ON THE EVENING OF SEPT. 21, while driving alone near his Agoura Hills, Calif., home, Kelsey Grammer of Frasier flipped his $60,000 Dodge Viper and was taken, dazed and bleeding from a cut on his forehead, to a nearby hospital. He was released soon afterward, but the accident seemed to signal yet another turbulent passage in the life of a talented comic actor with a troubled personal history. According to a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, an officer spoke with Grammer shortly after the accident and "based on all the things the officer saw and heard, he felt Grammer was driving under the influence of alcohol." Although blood-test results will not be available until next week, Grammer checked himself into the Betty Ford Center a few days later, suggesting he may have sensed that his life was once again heading out of control. He was arrested in 1987 for driving under the influence; the next year, for cocaine possession.

Following this latest arrest, Grammer's TV show has been put on hiatus, and Frasier's producers have offered no comment except a brief statement of support, wishing him "a speedy recovery." According to a friend, the actor, who recently split with fiancée Tammi Baliszewski and has been linked to Playboy model Camille Donatacci, had spent his summer traveling to London and Africa with his daughter Spencer, 12, and his mother, Sally. "There was certainly no more trauma in his life now than he's faced before," says the friend, alluding to various family tragedies, including the murders of his father and sister. Yet on Sept. 19, Grammer, at a backstage party after a James Taylor concert in L.A., was so shaky that bartenders tried to avoid serving him. Two days after came the latest incident. "He didn't even make it out of his neighborhood," says a woman near the accident that night. "It's a sad state of affairs."

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