50 Fun Facts About Six Feet Under

Who created Six Feet Under?

Alan Ball had just won the Oscar for writing American Beauty when he created the series, and he stayed on as showrunner for its entire run.

What is Rico's celebrated skill at Fisher & Sons in Six Feet Under?

Restoring damaged bodies is Rico's art: he trained in mortuary science, is rated one of the best in the business, and eventually becomes a partner.

In which city is Six Feet Under set?

Los Angeles is home to the Fishers from the first scene to the last, when the closing montage follows Claire's car out of the city.

Which network aired Six Feet Under from 2001 to 2005?

HBO's freedom as a premium channel let the series explore darker themes than broadcast television could have allowed.

Who plays Nate Fisher in Six Feet Under?

Peter Krause plays the eldest Fisher, who kept far from the family trade for years, came home for the holidays and stayed to help run it.

Who plays David Fisher in Six Feet Under?

Michael C. Hall plays the dutiful middle child, who runs the family firm while spending the early seasons hiding that he is gay.

Who plays the Fisher matriarch, Ruth, in Six Feet Under?

Frances Conroy's Ruth begins as an emotionally repressed widow and ends the series living apart from her second husband, on her own terms.

Who plays Claire Fisher in Six Feet Under?

Lauren Ambrose's Claire is a rebellious teenager when the series begins, and she is the one the final episode follows out of town.

Who plays the mortician Federico Diaz in Six Feet Under?

Freddy Rodriguez's Rico starts as the Fishers' hired hand and ends up a partner, with the firm renamed Fisher & Diaz.

What is the job of Keith Charles, David's partner, when Six Feet Under begins?

LAPD officer Keith is openly gay on the force, while David is still hiding their relationship from his own family.

Who plays Brenda Chenowith in Six Feet Under?

Rachel Griffiths plays a former child prodigy who meets Nate on his flight home, just before he learns that his father has died.

Who plays Brenda's brother Billy in Six Feet Under?

Jeremy Sisto's Billy is a gifted artist with bipolar disorder whose fixation on his sister keeps upending her life.

Which actor plays George Sibley, Ruth's second husband, in Six Feet Under?

James Cromwell arrived as a recurring guest in season three and joined the main cast for the last two, playing a geology professor.

Who plays the late patriarch Nathaniel Fisher Sr. in Six Feet Under?

Richard Jenkins's character dies in the very first episode, yet the actor stayed for all five seasons, returning in dreams and flashbacks.

How does Nathaniel Fisher Sr. die in the Six Feet Under pilot?

Hit by a bus in his new hearse on Christmas Eve; the eldest son flying in for the holidays ends up staying to help run the family firm.

Where had Nate Fisher been living before returning home in the Six Feet Under pilot?

Seattle: he had moved there years earlier with no job lined up, the same leap of faith he later urges his sister to take.

What gimmick appeared only in the Six Feet Under pilot and was then dropped?

Parody funeral-product commercials opened each act of the first episode, plugging things like embalming fluid, before the idea was abandoned.

A recurring device in Six Feet Under has the living characters doing what with the dead?

Holding imagined conversations with the dead, above all with their late father, was the creator's way of showing the characters' inner dialogue out loud.

How does almost every episode of Six Feet Under begin?

With a death, anything from a heart attack to a freak accident, which then sets the theme the Fishers wrestle with for the rest of the hour.

Who plays Keith Charles, David's long-term partner, in Six Feet Under?

Mathew St. Patrick's Keith takes in his young niece, splits from David and returns more than once, and ends the series raising two adopted sons with him.

Who composed the Emmy-winning main theme of Six Feet Under?

Thomas Newman had already scored American Beauty, the film that won the show's creator his Oscar; his theme here took the 2002 Emmy.

Which Sia song plays over the flash-forward montage that ends Six Feet Under?

Breathe Me became a sensation in America once the finale aired, and the Australian singer's manager set up a tour to build on its success.

What ordeal befalls David Fisher in the fourth season of Six Feet Under?

He is carjacked and tortured by a stranger, and the panic attacks that follow stay with him for the rest of the series.

Who played Bettina in Six Feet Under and also directed five of its episodes?

Kathy Bates was already directing episodes in the show's second year, before she joined the cast as Bettina, who becomes Ruth's close friend.

Who plays Ruth's artist sister Sarah O'Connor in Six Feet Under?

Patricia Clarkson's Sarah is the free spirit her older sister resents, and the part won her the guest-actress Emmy twice.

Who plays Lisa Kimmel, Nate's first wife, in Six Feet Under?

