Shelley Long in hopsital after painkiller overdose

[Miss DiPesto]

Poor Shelley, I hope she recovers soon.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds17244.html

Cheers' actress in painkiller overdose
Thursday, November 25 2004, 16:16 GMT -- by Daniel Saney


Ex-Cheers actress Shelley Long is in an LA hospital after being found to have overdosed on painkillers.

Long is famous for playing the out-of-place waitress Diane Chambers in the sitcom based in a Boston bar. For the first two series of the show, Long's character was central, much of the plot revolving around her troubled romance with barman Sam Malone, played by Ted Danson. She then went on to the big screen with The Brady Bunch Movie.

In recent times she has reportedly been suffering from depression following the break-up of her marriage last year.

The Sun quotes a friend of Long's as saying: "A week ago, Shelley, who lives alone, kept the curtains drawn. She wasn't eating. She has always been thin, but she was almost skeletal."

[Brian Damage]

That is horrible news! I had no idea she was in that lowly state.

[ThirteenInchEscape]

how sad...

[MaydayMalonesGirl]

I hope she's alright...

[Kirstie]

Oh my God. How sad. I hope everything turns out all right.

[slackermonkey]

Quotes from The Sun? Suddenly, this story loses believability for me.

Still, if it is true, I hope she gets to feeling better. Hasn't she been sick an awful lot recently? I know she's complained about health problems pretty often in the past five, ten years.

[Miss DiPesto]

Shelley is out of hospital now.

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/35055.htm

From the NY Post -

November 26, 2004 -- Bubbly blond "Cheers" star Shelley Long - depressed over the bust-up of her marriage - was rushed to the hospital after taking an overdose of painkillers in an apparent suicide bid.

The 55-year-old actress, who played ditzy waitress Diane Chambers on the classic TV sitcom, was taken to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after the heartbreaking incident.

Long had been extremely depressed in recent months, was barely eating and often spent long periods of time in bed, said friends, speculating that she tried to kill herself. "It is very sad to see this woman, who is only 55, looking like she's turning 90," one pal told The Sun newspaper of London.

Another friend said, "For 18 months, she's been getting more and more depressed. It's like seeing someone falling off a cliff.

"She told some of her good friends she felt she had nothing to live for."

The incident took place Nov. 16, and hospital records show that Long was discharged Tuesday. Her mom, in a brief telephone interview, confirmed to The Post that her daughter is no longer in the hospital.

In a weird twist, Long once played a depressed woman committed to a hospital for depression in the 1979 TV movie "The Cracker Factory."

She's not the only "Cheers" cast member to have been felled by depression — Kelsey Grammer, too, has also had severe bouts with the blues.



Things got rough for the actress last year, when her securities-broker husband, Bruce Tyson, walked out after 22 years of marriage. They are now divorcing, and Long had to leave their Hollywood mansion when it was sold. She now lives alone.

She met Tyson on a blind date in 1979. They were wed two years later — it was her second marriage — and have a daughter, Juliana, 19.

The actress starred in several films since bolting "Cheers" in 1987, six years before it ended in 1993.

Among the flicks were 1995's "The Brady Bunch Movie," in which she played Carol Brady, and 2000's "Dr. T and the Women."

Many see her career as a classic example of what happens to some TV stars who give up popular roles to seek movie fame.

She never regained the popularity she enjoyed as the overeducated "Cheers" barmaid, who was a foil to bar owner Sam Malone, played by Ted Danson.

She's slated for a rare, pretaped guest appearance tonight in the ABC series "Complete Savages."

For "Cheers, " she won an Emmy and two Golden Globes.

Eddie Doyle, the real-life Ted Danson who's served drinks for 30 years at the Bull & Finch Pub in Boston, the bar on which Cheers was based, said:

"I'm just really surprised and hope she's going to be all right. I guess they say things like that happen around the holidays."

Additional reporting by Mark Bulliet, David K. Li and Bill Sanderson

[Brian Damage]

Aparent suicide is even worse! I hope that this story isn't true.

[Artfiore1]

slackermonkey,
What's wrong with The Sun?

I mean -- if it was The Star or The Inquirer, I could see doubting the story's validity.




Later,
Art

[Brian Damage]

I don't want to speak for slackermonkey, but I guess the Sun has stretched some stories in the past.

[Pitooey]

I just read it myself. This is so sad.

Her friends said she looks like she's 90 years old and she's only in her 50's.

[Brian Damage]

I've got to see that Complete Savages episode to see what she looks like.

[CliffClavin]

I saw her on the "100 Greatest..." the other night & she looked fine.

[ThirteenInchEscape]

would you really describe Diane as ditzy?

[Petrie Malone]

I'm glad she's OK! That's really sad she was doing that to herself... hopefully she gets professional help.



And yes, thirteen, I would describe Diane as ditzy. She was almost as ditzy as Lucy Ricardo.