Kirstie Alley, who won an Emmy for her role in Cheers and starred in movies like Look Who’s Talking, died on Monday. She was 71 years old.
Kirstie Alley has died of only recently discovered cancer, her children True and Lillie Parker said in a post on Twitter. Alley manager Donovan Daughtry confirmed the death by email to The Associated Press.
“As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more extraordinary mother and grandmother,” her children said.
She played the role of Rebecca Howe alongside Ted Danson in the series Cheersthe famous NBC sitcom about a Boston bar, from 1987 to 1993. She joined the series at the height of its popularity, after the departure of original star Shelley Long.
Alley won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for this role in 1991.
“I thank God that I didn’t have to wait as long as Ted did,” Alley said when accepting, gently poking fun at his co-star from Cheers Ted Danson, who ultimately won an Emmy for his role as Sam Malone in his eighth nomination the previous year.
She won a second Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie in 1993 for playing the title role in the CBS TV movie David’s Mother.
She had her own sitcom on the channel, Veronica’s Closetfrom 1997 to 2000.
In the 1989 comedy Look Who’s Talking, which gave her a major boost in her career, she plays the mother of a baby whose inner thoughts are expressed by Bruce Willis. She would also appear in the 1990 sequel, Look Who’s Talking Tooand in another in 1993, Look Who’s Talking Now.
John Travolta, her co-star in the trilogy, paid tribute to her in an Instagram post.
“Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had,” Travolta said, along with a photo of Alley. “I love you, Kirstie. I know we will meet again. »
She played a fictionalized version of herself on the show Fat Actressbroadcast in 2005 on Showtime, a show inspired by the public and media treatment of her weight gain and loss.
She broached the same subject in 2010 in the reality series Kirstie Alley’s Big Lifewhich describes her attempt to lose weight and start a weight loss program while working as a single mother in an unconventional household that included pet lemurs.
Kirstie Alley said she agreed to appear on the show in part because of the misinformation about her that had become a tabloid staple.
“Anything bad you can say about me, they say,” Alley told The Associated Press at the time. “I never collapsed or fainted. In fact, whatever they said, I never did. The only real thing is that I got fat. »
Over the past few years, she has appeared on several other reality TV shows, including a runner-up finish in Dancing With the Stars in 2011. She appeared in the competition series The Masked Singer while wearing a baby mammoth costume earlier this year.
She appeared in Ryan Murphy’s dark comedy series Scream Queens on Fox in 2015 and 2016.
One of her co-stars on the show, Jamie Lee Curtis, said on Instagram on Monday that Alley was “an amazing comedic sidekick” on the show and “a gorgeous mama bear in her very real life.” »
The Alley co-star in Cheers, Kelsey Grammar, said in a message: “I have always thought that the mourning of a public figure is a private matter, but I must say that I love it. »
A native of Wichita, Kansas, Alley attended Kansas State University before dropping out and moving to Los Angeles.
She made her first television appearances as a contestant on a game show, in The Match Game in 1979 and Password in 1980.
She made her film debut in Star Trek: Wrath of Khan in 1982.
Alley was married to her high school sweetheart from 1970 to 1977, and to actor Parker Stevenson from 1983 to 1997.
She told the AP in 2010 that if she got married again, “I would leave the guy in less than 24 hours because I’m sure he would tell me not to do something. »