Grismer made his professional stage debut in Albany around 1870 and by 1873 was playing principal roles at the Grand Opera House in Cincinnati. There Grismer appeared in hundreds of stock productions, some in support of Charlotte Cushman, Laura Keene, Edward Loomis Davenport, Edwin Adams, Lawrence Barrett, Lilian Adelaide Neilson, John Edward McCullough, Charles Albert Fechter, and Charles James Mathews.
