Shelley Long Is Trending #1 Thanks To Kirstie Alley

The only people who ever cared what problems she caused were the cast and crew. Audiences have always known the Shelley Long years were Cheers's (still impressive) heyday.

OP. . .care to use your words and, oh, I don't know. . .explain what the fuck you're referring to? Thanks, cunt.

I'm just so happy Kirstie Alley got fat. Tres amusant!

[italic]Really[/italic] fat.

[bold]FAT!!!!![/bold]

I really like Shelley Long and always have.

Rhea Pearlman is BFF with Kirstie Alley and despises Shelley Long

Rhea Pearlman is probably a giant cunt too R5.

Team Shelley!

Ted & Shelley seem to have made up

So fucking FAT. Outrageously, otherworldly, carnival freak show, can't-find-her-twat-in-the-folds fat!

[bold]FAT!!!!![/bold]

Funny

Tony Posnanski @tonyposnanski

And for the record, Kristie Alley blocked me a while ago when she said something dumb and I said I had to ask Shelley Long who she was.

R8, Sam has aged better than Diane... (I think Mr. Malone dodged a bullet there.)

[quote]Sam has aged better than Diane... (I think Mr. Malone dodged a bullet there.)

Rebecca is even fatter.

Shelley didn’t cause problems on the cheers set.

What was the issue with Shelley on set anyway?

R12, So, so happy! Drinks for everyone!

FAT.

Ego, apparently saw herself as the next Mary Tyler Moore, R14. Apparently tended to want more takes, rehearse her lines to the point where they stopped being natural (remember Valerie Cherish practicing "I don't need to see that!"?) and seemed to want her hand held quite a bit. You can see why that'd be frustrating week after week.

[quote] What was the issue with Shelley on set anyway?

Well one thing is that when there was a scene change, Shelley would insist on her make-up redone and hair washed and set again & FROM SCRATCH

meaning production was held up for an hour, and everyone just waiting around - with the audience twiddling their thumbs. So the writers had to get creative and write episodes that had no scenes changes involving her character.

Who cares what problems she caused?

It's all about the final product.

For me, Cheers became unwatchable when Kirstie Alley joined the cast.

R12, Mom – is that you?

Kirstie is such a fat fuck.

R16 Except most of her costars, like Danson, said it wasn't about a diva behavior, that she was a perfectionist but always cared about the result.

Most of her costars - Rhea Perlman was outspoken about how much Shelley worked her nerves.

Bette Midler hated working with her in Outrageous Fortune - but I fucking LOVED that film. That is a classic that doesn't get played enough.

She took herself way too seriously as a THESPIAN. The cast at Cheers were like - this isn't Shakespeare - get up there, say your lines and let's go HOME.

When these people hate you, you might be worth liking.

Most of her co-stars partied their asses off and her perfectionist behavior was actually professional behavior. One of the producers of Cheers had a blog about show business and he talked about the cast excesses. Like playing hooky. Being drunk all the time. Other shit. It was an enormous hit and most of the regulars thought it gave them free reign. Remember the Cheers finale with live appearances by the cast and almost everyone was drunk? They were also furious at her when she left because they thought the show might not survive without Sam and Diana and the gravy train would be over. This is all according to this producer who seems to like everybody.

I'm sure she's a pain in the ass in her own way but their big gripe against her was she took the show and her role seriously while they were wallowing like pigs in shit. This particular producer gives her credit for the show's original success. He says Diane was an incredibly difficult role and Shelly made it work and made the whole show work. She was the foil to the entire cast.

Slight tangent - I have a friend who worked (was following directors actually) on Fraser. Kelsey Grammer had a lot of drug problems and other problems, and I think once during a salary dispute went AWOL and wasn't there for the table read, blocking, etc.. This would normally wreak havoc with everybody's livelihood but she said most of the crew and producers took it in stride because when Kelsey showed up to tape whatever shape he was in or whatever he'd missed he was always letter perfect and always note perfect so it really didn't matter. It's professional to show up for table reads and all that pre-tape stuff but the bottom line is what's on tape and he really didn't need to be there in order to deliver and deliver per schedule.

Ruth on Glow is an awful lot like Diane Chambers.

[quote] Most of her co-stars partied their asses off

Which is why Kirstie fit in so well, as she loves to party

It looks like Kirstie wasn't able to party [italic]very much[/italic] of her GIGANTIC ass off. It's still there, and IT. IS. HUGE.

Do you think, R20? Has Kirstie put on a few ounces, or a pound or two?

