Cheers

It will go down as one of the greatest and most memorable comedies of all time. Throughout the 1980s Cheers dominated the airwaves in both the US and the UK as fans were desperate to see the crazy antics of a group of Boston barflies. Running for 11 seasons between 1982 and 1993, it followed the fortunes of former baseball pitcher Sam 'Mayday' Malone, whose career was ruined by alcoholism and who bought a bar - Cheers - as a reminder to stay sober. Dim-witted but successful with the ladies, his life is turned upside when prim and proper Diane Chambers happens to walk into the bar - creating perhaps the definitive 'will they, won't they' relationship in television history. The original cast of Cheers. Pictured clockwise from top left: Nicholas Colasanto as 'Coach' Ernie Pantusso, George Wendt as Norm Peterson, John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin, Rhea Perlman as Carla Tortelli, Shelley Long as Diane Chambers and Ted Danson as Sam Malone. As the years went on the cast changed, but the laughs stayed the same. Pictured from left to right are back row: John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin, Roger Rees as Robin Colcord, Ted Danson as Sam Malone, Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd, George Wendt as Norm Peterson. Middle row: Rhea Perlman as Carla Tortelli, Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe, Shelley Long as Diane Chambers. Front row: Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane and Bebe Neuwirth as Lilith Sternin-Crane. The series is well known for what is possibly the definitive 'will they-won't they?' the on-screen relationship in television history in Sam and Diane They were surrounded by a bunch of lovable losers - lazy barfly Norm Peterson, dull postal worker Cliff Clavin, fiery waitress Carla Tortelli and sweet-but-simple bartender Coach Ernie Pantusso - who brought laughs aplenty to television screens around the world. After a brief struggle to find an audience in its first season, the show went from strength to strength, even surviving the loss of key characters such as Diane and Coach, replacing them seamlessly with Kirstie Alley's non-nonsense businesswoman Rebecca Howe, and Woody Harrelson's country bumpkin Woody Boyd. An incredibly talented team both on and off-screen kept the show hilarious and relevant for more than a decade, despite usually limiting the action to the same location each week - a dusty old bar. Cheers left a huge legacy too in the form of Frasier - a spin-off following psychiatrist Frasier Crane - which also ran for 11 seasons. Now more than 30 years since it first aired, Cheers still brings laughter to homes in the UK on repeat, while DVD box sets continue to fly off the shelves in shops. The gang, pictured with former Cheers director James Burrows (far left), may not have the same fresh faces you recognized in the 1980s, but they are still very much recognizable as the characters you loved in that Boston bar. Take a look at what happened to the cast after they called last orders at the bar NEXT... SAM MALONE (Actor: TED DANSON) The glue that held Cheers together, Ted Danson's Sam Malone was one of only three characters to appear in all 275 episodes. A former baseball player for the Boston Red Sox, a battle with alcoholism led him to quit his sporting career and open a bar - where he was adored by his patrons and hero-worshipped for his skill at seducing beautiful women. Danson, on the other hand, is much more of a one-woman man, having been married to actress Mary Steenburgen since 1995. Post-Cheers, he has remained a fixture on television and has appeared in lead roles in a number of hits including Becker, Fargo, and CSI and currently stars in new comedy The Good Place in the US. His film career never quite took off in the same way, although at the height of his Cheers fame he landed big roles in family comedies including Three Men and a Baby, Made in America and Getting Even With Dad. Danson was nominated for 11 consecutive Emmy Awards for his role as Sam, finally winning Best Actor in a Comedy in 1990 and then again in 1993. He has two children with second wife Cassandra Coates, whom he divorced in 1993, and is a pescetarian - meaning he eats fish but not other animals - and is a dedicated advocate of ocean conservation. DIANE CHAMBERS (Actress: SHELLEY LONG) Similarly to Danson, Shelley Long began her career with small roles in television movies and by guest starring in shows including MASH and The Love Boat. But her role as know-it-all Diane made her an overnight star, particularly thanks to her flirty banter with Sam that left a nation begging for the two to get together. After five seasons, however, a desire to spend more time with her family and fears over the show going 'stale' led Long to quit the role. It was during her Cheers days that she made her biggest impact on the silver screen, earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in 1984's Irreconcilable Differences. She also played the big screen version of Carol Brady, the matriarch of the Brady Bunch, in the mid-90s film versions. More recently she has returned to guest