no Gopher, there would be no Fred Grandy for Congress.” He took office in January 1987 and served four consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, remaining in office until January 1995. During his tenure, he served on several key committees, including the Committee on Ways and Means, the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics), and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. He was recognized for his fiscal positions with eight “Watchdog of the Treasury” awards. As a member of the House, Frederick Lawrence Grandy participated actively in the legislative and democratic processes and represented the interests of his Iowa constituents during a period of significant national and international change.

In 1994, rather than seek a fifth term in Congress, Grandy entered the Republican primary for governor of Iowa, challenging incumbent Governor Terry Branstad. He ran a competitive race but was defeated by nearly four percentage points, ending his bid for statewide office. After leaving Congress in January 1995, he transitioned into nonprofit leadership, becoming president and chief executive officer of Goodwill Industries International, a major charitable organization, a position he held from 1995 to 2000. He also engaged in academic and media work, serving as a visiting professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he taught a course on nonprofit organizations, and working as a political commentator for National Public Radio.

Grandy later became a familiar voice in conservative talk radio. From 2003 to 2010 he co-hosted The Grandy & Andy Morning Show with radio veteran Andy Parks on 630 WMAL in Washington, D.C. In May 2010 the program was reconfigured and renamed The Grandy Group, with Grandy as the principal host of the morning drive-time show. He continued in that role until March 3, 2011, when he resigned from the program, reportedly amid a dispute related either to comments he and his wife made about Islamic extremism or to low listenership. He also hosted Daily Café, a program on Retirement Living TV, alongside MSNBC anchor Alex Witt. Subsequently, he became a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at the Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C.–based think tank, where he developed and managed projects focused on domestic terrorism and counterintelligence.

In his personal life, Grandy has been married twice. In 1969 he married Jan Gough, a Radcliffe College student; the couple had a son, Charlie Grandy, who later became a television writer and producer, and a daughter before divorcing in 1983. On March 28, 1987, he married novelist Catherine Mann, whom he had first met when she interviewed him as one of the inaugural reporters for the television program Entertainment Tonight. They have one daughter, born in 1988. In 1993, Grandy and Mann toured Iowa intermittently with a charitable stage production of the play Love Letters, with proceeds benefiting various causes, particularly children’s charities.