I hadn't noticed. (Tee-hee-hee...)

[bold]FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT[/bold]

Or pleasantly plump.

Kirstie should step back behind the Pier 1 Imports armoire.

Doe Kirstie flash white power hand signs like Mary Hart?

I like Shelley a lot, in Cheers, The Moneypit, Outrageous Fortune. She’s very funny. I don’t care if she was a difficult perfectionist to work with. The results on the screen were great.

At least Woody and Rhea maintained their figures.

This is so funny.

Woody Harrelson preferred to work with Kirstie. Apparently Shelley was a big bitch.

[quote]Bette Midler hated working with her in Outrageous Fortune - but I fucking LOVED that film. That is a classic that doesn't get played enough.

That was such a funny film.

"Nine years of ballet ASSHOLE!"

R28, Kirstie Alley [italic]is[/italic] [bold]several[/bold] Pier 1 Imports armoires...

She was so good at showing Diane's annoying longing for better things. I love her. She reminds me a bit of Teri Garr and a bit of Moira Rose.

I’m sure the Cheers cast did prefer working with Kirstie since she’s such a joke. She’s so fucking stupid they probably liked how she was good for a laugh.

R22 that's funny because that's exactly what an exasperated Ed O'Neill said once during an interview I was present for when asked if how much depth he gave his character's "backstories."

He basically said, "I'm a hired gun. I show up, I say the lines on the paper, and I go home. If there's a backstory, then it needs to be on the paper."

I remember in her Rebecca’s final scene on the last episode of cheers, she says, “I aim for Donald Trump and I marry a plumber.” Looks like even back in 1993 Kirstie ended up being much like the character of Rebecca - a crazy bitch with a love for Dump.

R39, She needs to chug about 50 gallons of laxative, and [italic]TAKE[/italic] a DUMP. A big one.

R24 was that the Ken Levine blog?

I'm not R24 but there has been a few oral histories of Cheers where they talked to the entire cast, links were posted in that recent Cheers thread.

anyone else?

Shelley Long got a bad rap. As the above poster said, she was a professional who just wanted to do her job to the best of her ability. The others were a bunch of drunken fuck-offs who treated the set like a frat house. In one of those oral histories, it was mentioned that some of the cast members thought she was a stuck up bitch because she ate lunch in her dressing room. The reason she did that is because lunch on the set was like Animal House and Long wanted a quiet place to study the script and go over her lines. Many actors do this, they need to be alone for a few minutes to get their concentration together before giving a performance. This was just lost on the other cast members.

I'm not even a huge fan of Shelly Long, but she had to deal with a lot of shit that wasn't her fault, it was because her co-workers were so unprofessional.

[quote] I'm not even a huge fan of Shelly Long

It's

S

H

E

L

L

E

Y

You Whores!!!

What did Alley say that caused Long to trend to number one on twitter?

R46 praise for Rump

Shelley's character was more work than most of the others. Norm and Carla don't have much nuance at all. Yes, I laughed at them, but there isn't much effort going into delivering every line the same way.

Watch a scene with Diane, and you can see her face processing different emotions.

Diane also grew as a character, whereas the rest of the group stayed the same.

What makes Kirstie so susceptible to cults?

Is it the same thing that drives her obesity and drug abuse?

She's just a dumb cunt.

Yeah it’s not that deep.

Scientologist + Trump supporter ... I think this means you are highly suggestible, and not very bright.

r16 I guess you don't know that sometimes it's about an actor not being confident or being a perfectionist that makes them want more takes. Neither of those things are bad. It's the actors that won't accommodate others by doing more takes that are the assholes. They deny their acting partners the opportunity to feel secure in the performance have given.

If it really was about Shelly needing to "run it again" then James Burrows should have worked that out with her without the crew there. If he just let her spin feeling like she wasn't giving what she needed to give for the best performance then HE'S the asshole.

r17 that is not possible on a multi camera show that films in front of a live audience. Either you were lied to about this or you are lying.

Multi cams are shot before a live audience. If they shoot on a Friday (sometimes show night is a Tuesday) you do what amounts to a dress rehearsal early, break for lunch, then come back and run the show before the audience start to finish.

There is not time for redoing hair and make up unless she asked for this between the "dress rehearsal" and the evening performance.

By the way, Kirstie Alley is F-A-T.

I loved her as Carol Brady.

I loved Diane Chambers!

If you told me I could have dinner with Shelley or Kirstie, I'd choose Shelley. And not just because Kirstie would eat my food.