starring on US television shows, notably on hit comedy Modern Family. Long has been married twice and has one daughter, Juliana, with second husband, securities broker Bruce Tyson, whom she divorced in 2004. CARLA TORTELLI (Actress: RHEA PERLMAN) Another stalwart who appeared in every episode of the show, Rhea Perlman's impatient waitress was well-known for her violent temper and disdain for almost everyone in the bar aside from Sam. Her scathing banter with Diane was always a comic highlight, as was her ever-expanding brood of children, with Carla herself unable to remember how many she had (and by how many husbands) by the end of the show. Like the majority of her castmates, Perlman had little success before Cheers, although she had a small role on popular comedy Taxi. After the show, she reprised her role as Carla on a few occasions, including on The Simpsons and Cheers spin-off Frasier, and also made sporadic appearances in films including 1996's Matilda as the heartless mother, alongside real-life husband Danny DeVito. In the past few years, she has also guested in hit comedies including The Mindy Project, Mom, and Hot in Cleveland. Perlman and DeVito have been married since 1982 and have three children, with the eldest daughter Lucy following her parents into acting. NORM PETERSON (Actor: GEORGE WENDT) 'Cheers' was a place 'where everybody knows your name', as the theme song goes, and that was certainly true for Norm. He was the king of the running joke on the show, such as his constant complaints about his never-seen-on-screen wife Vera, to the witty, dry one-liners which always followed his entrance - which always saw the entire bar crowd shout his name. Wendt is the other actor to appear in every single episode alongside Danson and Perlman, in a role that was initially a bit-part in the script for the pilot, only for Wendt to impress the creators so much they expanded it. Hailing from Chicago, prior to acting Wendt was expelled from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana over poor grades before moving into showbusiness, where his first job was sweeping a theatre floor. Guest roles in Taxi and MASH were followed by his big break on Cheers, and two years after it finished he launched a self-titled sitcom on CBS, but it was canceled after eight episodes. He has made several guest appearances over the years and has even made his way to these shores, playing Tweedledee in Alice in Wonderland in 1999, filmed in Buckinghamshire, while he also appeared in an episode of Only Fools and Horses spin-off The Green Green Grass in 2007. More recently he was in shortlived barbershop-based comedy series Clipped, while his recent Broadway credits include Breakfast at Tiffany's and Elf - The Musical. Wendt has been married to Bernadette Birkett - who played the voice of the mysterious Vera on Cheers - since 1978 and they have one daughter and two sons. The couple lives in Los Angeles. CLIFF CLAVIN (Actor: JOHN RATZENBERGER) Every pub has one - that person who has a story for every occasion knows useless and questionable facts and will happily talk to anyone who comes within a few yards of them - whether they want to or not. For Cheers that was Cliff - a postal worker who lives with his mother and finds it very hard to talk to women and who sees Sam as a hero. Despite his numerous annoying tendencies, Cliff had a heart of gold and, although they didn't always show it, the Cheers gang loved him to bits. Born in Connecticut, US, Ratzenberger actually made his way into performing while working as a house framer in London. He also had small roles in blockbusters Superman, Superman II and The Empire Strikes Back. You may not necessarily have seen him much after Cheers ended - but you have almost certainly heard him, as Ratzenberger has appeared in every single Pixar film and is known as the studio's mascot, notably as Hamm the Piggy Bank in the Toy Story series. ERNIE ‘COACH’ PANTUSSO (Actor: NICHOLAS COLASANTO) Dim-witted and ‘borderline senile’, Coach was the lovable doofus of Cheers, working behind the bar and generally not understanding anything going on around him. But everything he did came with a smile on his face and he was probably the definitive ‘lovable loser’ among the gang and a close friend and confident of Sam’s. Nicholas Colasanto came into the role off the back of a successful stint directing episodes of big-name shows including Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, Columbo and the original Hawaii Five-O. A World War Two veteran who served in the US Navy, Colasanto was set to become an accountant in the mid-1950s but changed his mind and went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts instead. His career was put in jeopardy after he developed heart disease in the mid-1970s and he was set to retire before being offered the role in Cheers. Colasanto’s health got worse as the show went on, although he kept it a secret from the cast and crew. By January 1985, during the third season of the show, he was hospitalized, and, although he was released in early February, he suffered a fatal heart attack on February 12 at home in