We Need To Talk About Shelley Long

Because I know for a fact that this is a real need.

[shelleyalldaylong]

Traveling and busy, but happened to pass this today, Shelley's birthday, and took it as a sign (hee!)! Hope your day is as awesome as you are, Shelley!

[chambersandmalone]

Happy Birthday and Cheers to Shelley Long!

Still the very best of the best!

[shelleyalldaylong]

Happy Happy Birthday, Shelley!!!

[shelleyalldaylong]

Each a work of art. Viva Van Runkle!

[shelleyalldaylong]

Thought you might like this one.  Shelley is SO adorable, here!  The part with her starts at around 8:50.  Note when they talk about Cheers, she is VERY interesting in returning...and the audience clearly wants it, too!

[shelleyalldaylong]

‘Troop Beverly Hills’: Phyllis Nefler’s Unawarded Patches | EW.com

The 1989 Shelley Long luxury vehicle Troop Beverly Hills turns 25 today, which means 1) You’re even older than you thought, and 2) It’s high...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TROOP BEVERLY HILLS (and Chica)!  *harmony* Happy Birthday to you!!!

[shelleyalldaylong]

Shelley wins the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1983.

[chambersandmalone]

"I think Shelley, in those early years— well actually, her whole stay on the show— I’d be hard-pressed to think of a more gifted comedic actress on television.  She rode a thin line between caricature and a real person, and rode it perfectly.  I never believed that she wasn’t that character… that she was just playing a part.  I believed that that was an actual human being there.  And man, she could wring a joke out of a straight line.  She could get a laugh out of a glance.  She was a joy to work with.  And smart.  Smart.”  

[chambersandmalone]

— Archive of American Television Interview with Cheers writer/producer David Lee, July 9, 2010.

[shelleyalldaylong]

-- From Star Magazine, June 9, 1987.

[shelleyalldaylong]

… sometimes there is a real learning curve before you figure out the characters, relationships, tone, storylines that work, etc.  On the other hand, certain characters do arrive fully formed. Diane Chambers on CHEERS is maybe the best example. Shelley absolutely nailed it.

-- An excerpt from "Friday Questions" at By Ken Levine, January 17, 2014 

[shelleyalldaylong]

Shelley takes a few questions at the 1989 Golden Globes Awards, at which she was a presenter.

"Troop Beverly Hills I chose because it touched me. It made me laugh and it made me cry and I said ah, I wanna do this."

Sweet answer re: the Cheers cast too.

[shelleyalldaylong]

Shelley plays nosy reporter Shine Reynolds in Zombie Hamlet, now available on Amazon.  Looks like a fun movie-- I'll check it out soon.

[shelleyalldaylong]

Shelley on the red carpet (with some dude who isn't her date) at the Catalina Film Festival where her film Best Man Down was screened in September 2013.

Looking good, Shelley!

[shelleyalldaylong]

This is… not her best movie.  I'll leave it at that. 

"I seem to have been offered about 10 sperm movies in the past year, some dramas and some comedies," said the former star of the long-running NBC hit, Cheers.

"Frozen Assets is a comedy.

"I play the biochemist. She knows he's coming, and she doesn't like it."

After the laughter subsided, she added, "They lock horns . . ."

Another laughter pause. Finally, when asked about the movie's release date, she surrendered to the joke completely.

"No, it hasn't come out yet . . . so to speak."

-- Excerpt from "Shelley Long Locks Tongues With The Critics" by Greg Quill in The Toronto Star, July 19, 1992

[shelleyalldaylong]

"They weren't ready for me to not be there."

I'm still not.

-- Shelley talks about leaving Cheers on The Charles Grodin Show, 1995.

[shelleyalldaylong]

Actually all you have to do to be outrageous in any setting is tell the truth. It's so unusual that people are stunned by it.

-- Shelley Long

[shelleyalldaylong]

Shelley (as Laurie Hutchins) with John McGiver in The Biggest Thief In Town at Chicago's Ivanhoe Theatre in 1970.

[shelleyalldaylong]

"Oh Carla!  When you were in high school and you took Hygiene, did you cut the 'How Not To' lecture?!"

-- Diane Chambers, Cheers, Whodunit

Fun Fact: In high school, Shelley won the National Forensics League national championship in Original Oratory in 1967 for her speech entitled "The Sex Perversion Weed," which advocated for sex education in public schools.