Gilbert "Gil" Grissom was born on August 17, 1956 in Santa Monica, California and grew up in Marina Del Rey, California. His father, a botanist, died when Gil was nine years old. His mother, who was deaf, ran an art gallery in Venice.
He was raised Roman Catholic, but he now seems to be a lapsed Catholic. He describes this as "practic[ing] a kind of secular Catholicism that involves ritualizing certain aspects of everyday life and imbuing them with a spiritual intensity they might not otherwise possess". This appears to neatly sum up his personal faith in scientific rigor as well as humanity, despite the crime scenes he attends every night.
Grissom describes himself as "a ghost" in school, focussing on his studies and on his scientific interests. He was known to pick up and dissect animals killed along the highway, and was eventually called upon to assist local law enforcement with necroscopies and other forensic tasks. (It is later hinted that Grissom has Asperger's Syndrome, or Asperger's-like tendencies, and these are key examples: social withdrawal and intellectual obsession leading to mastery of a subject.)
Grissom has a degree from UCLA in Biology, though it is unclear where he completed his postgraduate work.
At only 22, Grissom became the youngest country coroner in California history. Winning a surprise windfall in a poker game, he set up his first Body Farm - a natural setting where donated human bodies could be observed and recorded at all stages of the process of decomposition, local predation, and of course, bugs - entomological interference.
At 29, Grissom switched careers and became a CSI, rising quickly through the ranks to become a shift supervisor. He eventually transferred from the San Francisco PD to the Las Vegas PD, and took over the graveyard shift. Under his guidance, the LVPD Crime Lab rose to a second place crime-solving position in the country, second only to the FBI national headquarters at Quantico.
Grissom, while attached mainly to his work, does make friendly connections with his staff. And at least one friend is willing to relocate entirely to work with him: CSI Sara Sidle appears in the second episode of the series, called in from San Francisco by Grissom to run an internal investigation. His night shift crew treat him as an avuncular figure, eccentric but wise, hilariously dry, and solid as a rock. His own supervisor, Conrad Ecklie, considers him the proverbial thorn and a possible contender, and takes every opportunity to put him in his place.
Grissom's inherited his mother's otosclerosis, a fusion of the small bones in the ear, which nearly led to the loss of his hearing. This leads him even further into himself, withdrawing emotionally from his crew, and especially from Sara, for whom he has feelings he can neither deny nor act upon. With successful surgery, he regains his full hearing, but the effects of his behaviour upon Sara take much longer to heal.
Grissom and Sara, while both ferociously intelligent and adept observers, both find personal relationships awkward and difficult. Grissom especially takes a great pleasure and pride in his mind, and doesn't often see the point in changing to accommodate the people around him. Sara surrounds herself with emotional brick walls. It takes years for them to realize that neither of them is asking the other to change - only to be honest and willing to try. Six years after she arrives from San Francisco, Grissom and Sara are finally shown to be a couple, though they keep their relationship hidden from their colleagues for another two years. It is not until the end of the seventh season that Grissom reveals to them, during Sara's kidnapping, that she is the only one he has ever loved.
Upon Sara's return, she and Grissom must deal with the administrative effects of an interoffice relationship. Sara volunteers to switch to the swing shift, which brings "more daylight" into her life, but which leaves them with little time to spend together. Grissom, in his usual sideways manner, suggests that perhaps they should marry, and Sara agrees delightedly. This seems to boost her spirits, but even Grissom can't entirely stop her headlong spiral into a PTSD-sparked depression due to her violent childhood and more recent ordeal. She leaves him to return to California to confront her ghosts, while Grissom, giving her the space she asks of him, throws himself back into work.
Recent episodes show Grissom in emotional retreat, occasionally speaking with Sara by phone, but otherwise channelling all of his energy into his work. His team is fraying around the edges, with Sara gone, Ecklie hovering, and Warrick's problems affecting his work, and he feels responsible. The finale of the eighth season shows his relief at sitting down to breakfast with his old crew, and his prodigal son Warrick returned to the fold. As every viewer knows, however, one should never trust a season cliffhanger.
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