Apart from a few pieces of janky A.I.-generated nightmare fuel, we never got to see Maris Crane.
Over the course of Frasier’s 11 seasons, Niles’ high-strung, ultra-thin heiress wife was frequently discussed, but she never actually made an appearance on the show, following in the footsteps of Norm’s wife Vera Peterson.
Oddly, back in 2003, just months before Frasier’s final (well, almost final) season premiered, rumors swirled that Maris could finally show up on screen before the show ended.
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TV Guide, the publication that now seems about as dated as a fax machine made of asbestos-coated Bill Cosby albums, spoke to executive producer Christopher Lloyd, and he revealed that the final batch of episodes would include “a big, life-altering event involving Maris once again making trouble in Niles’ life.” And he also told the outlet that there was a “chance” that we’d finally get a look at the elusive character.
That “event” turned out to be a storyline in which Maris is accused of murdering her boyfriend with a crossbow, and Niles gets dragged into the high-profile case.
Although Maris was never revealed to audiences, that didn’t stop TV Guide from suggesting a number of potential actresses to play the part, including Calista Flockhart who they claimed “definitely has the right, slight figure to raid Maris’ closet.” They also floated Lara Flynn Boyle’s name, because “the disbarred Practice attorney not only apparently follows the same diet plan as Maris, she’s also earned a similar reputation as an attention-getting party girl.”
Presumably that sentence made more sense 22 years ago.
A more surprising pick was Juliet Landau, who played the “batty” Drusilla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, with TV Guide noting that she “could easily channel Maris’ comparably tame neuroses.”
TV Guide included Northern Exposure’s Valerie Mahaffey, who passed away earlier this year and who was David Hyde Pierce’s favorite actress for the role. More bizarrely TV Guide also mentioned Kathie Lee Gifford’s name. Included on the list was Newhart’s Julia Duffy as well, who, it turns out, actually contacted Frasier’s producers during the first season hoping to play the role of Maris. “But by that point, we felt it was better if she was left unseen,” co-creator Peter Casey reasoned.
The article jokingly name-checked Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, too, mostly owing to his wealthy fragility, arguing that if you “put him in a Chanel dress … the notorious weakling is an ideal candidate to play Maris, who, Niles observed, ‘once sprained her wrist from having too much dip on a cracker.’”
But, of course, no actress was going to be capable of playing Maris, because no one could possibly live up to the extreme descriptions we got of the character. In fact, that’s the reason why we never saw Maris. Originally, the plan was to eventually incorporate her into the show, but according to co-creator David Lee, “two or three episodes in, she was already so bizarre, she was uncastable. So we just went, ‘Well, we’re never going to see her.’”
The Simpsons wasn’t even allowed to turn her into a cartoon character.
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