FORMER Cheers and Frasier actor Kelsey Grammer was spotted in the region at the weekend as he made a brief trip to a family funeral with his British wife.

The US actor flew into Heathrow with wife Kayte Walsh and three-month-old baby Faith on Thursday  to attend her grandmother’s funeral in Hartlepool on Friday.

And celebrity spotters said they had seen him browsing the aisles of Hartlepool’s Tesco store on Saturday morning.

Kayte’s brother, Phil Walsh, a striker for non-league Ebbsfleet United, even hinted that Mr Grammer would be watching his side take on Carlisle United in their FA Cup first round tie at Brunton Park on Saturday, but it is not known if he attended.

The couple were also reported to have been in Hartlepool in early October when they were spotted at Mary Rowntree’s Victorian tea shop. Since then Mr Grammer has been back in the US campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The 57-year-old actor played psychiatrist Dr Crane in hit American shows Cheers and Frasier. He married former air stewardess Kayte just two weeks after divorcing his ex-wife, in February 2011.

Kayte’s father Alan Walsh, a retired footballer, played for clubs including Middlesbrough, Darlington, Bristol City and Hartlepool between the late 1970s and the 1990s.