The other thing I thought was that when he decided to love, he was completely—what is it Othello says? I thought, "Holy shit. I'm done. I blew this completely. Long: There were two actors [they liked], and Ted and I read with them, and it was so obvious that it was Kelsey. Glen Charles: Kelsey told me one time [that] after his first season, he was in a bar, and this guy walks up and says, "Are you that pin dick that plays Frasier? We'd get horrible fan mail, or anti-fan mail, about Kelsey breaking up Sam and Diane or coming between them.
Because Kelsey was just this lovely, friendly beach guy who would [say], "Yeah, I'm in Hermosa this weekend. Come on down, hang out with Kels. Jay Thomas who played Carla's husband, Eddie LeBec : I would see Kelsey sometimes at 5 o'clock in the morning with no shoes on, pushing a sports car down the street with a half [passed-out] woman in the passenger seat. I'm pulling in to get gas, and I go, "Hey Kelsey! What are you doing?
And they were saying, "Oh, well, we could do this, and we could do that, and Frasier could be the father. You said Hepburn and Tracy to us when we started, and I think this should be Tracy's baby. I talked to him on the phone once and I said, "You know, this was not about you, the actor; this was about Sam and Diane.
Grammer from his autobiography, So Far Shelly's efforts to get me off the show were relentless. I learned after read-throughs she would insist the writers took out every laugh I had.
He's a brilliant talent, and he was so wonderfully funny on the show. I even watched Frasier , you know? I have no idea how he got that idea other than me speaking up one time and saying, "No, I really don't think it should be Frasier's baby. It's just a crime that people don't take the time and make the effort to have a conversation if it's bothering them that much. I wish he had said something, but he never did.
You know, it's too bad. I don't know. Maybe none of that was really true. But, early on, I did have a feeling that she would've been happier if I hadn't been on the show.
Once Frasier was no longer a threat to what I think she felt was her arc for Ted, it was great. Bill Steinkellner: [Cheri and I] wrote the first script that Lilith was in. She was in a little bit of the first scene, and then she left. The next year came, they said, "Let's get a girlfriend for Frasier.
So I stayed and tried to rustle up whatever work I could while I was waiting. The first job was on Simon Simon , and the second was Cheers. I don't know that I had seen it. But my parents, who are very smart, very sophisticated, they loved Cheers.
In New York, in musicals, I was playing parts that would never have been described the way Lilith was in the breakdown. The musical stuff I'd go up for was always funny, sexy, tough-as-nails, heart-of-gold characters.
So when I first auditioned for Lilith, I really struggled. Then her voice occurred to me in my head, and I started reading it out loud to myself, and it made me laugh. That was her. Thomas: I'm doing Cheers , having the greatest time of my life, and one day I get a phone call from Jimmy. I knew they were deciding [about] whether to add me or Bebe to the cast full-time, and I thought he was calling with good news. He said, like in a movie, "Are you sitting down? And it has nothing to do with Rhea.
Thomas: [Listeners] would go, "What's it like to kiss Carla? And my joke what that I got combat's pay to kiss her. She said, "I want him off the show. Rhea Perlman: That's not true. But there was a point where they [thought] maybe we would live together, and I didn't like the idea of Carla being with somebody because that would make you feel like [you're] not part of the people in the bar.
Thomas: Look, I made jokes about kissing Murphy Brown [too]. But if that's what cost me my job, my wife will probably say, "Hey asshole, I told you so. Grammer's partying was getting out of control; there were a couple of arrests—one of which ended with Grammer pleading no contest to cocaine possesion—in and An unsuccessful on-set intervention was held by the show's producers and cast.
Glen Charles: Kelsey was going through a divorce and child-custody issues. He had some problems. Jimmy would say "Action," and he would snap into Frasier and expound in this very erudite dialogue and be pitch-perfect. And Jimmy would yell "Cut! It was the most amazing transformation I'd ever seen. Lilith Sternin : I really loved Kelsey. It wasn't a romantic love, but there was something about him.
It's very difficult to see someone you care about having a hard time. Some days were better than others. One time they had to shut down for the day. I can only wing it after I know what I'm doing, and there was a complicated scene with lots of props, and during rehearsal nothing was happening. I thought, Jesus, you have to be like this today? We cobbled a performance [from the footage], but it was difficult. I think you need to go off to get some help.
Grammer: I went and did some things [rehab], and then of course my life didn't change that much [for a while], but I never missed work. One time I went out for a few cocktails before we shot, and my words were slurred a bit.