Frau Alley! die Fette Sau!

Irreconcilable Differences is underrated. The whole cast was good. It put Sharon Stone on the map. She played the starlet Ryan O'Neal hooked up with after he and his screenwriter wife (Long) made it big. Was very bohemian and early/sexy as a starlet and a crazy diva later. There's an hilarious sequence where they're trying to shoot his musical remake of Gone with The Wind with Stone as Scarlett.

R44 the obnoxious part was the cast (not Ted Danson) mocked Long and bitched about her, making money turning in one note performances while Long had to actually act and process emotions. Then they had the balls to be pissed when she left. They were all afraid their careers were riding on her performance. Once the show continued they were merciless about her.

I despise Kirstie as much as the next person, but why does nobody ever call out fellow Cheers cast member Kelsey Grammer for being a Trumper as well? He’s just as vile. And he’s been a Republican for decades yet nobody brings that up.

Some of us can separate the art from the artist. It's what intelligent, educated people do.

She's supposed to be Cybill in At Long Last Love, r60...

Does Kelsey Grammar really qualify as an artist though?

R63 That didn’t answer my question. If we are bitching about people from the Cheers cast who love Dump, bitch about each of them instead of just pointing out Kirstie.

[quote]Does Kelsey Grammar really qualify as an artist though?

Exactly. Talk about one-note. He’s literally only famous for playing ONE character. Nobody remembers anything else he’s done.

Kelsey is a man with a penis.

Kirstie has a cunt and a gunt.

r66 I was answering your question. Separate the art from the artist. Cataloguing the political opinions of artists or entertainers and then using that to decide whether you like their work or not is childish and ignorant.

R62 because even though I personally hate Frasier the show I think no one can really deny that he was damn good in the role and of course delivered majorly for the network. I mean yeah there’s some sexism involved but it’s not just that. Because Patty Heston works too. Because she’s good in spite of everything .

R70 Blah blah blah blah. I despise Kirstie but she was great as Rebecca and she was also great in other roles too.

She was well cast in "Fat Actress".

Imagine that: two trollish Jewish actresses (Rhea, Bette) hating on the classy shiksa, Shelley.

Tsk tsk. They should be grateful she elevated their work.

FWIW, I waited on Shelley a few times in the early 00s. She was very nice, if I bit formal.

Shelley would be great on Grace & Frankie or would have been marvelous on GLOW.

Her brother, Charlton, was right-wing as well, r7.

I wonder what Oprah thinks of kirstie now? She use to always be on the Oprah show back in the day.

Oprah thinks that Kirstie is fat.

Everyone wanted to get back to their trailers and do their piles of coke while Shelly wanted to do 40 takes.

The podcast "You're Wrong About" should devote an episode to Shelley. Imagine what being difficult in the 80s was. Certainly not being drunk and high and unprofessional. She was ahead of her time. There's something delightful about her voice and delivery and I hope she finds another recurring role that can showcase her gifts. She could have been Moira Rose's sister.

Horseshit R54.

Veronica’s Closet used to run over 3 hours, sometimes 4, because those egotistical sows Alley & Najimy had full costume changes and makeup and hair reconstructions.

There was hardly any audience left for the last hour or so of ANY of their tapings.

The writing was good. The transition from Shelley to Kristie was impressive. Over all an amazingly well done series.

Ken Levine will never work with Alley again.

Kirstie Alley was in a Woody Allen movie in the late 1990's. She was good in that film.

R80, That podcast is terrible. I listened to their stonewall episode where they repeat the now debunked “Trans women rioted while white gay men stood in the back and watched“ BS narrative.

Whoa! That's fucked up, R80. I didn't know.

Stormy was there and she, a lesbian, said it was gays not trans women. I believe Stormy.

I meant R85,

Can we please not make this yet another anti trans thread. For fucks sake.

For all we know Shelley Long supports the orange shit stain, too.

I like what Ken Levine wrote on the blog in response to all this...

"And look, readers of this blog know I've always preferred Diane to Rebecca. Kirstie gave the show new life, but Shelley MADE the show.

And I would work with Shelley Long again in a second. I'll never work with Kirstie Alley again. There you have it, Kirstie. There you have it."

Did Shelley respond to all of this?

I miss her. She was terrific in Irreconcilable Differences and Diane Chambers is an unforgettable character.

[quote] I'll never work with Kirstie Alley again. There you have it, Kirstie.

Looking the guy up on IMDB it looks like it's been years since anybody wanted to work with him too