Peter Frechette

Peter Frechette (pronounced frə-SHET) is an American actor born on October 3, 1956, in Coventry, Rhode Island, where he was raised as the youngest of five children. His father worked as an efficiency expert and his mother as a nurse. Frechette earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater from the University of Rhode Island and went on to build a career spanning Broadway, regional theater, film, and television. His Broadway appearances span from 1989 to 2005, and he received two Tony Award nominations as well as a Drama Desk Award and a Theatre World Award.

Frechette's professional stage career began in 1979 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where he performed with the Rhode Island Summer Ensemble in the comedy Pontifications on Puberty and Pigtails alongside Chel Chenier. In 1981, he appeared in two productions of Harry Ruby's Songs My Mother Never Sang and starred in the Off-Broadway one-act In Cahoots, part of the Three Hopefuls MARATHON. After a period working in Los Angeles, he returned to New York in 1984 to star in Bob Merrill's musical We're Home and again in 1987 for a revised production of Flora the Red Menace, for which he also recorded songs for the cast album.

His Broadway breakthrough came through Richard Greenberg's Eastern Standard, which he first performed Off-Broadway in 1988 alongside Patricia Clarkson, Dylan Baker, and Kevin Conroy before the production transferred to Broadway in December 1989. During the run, Frechette simultaneously filmed the television series Dream Street in New Jersey, performing on stage each night while shooting on location every day for three months. His performance in Eastern Standard earned him the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Theatre World Award, and a Tony Award nomination for best actor. That same year, he starred in the American Place Theatre's Off-Broadway production of Hyde in Hollywood, playing communist screenwriter Jake Singer, a role he reprised for a television adaptation two years later.

In 1991, Frechette received his second Tony nomination for best actor for starring opposite Cherry Jones in Our Country's Good. That same year he co-starred in Absent Friends as the grief-stricken Colin. His Broadway credits continued with Hannah...1939 in 1992, a musical with a cast recording that marked Bob Merrill's final Broadway show, and Larry Kramer's autobiographical The Destiny of Me the same year. He appeared in the original Broadway productions of Any Given Day in 1993 and The Play's the Thing in 1995, and in the 2005 revival of The Odd Couple, in which he played Roy and also understudied Matthew Broderick's role of Felix Unger. Frechette appeared at the Roundabout Theatre in three productions: The Play's the Thing, Hurrah at Last in 1999, and The Dazzle in 2002.

For The Dazzle, in which he and Reg Rogers portrayed the co-dependent Collier Brothers, the two actors shared the Obie Award for best actor. Both were also nominated for the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance and the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Actor, with Rogers winning the latter. The production originated in 2000 at the New York Stage and Film at Vassar College's Powerhouse Theater. Frechette is a founding member of the New York theater company The Drama Department, alongside David Warren, Cynthia Nixon, Patricia Clarkson, Hope Davis, John Slattery, Michael Rosenberg, and John Cameron Mitchell. He is also closely associated with the work of playwright Richard Greenberg, having appeared in multiple productions of his plays.

Outside New York, Frechette earned the Backstage West Garland Award in 1998 for his performance in Hurrah at Last at South Coast Repertory, where he also appeared in Night and Her Stars and The Extra Man, and returned in 2016 to play Joseph II in Amadeus. He was a member of the resident ensemble at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for five years, from 2011 to 2015, and has worked with regional companies including the Seattle Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, George Street Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, and the Pasadena Playhouse, among others. In 2022, he appeared in Dave Steakley's production of The Inheritance at the Zach Theatre in Austin, Texas, and in 2024 played Henry Lehman in The Lehman Trilogy at the same theater.

Frechette made his film debut as T-Bird Louis DiMucci in the 1982 musical Grease 2, also appearing on the film's soundtrack including a solo version of "Let's Do It For Our Country," a number he performed as a duet with Maureen Teefy in the film. He subsequently appeared in the pilot of Voyagers! as Eddie Rickenbacker and in two episodes of The Facts of Life that served as backdoor pilots for an unproduced series about an all-boys military academy. His film work in the mid-1980s included the horror films The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984), The Kindred (1987), The Unholy (1988), and Paint it Black (1989), as well as a substantial role in the 1984 comedy No Small Affair as Jon Cryer's older brother. In 2006, he played bank manager Peter Hammond in Spike Lee's heist film Inside Man, and he appeared in smaller roles in The First Wives Club and Miracle at St. Anna.

On television, Frechette made guest appearances on Taxi, Hill Street Blues, Cagney and Lacey, Matlock, and Hotel, among other series. He was notably cast in two episodes of L.A. Law as Christopher Appleton, a gay man who claimed to have killed his partner as a mercy killing because the partner was dying from AIDS. In November 1989, he guest-starred in the Thirtysomething episode "Strangers" as Peter Montefiore, a man who goes on a date with recurring character Russell Weller, played by David Marshall Grant. The episode generated significant controversy when the two characters appeared in bed together after having had sexual relations, leading several advertisers to withdraw commercials and ABC to decline to reair the episode during summer reruns. Frechette received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for the performance and returned for three additional episodes of the series in season four. That same year he appeared in the first season of Law and Order as an HIV-positive man committing mercy killings, a role he would revisit thematically in his L.A. Law appearances, and he went on to appear in two more episodes of Law and Order and one episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. In 1992, he had a recurring role in the first season of Picket Fences, and in 1993 co-starred in the television film Barbarians at the Gate. He starred in the 1994 Lifetime film Against Her Will: The Carrie Buck Story. Beginning in 1996, he played computer expert and hacker George Fraley in the NBC series Profiler, a role that expanded from the pilot into a regular part he held throughout the show's entire run. In 2016, he appeared as a high-powered divorce attorney on the television series Devious Maids.

Frechette has been in a relationship with director David Warren since 1988; the two married in 2017.