I feel forever apologetic about that. I needed to rest, just let go of all of it. Because I really felt sometimes like I was physically pulling the plot, and it was heavy. I'm sure it didn't look great that I was going into my dressing room at lunch. I wish I could've hung out with the cast and got lunch. But it's not restful for me to be in a public dining room and eat.
It's just not. And I was exhausted by the end of the morning because I tried to deliver as much of a performance as I could for each run-through. Shelley believed that she was the new Lucille Ball, and she would spend hours after the run-through talking with the writers about her character and the story, just talking it to death.
They would indulge her, but they indulged her to a point where they couldn't stand it anymore. Glen Charles: Shelley liked to discuss things. It was never a tantrum. But it did take a lot of talking, and I think the biggest problem was with the rest of the cast, because we'd have a reading at the table, and immediately she'd want to talk about it. The normal procedure was for Jimmy to take the cast down and start blocking it, so we could see it on its feet.
So that indulgence on our part, I think, created a schism between Shelley and the rest of the cast. Rhea Perlman: It's not really something I can talk about, to tell you the truth. I can't go there. I don't think it's worth it, at this point in life. Long: There was scuttlebutt about me talking too much and being passionate about Diane. But I thought, "That's my job. That's what I'm supposed to do Don't tell me not to get involved in the discussion.
But it was purposeful—it was her way of being Diane—and there's not a mean bone in Shelley's body. I had trouble hanging around her until we stood onstage together, and then I was in heaven. On December 16, , Long announced she was leaving the show.
The show was so popular and the announcement so shocking that it became national news. Long: The Cheers writers were the finest in television. But I felt like I was repeating myself; it bothered me a little bit. And I was getting movie offers, which made people think, "Oh, she's so snooty. She thinks she's going to do movies. I had spoken with her over the five years that we'd done Cheers, so I said, "Are you upset that I'm leaving the show?
But most people tended to understand, because I had a two-year-old baby, and I wanted to spend more time with my family, which was the other reason I left the show. And I did spend more time with my family. It was a good decision. It was really good. It's funny, there were actors who said that she drove them nuts, yet they were also mad that she was leaving. It's like the restaurant where the food is so bad and the portions are so small. Lee: Our jaws dropped when we found out she was leaving.
From a writing standpoint, you would look at [Sam and Diane's] scenes and go, "That's the glue that's holding everything together. Could I be any good? Would people want to watch one-half of the relationship? Was she the entire show? Then we released the audience, and shot the actual ending of her leaving. So anybody who was at the last show was probably out there saying, "Hey, they got married! Sam, I'm going away for six months.
That's all. So no more of this "Have a good life" stuff. SAM: You never know. You could die. I could die. The world could end. One of us could bump our heads and wander the streets for the rest of our life with amnesia.
Or maybe one of us will decide they want something else. I'll be back here. I will. I'll see you in six months. But we said to ourselves, "We're not going to do another romance. We're going to find something different. The writers came up with Sam selling Cheers to a megaconglomerate, and introduced meltdown-prone striver Rebecca Howe, who would briefly manage the bar. Any concern about ratings dropping after Long left soon dissolved: They got even bigger.
And they didn't want another blonde. She was great and sultry, and she had those eyes. But she also found a lot of subtle humor in the play that I had not seen before. Ted had so much hair in his widow's peak that I remember thinking, "That dude looks like Eddie Munster.
They'd be lucky to have me. So we had all these secret meetings. My own assistants didn't even know it was happening.
We had her come to the studio on a Saturday, when no one was on the Cheers set, and she did two scenes, one with Ted, and one with Rhea. Jimmy, Les and Glen loved her, but the network, who gets final word on these things, did not. They didn't see the audition, and didn't consider Kirstie a comic actress.
So we had to go through the process of looking at every other actress, [like] Sharon Stone, Kim Cattrall, Marg Helgenberger. And after this long process, NBC finally said, "Well, if they are that passionate about her, how can we deny [them]? Then we had the first run-through, and it was not funny.
It wasn't funny until Rebecca had to go to her office, and [Kirstie] couldn't get into the door. She kept turning it and it wouldn't turn, and she got frustrated, and I remember us going, "Oh, my God, this is what this character is: a woman of the '80s, during the feminist movement, who thinks she has control of everything, and she can't open a freaking door.
Alley: They started writing Rebecca more like I am—a little klutzy and self-deprecating. That's why it worked; I fit in with the rest of the losers.
