In 1982, while visiting Turkey to film scenes for the show, Grandy suffered severe burns when a balloon filled with hydrogen exploded.

He starred in the Saturday morning TV series Monster Squad (1976) as Walt, a criminology student working as a night watchman at "Fred's Wax Museum".

He has also performed around the country in regional theatre productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, On Golden Pond, I'm Not Rappaport, and Give 'em Hell, Harry!.

[6] With Mayne's successor, Democrat Berkley Bedell, deciding not to run in 1986, Grandy, a Republican, campaigned for the open Iowa United States House of Representatives seat, beating Clayton Hodgson by two percentage points (51.0% to 49.0%).

"[2] During his four terms in Congress, he served on a variety of committees, including Ways and Means, Agriculture, Standards of Official Conduct, and Education and the Workforce.

In 1994, Grandy declined to run for another Congressional term and instead entered the Republican primary race for governor of Iowa against incumbent Terry Branstad, but lost the election by nearly four percentage points.

On March 3, 2011, Grandy resigned from the program allegedly over a dispute about his and his wife's statements about Islamic extremism or low listenership.

[7][8] Grandy was also the host of a show on Retirement Living TV called Daily Café (with MSNBC anchor Alex Witt).

On March 28, 1987, Grandy married novelist Catherine Mann, whom he had met when she interviewed him as one of the first reporters for Entertainment Tonight.