Shelley Long

The walkout nobody saw coming

In 1987 Shelley Long decided that five years serving beers in Boston was enough. She left Cheers when the show was topping every ratings chart in the United States. The press of the time called the move professional suicide, because nobody voluntarily walks away from a million-dollar salary and the absolute favor of the public.

Nobody walks away from a number one show.

But she needed air outside the most famous bar on television. Her contract was ending, and her priority was movies and raising her daughter. There was no big drama on set, but there was a sense of an ending chapter that the actress didn't want to ignore.

Her training didn't come from fast Hollywood casting calls but from pure improvisation in Chicago. Before becoming Diane Chambers she worked in a soap factory and produced educational documentaries. At the Second City company she learned that comedy is a matter of mathematical rhythm and precise physical timing.

That discipline carried her all the way to the role of a lifetime.

The chemistry with Ted Danson worked because they were polar opposites. Her academic snobbery clashed with the bartender's pragmatism. In 1983 she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for this role.

The discipline of laughter

Her move to the big screen was no last-minute experiment. In 1982 she starred in Night Shift under the direction of Ron Howard. Two years later came Irreconcilable Differences, where she played a mother going through a divorce initiated by her own daughter.

That role earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 1984. The movie business was calling her full time.

In 1986 she shot The Money Pit alongside Tom Hanks. The production cost 10 million dollars and ended up grossing more than 50 million in the domestic market alone. Shelley Long specialized in characters who kept their composure while the world around them physically fell apart.

And the gamble paid off.

But success in movies is fickle. After leaving television she went on to projects like Hello Again in 1987 and Troop Beverly Hills in 1989. The latter has become a cult favorite over the decades among viewers who grew up renting VHS tapes.

Figures and Calculated Comebacks

In the mid-nineties Shelley Long found a new goldmine in nostalgia. In 1995 she played Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie. It was an astonishing feat of mimicry that connected with longtime fans and new generations alike.

The movie earned 14 million dollars in its opening weekend. That result guaranteed an immediate sequel, which was shot in 1996. Despite changes in the industry, she kept a selective profile and preferred brief but memorable appearances.

From 2009 to 2018 she appeared on Modern Family as DeDe Pritchett. Her character appeared in a total of eight episodes, strategically spread across the seasons. She was the absent, erratic mother who always managed to unsettle the other leads with a single line.

In 2017 she worked on the TV movie The Christmas Give and stayed involved in independent, low-budget projects. In 2022 she joined the cast of Give Me Pity! playing a supporting character in a psychedelic-style plot.

The film was directed by Amanda Kramer and runs exactly 80 minutes.