And it was so funny, that kind of [attitude]: "Okay, she can make fun of herself. This is going to be interesting to see. Ratzenberger: We gave Kirstie a shotgun. I own shotguns, so it's not foreign to me. George came up with the note on a card: "You're going to have to shoot your way out of here. Alley: It was a boys' club, and I do well in boys' clubs. Woody and I instantly hit it off. I was married, but he would show up at my house sometimes and stay over. One night he brought this girl to bang, and then in the middle of the night he decided he didn't want to, so he was knocking on my bedroom door: "Kirs?
Can you talk to me a minute? I'm just not into this chick. I can't coach you into sleeping with her, but you need to go back there, dude. I had the halfway house. I can't tell you how many nights I spent around my kitchen table, soothing broken hearts. She was wonderful—just a kind, big-hearted, filthy girl. Somehow she could be vulgar without being vulgar. So the big game became getting the door open, so that you could take pictures of nude people.
I have the greatest picture of Ted. That was a big caper: There was one person [opening] the door with a butter knife and another person kicking the door in so I could get a photo.
He's decapitated, but totally nude. And he's really well-endowed. Though Sam pursued Rebecca with typical zeal, she preferred wealthy schemers like Robin Colcord, a Trump-like millionaire played by British actor Roger Rees. A Tony-winner, Rees was one of many high-profile guest stars to visit the bar, which became a temporary home to a motley mix of politicians, athletes, and Broadway performers. I played a Russian particle physicist.
So I came over to do the play [in L. I believe the people from Cheers saw that production, and they [asked if I'd] like to come in and see them. It was probably the hottest day of my life—but being from Britain, I put my suit on with my tie, drove down Melrose to Paramount Studios, and was taken to the writers' room. There were about twenty writers in there, and they were all dressed for the beach.
Some were just in shorts. The scales dropped from my eyes: "Oh, I see. This is what goes on in America.
They said, "Do you like Cheers? All I knew was that it was a dark brown program on late at night. But I said, "It is indisputably my most favorite program I've ever seen. Bill Steinkellner: That was the aura of Cheers : It was special.
It was more than TV; you could get people to guest on the show you couldn't normally get. Levine: We heard the first year that Lucille Ball loved Cheers , and we all thought she should play Diane's mom.
We thought that would really boost the show. Numerous secondary characters and love interests for these characters appeared intermittently to complement storylines that generally revolve around this core group.
The table below summarizes the main cast of Cheers. While chatting with producers afterwards, he asked if they were going to include a "bar know-it-all", the part which he eventually played. Danson, George Wendt, and Rhea Perlman were the only actors to appear in every episode of the series.
Paul Willson, who played the recurring barfly character of "Paul", made early appearances in the first season as "Glen", was credited as "Gregg", and also appeared in the show as a character named "Tom". Guest stars Although Cheers operated largely around that main ensemble cast, guest stars did occasionally supplement them. Other celebrities guest starred in single episodes as themselves throughout the series. Musician Harry Connick, Jr.
John Cleese won an Emmy for his guest appearance as "Dr. Simon Finch-Royce" in a fifth season episode "Simon Says". Production The concept for Cheers was the end result of a long consideration process. The original idea was a group of workers who interacted like a family, hoping to be similar to The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
They considered making an American version of the British Fawlty Towers centered around a hotel or an inn. When the creators settled on a bar as their setting the show began to resemble the radio show Duffy's Tavern.
They liked the idea of a tavern as it provided a continuous stream of new people arriving, giving them a constant supply of characters. After choosing a plot, the three had to choose a location. They eventually turned to the East Coast and Boston. Most Cheers episodes were shot before a live studio audience on Paramount Stage 25, generally on Tuesday nights.
Scripts for a new episode were issued the Wednesday before for a read-through, Friday was rehearsal day, and final scripts were issued on Monday. Nearly crewmembers were involved in the shooting of a single episode. Burrows, who directed most episodes, insisted on shooting on film rather than videotape. Sam is attracted to her and makes his move, but Diane is turned off by his smug attitude. Eventually they get together, but break up and Diane gets a new boyfriend, psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane Kelsey Grammer.
They were about to get married when Diane leaves him and goes to the bar. Sam and Diane got engaged and were about to get married when Sam urged her to fulfill her dream to be a writer.
Sam sold the bar to a corporation. When Sam needed a job, he tried to get a job from the new Manager, Rebecca Howe Kirstie Alley , who Sam tried to make a move on, but resisted for awhile. Sam eventually bought the bar back and made Rebecca the manager.
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