Los Angeles. He was subsequently written out of the show as having died off-screen and a picture from his dressing room of Native American leader Geronimo was placed on the set as a tribute. REBECCA HOWE (Actress: KIRSTIE ALLEY) Brought in to replace Long for the start of season six, Rebecca was a tough businesswoman who took over running the bar after Sam sold it, but spent much of her time chasing after rich businessmen and trying to climb the corporate ladder. Beneath the frosty exterior, she was prone to hilarious breakdowns as constant bad decisions led to her power schemes to fall apart and she noticeably softened as the show went on, eventually falling in love with and marrying a plumber, much to her chagrin. Much like Diane, Rebecca and Sam have an on-off relationship while she was also involved in a relationship with one of the series more prominent minor characters, English tycoon Robin Colcord, played by award-winning thespian Roger Rees. Kirstie Alley had some success before Cheers, making her film debut in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, while she earned an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Rebecca in 1991. It was around this time she had huge success on the big screen alongside John Travolta and the voice of Bruce Willis in the Look Who’s Talking series. Her film career stalled by the late 90s, although she had more television success in the brief hit comedy Veronica’s Closet, in which she played the title role for three seasons. More recently she has entered reality TV, competing on Dancing with the Stars in the US in 2011 and taking part in Channel 4’s Time Crashers in 2015 – which challenged celebrities to complete various daily tasks from different time periods. She currently appears as Nurse Hoeffel in US comedy horror series Scream Queens. Allie has been married twice and has two children while she is also a member of and vocal supporter of the Church of Scientology. WOODY BOYD (Actor: WOODY HARRELSON) A ‘pen-pal’ of Coach’s (they exchanged pens, not letters), Woody arrived at the bar in season four and became the new bartender and helped take the show to new heights of comedy through his dim-witted yet charming antics. Hailing from the country, Woody was portrayed as a ‘bumpkin’ who was often oblivious to what was going on around him and ate up every fact Cliff threw at him with great interest. His character’s good-nature also shone through, and he became arguably the most successful member of the gang after marrying the wealthy Kelly Gaines and successfully running for a seat on Boston City Council. Despite Cheers being Woody Harrelson’s first ever role, he is arguably the most successful of the cast, appearing in numerous hit films and television series, including Oscar Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, the Hunger Games franchise and his Emmy-nominated role in HBO’s True Detective. He has twice been nominated for an Oscar for The People vs Larry Flynt and The Messenger, while his work as Woody earned him an Emmy in 1989. Harrelson, a vegan, is also well known for environmentalism and charity work while he is also a football fan, playing in two of Unicef’s Soccer Aid matches in the UK in 2010 and 2012 for the Rest of the World team. He is a father to three daughters with Laura Louie, whom he has been with since 1987 and married in 2008. FRASIER CRANE (Actor: KELSEY GRAMMER) Hyper-intelligent psychiatrist Frasier Crane entered Cheers as a guest character at the start of season three to help Sam through his break-up with Diane, only to end up dating and almost marrying her, until she jilts him at the altar and leaves him in his own battle with alcoholism. After putting his life back together, Frasier becomes a fixture at the bar and acts as the gang’s conscience for the most part, although he is more than capable of making stupid and impulsive decisions himself. He also marries Adams Family-esque ice queen shrink Lilith, whom he has a son with before they break up at the end of the series following her affair. Kelsey Grammer made his television debut in 1982, two years before he joined Cheers, with his most notable role coming in Kennedy, a miniseries based on the life of assassinated President John F Kennedy. His career took off with Cheers, and he portrayed his character for 20 years after spinning-off into the hugely successful Frasier, for which he won four Emmy Awards. After Frasier ended in 2004, Grammer began appearing in more films, scoring roles in blockbusters including X Men: The Last Stand and Transformers: Age of Extinction as well while he is well-known for his voice work, notably as the evil Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons. Grammer has been married four times and has seven children, including three with current wife Kayte Walsh, a British flight attendant 25 years his junior. He will next appear in Amazon TV’s 1930’s period drama The Last Tycoon as a vain Hollywood executive battling with his up-and-coming protégé. Credits: dailymail.co.uk Were you a fan of the show? Who was your favorite character?

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