A look at the life of Trump-voting Cheers star Kristie Alley
‘Saved from addiction by Scientology’: As Kirstie Alley dies aged 71, TOM LEONARD looks back on the life of the Trump-voting Cheers star who happily flouted all of Hollywood’s rules
- Kirstie Alley, 71, will always be remembered for her role in the hit sitcom Cheers
- She was regularly being swept off her feet by rich men and Hollywood’s hottest
- But fans reacted poorly when she said she was voting for Donald Trump in 2020
- Alley also claimed the Church of Scientology saved her from drug addiction
Television viewers will chiefly remember Kirstie Alley as the hilariously neurotic and ambitious bar manager in Cheers, one of the most successful American sitcoms ever.
When she wasn’t fending off the advances of womanising bar owner Sam Malone (Ted Danson), she was dreaming of being swept off her feet by a rich man.
But when the actress admitted years later that she had been swept off her feet politically by Donald Trump, all hell broke loose.
‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen so much name-calling in my life,’ Alley tweeted 30 minutes after her Twitter post before the 2020 election in which she revealed she was voting for Trump ‘because he’s NOT a politician’.
Television viewers will chiefly remember Kirstie Alley as the hilariously neurotic and ambitious bar manager in Cheers, one of the most successful American sitcoms ever. She is pictured on the show with costar Ted Danson
Hollywood had much to say about Alley (pictured in June 2011) yesterday, but this time was effusive in its praise after the announcement that the two-time Emmy-winner had died of colon cancer at 71
As she’d later observe with astonishment at Hollywood’s double standards: ‘You can be cooking meth and sleeping with hookers, but as long as, apparently, you didn’t vote for Trump . . .’
Tinseltown was, of course, incensed by her political leanings and she said she was blackballed. But then the ardent Scientologist, who claimed the controversial ‘church’ saved her from drug addiction and who once danced across the stage on Oprah in a red lace bikini after shedding 75lb, never shrank from causing a stir.
Hollywood had much to say about Alley yesterday, but this time was effusive in its praise after the announcement that the two-time Emmy-winner had died of colon cancer at 71. ‘We are sad to inform you that our incredible, fierce and loving mother has passed away after a battle with cancer, only recently discovered,’ said her family in a statement released on Monday night.
‘She was surrounded by her closest family and fought with great strength, leaving us with a certainty of her never-ending joy of living and whatever adventures lie ahead. As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother.’
Friend John Travolta, a fellow Scientologist and her co-star in 1989 film Look Who’s Talking, said: ‘Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had. I love you Kirstie. I know we will see each other again.’
Ted Danson said Alley had been ‘truly brilliant’ in Cheers, adding: ‘I am so sad and so grateful for all the times she made me laugh. I send my love to her children. As they well know, their mother had a heart of gold. I will miss her.’
Kelsey Grammer, who played Dr Frasier Crane in Cheers — and then starred in the spin-off Frasier — said: ‘I always believed grief for a public figure is a private matter, but I will say I loved her.’
As for Donald Trump, he said: ‘Kirstie was a great person who truly loved the USA. She will be missed!!!’
Alley with her good friend and co-star John Travolta, another Scientologist. Travolta joined in 1975
Alley said she fell in love with Travolta while they were working together on Look Who’s Talking, in which they portrayed a pair of lovers raising a child – and that she remained in love with him long after
Alley’s route to stardom was unconventional. The daughter of a Kansas lumber company owner, she dropped out of university to take up interior design but then developed a cocaine addiction.
She moved to Los Angeles and joined Narconon, an addiction rehabilitation programme run by the Church of Scientology. She later insisted she hadn’t heard anything negative about the group, regarded as a cult in some countries. She said it ‘answered a lot of questions for me’ and helped her pursue her ambition to act.
She made her film debut in pointy ears playing a Vulcan comrade of Mr Spock in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. Various movie and TV roles followed, but she hit the big time in 1987 on replacing Shelley Long in Cheers as the bar manager and object of Ted Danson’s desires.
She played Rebecca Howe for six seasons and was widely credited with saving Cheers, as many considered Long’s relationship with Danson the best thing about the popular U.S. TV show.