Lili Taylor's Lisa was Nate's old roommate; he marries her after learning that she is pregnant with his child.

Which future star of The Office played the intern Arthur Martin in Six Feet Under?

Rainn Wilson's Arthur, orphaned at five and raised by an aunt, moves in as an apprentice and unsettles Ruth, who takes their friendship for romance.

Which American Beauty actress played Claire's art-school friend Edie in Six Feet Under?

Mena Suvari's Edie is a free-spirited artist who becomes Claire's friend and briefly her lover, until Claire's doubts end it.

Who played Joe, Brenda's neighbour and season-four boyfriend, in Six Feet Under?

Justin Theroux's Joe is the neighbour Brenda dates while she is apart from Nate, until he catches the two of them kissing and moves out.

Which Buffy actress played the spoiled pop star Celeste in Six Feet Under?

Michelle Trachtenberg's Celeste takes Keith on tour as a bodyguard, a job on which he keeps his sexuality from his co-workers.

Who plays Carol Ward, Lisa's neurotic film-producer boss, in Six Feet Under?

Catherine O'Hara's Carol is a neurotic, self-absorbed film producer whose demands clash with Lisa's new life as a wife and mother.

What is the name of Nate and Lisa's daughter in Six Feet Under?

Maya ends the series in Brenda's care, after Ruth gives up her fight to keep her granddaughter.

What are the names of David and Keith's adopted sons in Six Feet Under?

Durrell and Anthony are brothers out of foster care; Keith has doubts at first, but David insists that the family keep them.

Which corporate chain tries to buy out Fisher & Sons in the early seasons of Six Feet Under?

Kroehner, the late patriarch's arch-rival, even lures Rico away for a while, until he finds he is just another overworked employee and returns.

What is the title of the Six Feet Under series finale?

Everyone's Waiting was written and directed by the show's creator, and it flashes forward decades to show how each main character will die.

Unlike every other episode, how does the Six Feet Under finale open?

With a birth: Willa, Brenda and Nate's daughter, arrives prematurely six weeks after her father's death, and Brenda fears she will not survive.

What career does Claire Fisher go on to have after the events of Six Feet Under?

Photographer: she drives east with no job in hand, then spends nearly fifty years shooting advertising, fashion and news before dying in 2085 at 101.

In the Six Feet Under finale's flash-forward, how does Keith die?

Shot by armoured-truck robbers in 2029: by then he owns a security firm bearing his own name, and the truck he is stepping out of is his.

In the Six Feet Under finale, where does Rico suffer his fatal heart attack?

On a cruise with his wife in 2049: by then he had left the Fishers to open his own business, which he ran for 35 years before retiring.

Where does Claire drive off to at the end of Six Feet Under?

New York it is, even though the job that was taking her there falls through; a vision of Nate tells her to go anyway.

What medical event kills Nate in the final season of Six Feet Under?

A stroke fells him after years of living with a brain malformation; he seems to be recovering in hospital, then dies in his sleep.

Where does Ruth Fisher take a job after her husband's death in Six Feet Under?

A flower shop, where the owner, Nikolai, becomes infatuated with her and the two begin an affair.

Which animated series parodied the closing montage of the Six Feet Under finale?

The Simpsons closed a season by killing off its own characters one by one in flash-forward, set to the same Sia song as the original.

Which honour did Six Feet Under win for its "unsettling yet powerfully humane explorations of life and death"?

A Peabody Award came in 2002, from judges who called the Fishers' world "strange yet strangely familiar".

The creator of Six Feet Under, an Oscar-winning writer, won a 2002 Emmy on the show for what?

Directing the pilot won him the Emmy, and he went on to direct every season finale, including the last episode of all.

What becomes of Nate's first wife, Lisa, in Six Feet Under?

She goes missing, leaving Nate to care for their small daughter alone, and he later learns that her body has washed up on a beach.

What is Brenda Chenowith's job when Six Feet Under begins?

Massage therapist: she runs a shiatsu practice from her house, an unlikely trade for a prodigy whose childhood was studied in a best-selling book.

What post is David Fisher offered early in Six Feet Under, once held by his late father?

Church deacon was his father's old post, and the offer forces the still-closeted David to weigh it against a congregation that frowns on homosexuality.

Which Six Feet Under writer, on staff from season two, later created Transparent?

Joey Soloway wrote seven episodes and rose to co-executive producer by the final season, years before Transparent.

In Six Feet Under, Ruth had an affair with Hiram, who worked as what?

Hair stylist Hiram was Ruth's secret lover while her husband was alive; she ends it to mourn him, then resumes the affair months later.