“Melrose Place” Alum Grant Show Says He 'Shed Tears' When Aaron Spelling Died, Despite Feeling He Tried to 'Keep Me Down'
- - “Melrose Place” Alum Grant Show Says He 'Shed Tears' When Aaron Spelling Died, Despite Feeling He Tried to 'Keep Me Down'
Victoria EdelNovember 6, 2025 at 7:00 AM
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Grant Show on 'Melrose Place' (left); Aaron Spelling in 1990 (right) -
Grant Show opened up about why he left Melrose Place after five seasons
He said it was because creator Aaron Spelling was “trying to keep” his career “down”
Show said that despite their issues, he still mourned Spelling when he died in 2006
Grant Show has some complicated feelings about Melrose Place creator Aaron Spelling.
Show, who played Jake Hanson on Melrose Place for the show’s first five seasons, opened up about working on the series on the Nov. 3 episode of Still Here Hollywood with Steve Kmetko. Kmetko asked Show if he expected the show to become a “pop culture wildfire” the way it did.
Show, 63, said he had a “good sense” of how successful the show could be because Spelling, who died in 2006 at the age of 83, had already found blockbuster success with Beverly Hills, 90210, which Melrose Place was technically a spin-off of.
But when Melrose Place premiered in 1992, Show said the “intention” of the series "seemed to be a lot nicer and sweeter.” The ratings did not approve.
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The cast of 'Melrose Place.' From left to right: Josie Bissett, Thomas Calabro, ,Andrew Shue, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Amy Locane, Grant Show, Doug Savant and Vanessa Williams
“It wasn't until Heather [Locklear] came on and they kind of moved away from a feel-good show to a backstabbing show that we became successful,” he said. “And so, no, I did not think it was going to be what it became. I figured it was going to be successful. I did not think it was going to be what it was. And as hugely successful as it was.”
Show said being on a hit show was “really fun,” but there were some pretty big downsides, too. “You start to lose your ability to just be out in the public,” he said. “There's a thing that happens with fame, that I saw happening not just with myself but with everybody, . . . you kind of lose your humanity. Not yourself but the way other people see you. They don't see you as a human being anymore.”
He said fans of the show see you only as the character you play. “They have a relationship with you that is really one-sided, and for them to continue that relationship that they have, they have to disregard that you are a person other than that thing that they're seeing,” he explained. “And it's very dehumanizing.”
Show ultimately decided to leave Melrose Place in 1997; it ran for two more years after. Kmetko asked the actor if that decision was tough. “Aaron and I had had some um run-ins and there was some stuff about Aaron . . . I felt like he was kind of trying to keep me down,” the actor said. “Maybe I was wrong about that, but that's what it felt like to me at the time.”
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Grant Show (left) and Katherine LaNasa at the Emmys in September
He explained, “[There were] other jobs that were presenting themselves that he got in the way of, and so there wasn't really any question that I had to go. If I had been able to go and do other work outside of the show, then it would have been a tough call. But because I felt like I was being stifled, I just had to go.”
But Show said he still continued to care about Spelling after leaving the hit series. “Aaron and I kind of butted heads, but I literally cried when he died, you know? I mean, I shed tears,” he said.
Looking back on the show’s effect on his life, he said, “Something can't be that seminal in your life without it being a part of you. I have a great pride for the time that I worked on that show. And I would not be who I am had I not spent those five years.”
Show, who’s married to The Pitt star Katherine LaNasa, opened up to PEOPLE back in 2017 about what it was like after he left Melrose Place.
“It was kind of hard to move on,” he admitted. “It felt like I was yesterday’s flavor and I wasn’t going to get through that. And I really did consider trying to find another career. Fortunately, there was nothing else I wanted to do, so I redoubled my efforts to improve my work and just kept going at it.”
The actor, who’s continued to be a TV regular and starred in the 2017 reboot of Dynasty, added that he “couldn’t be happier” with where his life ended up.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