They predicted it wouldn’t survive Long’s departure but Alley proved the doomsayers spectacularly wrong.
She established an on-screen chemistry with Danson which was arguably even more watchable — portraying a multi-faceted, messy character who was glamorous and tough-talking but also eccentric and vulnerable.
Alley said that making the show was wonderfully chaotic, with the cast — which included Woody Harrelson — forever misbehaving.
‘We never paid attention, we were always in trouble, we never showed up on time,’ she said. ‘If #MeToo had been around when we did Cheers, we would all be in prison.
‘We used to take nudies of each other, we’d kick open the bathroom doors…before we’d shoot, we’d stick our tongues down each others’ throats.’
Like Harrelson, she found Cheers a useful stepping stone in Hollywood. Look Who’s Talking, a film comedy with Travolta in which Bruce Willis voiced the part of their baby was a hit with audiences, if not critics, and spawned two sequels.
Alley was cast in 1987 as Rebecca Howe on NBC’s iconic sitcom Cheers, which revolved around a group of friends and their main hangout, a Boston bar
A foxy and leather-clad Alley starred alongside a very young Patrick Dempsey in the 1989 film Loverboy
Kirstie Alley holds her 1994 Emmy for her work in David’s Mother, a made-for-television movie in which Alley portrayed a mother caring for an autistic son
Alley made no bones about struggling to conform to her industry’s strictures on staying slim. She said her weight rose to more than 16st as she consumed up to 28,000 calories a day, eating ‘with wild abandon’. She told Oprah Winfrey she had an epiphany in 2004 on realising her weight had become the only thing about her that really interested the media.
She stopped smoking and became a spokeswoman for weight-loss firm Jenny Craig. In 2005, she made comedy series Fat Actress, which addressed her efforts to slim and get back on TV. Five years later, she ploughed the same furrow with the reality TV series Kirstie Alley’s Big Life.
Alley also launched her own slimming company, denying claims it was linked to Scientology.
But in 2013 she had to pay a $130,000 settlement after being sued over allegations that her substantial weight loss had been due to exercise rather than her dieting products.
However, she said she hated the waif look: ‘I have this theory that skinny women are not sexy. To me, being sexy does not equate with looking like skin and bones.’
Reality TV contests became an Alley speciality: in the U.S., she competed on Dancing With The Stars in 2011 and this year appeared on The Masked Singer, while in the UK she was runner-up on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018. And the actress insisted she tailored her career to fit in with her family life, which was sometimes messy.
Her seven-year marriage to high- school sweetheart Bob Alley ended in divorce in 1977, as did a later 14-year marriage to actor Parker Stevenson, with whom she adopted two children, William and Lillie. They divorced in 1997 and fought a custody battle for the pair.
In a 2021 memoir, The Art Of Men (I Prefer Mine Al Dente), Alley wrote about falling for Patrick Swayze and John Travolta.
She said she was immediately attracted to Swayze when they co-starred in the 1980s civil war drama North And South.
‘We did not have an affair,’ she said. ‘But again, I think what I did was worse. Because I think when you fall in love with someone when you’re married, you jeopardise your own marriage and their marriage. It’s doubly bad.’
Kirstie Alley poses alongside her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1997
She described Travolta as the ‘greatest love’ of her life but again resisted temptation because she was married. ‘Believe me, it took everything that I had… to not run off and marry John,’ she said.
While some celebrities have stopped following Scientology over its many public embarrassments, Alley remained loyal. She refused to reprise her role from Cheers in the spin-off Frasier as the latter was about psychiatrists, a profession Scientologists condemn.
Since 2000, Alley had lived near Scientology’s headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, in a waterfront mansion once owned by ex-church member Lisa Marie Presley. In 2007, she reportedly gave the group $5 million.
Donald Trump’s arrival on the Republican scene shifted criticism of Alley to her political views.
She claimed her support for Trump, which she first voiced in 2016 after previously backing Barack Obama, led to her not getting work in pro-Democrat Hollywood. And she caused offence recently on social media by claiming she didn’t ‘know what’s real or what is fake’ about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But the actress who on Cheers could quell a bar full of unruly regulars with just a glance rarely seemed too bothered what others thought about her.
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