I was watching a YouTube video of a "Cheers" reunion where Nancy O'Dell on I guess "Access Hollywood" got Ted, Bebe, Rhea, John, and George together. And in one of the comments, someone said Shelley has made up with Ted and Kelsey years ago but Rhea still will not talk about her.

Does anyone know if this is true? On one hand I can understand fellow cast members being angry and upset with her for leaving their hit show back when she did, but, I think most of us agree there is no way this show would have lasted 11 seasons had she stayed on and such a major casting change hadn't happened.

You (or I, at least) would think that in the 21 years since the series ended, and the 27 years since Shelley left, Rhea might realize, hey, by Shelley leaving the show, she actually extended the series run by shaking it up with a major cast change. That gave the actors extra years with their show, and extra income up until the end.

I don't know if anyone's ever seen interviews or printed quotes of Rhea's issues with Shelley back in the day, but it sure would be nice now if, if it's true that she's "still angry with Shelley", that she would reunite with her and make peace.

Even Joyce DeWitt has made peace with Suzanne Somers 30-plus years after her issues with her, lol.

Most of the cast did NOT like Shelley Long. The rumor is that Long was quite the diva and felt she was destined for major stardom, that Cheers was a momentary "pause" in what was to become a great career for her. Rhea I believe disliked her the most so not surprised.

I doubt her problem with Long was about her leaving, more likely it was about her behavior in general while she was still on Cheers. From everything that's been written about the show, she wasn't on the best of terms with any of her castmates. I suspect it was actually a relief for them when Long departed.

ILCB and qws, I have heard those things before as well. I wonder then, how long it was before Shelley became such a diva? I believe it was on this board some time ago that I read that by season 5, Shelley was such a diva demanding complete hair and make-up redone after every costume change, that they eventually wrote scripts where she would need no costume changes; or the very least they could write in.

And if Rhea really got to where she utterly disliked Shelley, then I guess it wasn't much of a stretch for her to play Carla despising Diane, lol. ;)

I wonder how awkward it was for Shelley on the "Cheers" 100th episode reunion special? I believe she was on one side of Ted and the entire rest of the cast on the other side of Ted, so it even felt like she was "isolated" and kept apart from the others there.

Looks like Bebe had it the easiest; she only had to do 3 scripts with Shelley (one barely even interacting with her---"Second Time Around"), and she didn't have the awkward "replacement" position/feeling that Kirstie did.

Anyway, I still say if Joyce and Suzanne can make peace, Rhea and Shelley could make peace, lol.

They were on NBC's 75th anniversary together and didn't they do a Frasier episode together? They probably don't go out to dinner together. But I'm sure if they run into each other they do say hi and are decent towards each other. It's not like they go on tv and bad mouth one another. Before Three's Company's Joyce and Suzanne made nice with each other they would always go on camera and bad mouth eachother. We don't see this with Rhea and Shelley.

You can't take the relationship between actors at face value. It is a very competitive field with a lot of resentment and jealousy. Most of them can't stand each other. That's Hollywood.

You can't take the relationship between actors at face value. It is a very competitive field with a lot of resentment and jealousy. Most of them can't stand each other. That's Hollywood.

That's how it is in the "workplace" period, not just Hollywood.

I'm sure we ALL have people on our jobs we can't stand, but we still remain cordial towards them because at the end of the day, we're all there just to fulfill our duties and earn a paycheck.

On one hand I can understand fellow cast members being angry and upset with her for leaving their hit show back when she did, but, I think most of us agree there is no way this show would have lasted 11 seasons had she stayed on and such a major casting change hadn't happened.

You can't say with any certainty that the show wouldn't have lasted 11 years had Shelley Long stayed until the end. Neither can I say that it would have lasted 11 years if she'd stayed. We'll never know either way because things happened the way they did.

If anything, Cheers was very lucky that they got the right actress to fill the void with Kirstie Alley and even luckier that the audience accepted her, because there was a lot of concern that the audience might not accept the changes and that the show might have gone down the tubes as a result.

I think the show was better after Shelley left.

Most of the cast did NOT like Shelley Long. The rumor is that Long was quite the diva and felt she was destined for major stardom, that Cheers was a momentary "pause" in what was to become a great career for her. Rhea I believe disliked her the most so not surprised.


I found out recently that Shelley was a diva. I talked to some actors that worked with her from two movies that she did during the 1990's. I am truly disappointed. She was tight with Woody, though. Plus, I saw a clip from "Oprah" (via youtube) where Bette Midler clearly looked as though she did not enjoy her time with Shelley Long on the "Outrageous Fortune" movie. Shelley had some issues based on the info I was told people that worked with her.

i also did not know this and I'm a pretty big fan.