Shelley Long

Shelley Long is an actress best known for playing Diane on Cheers. After graduating from South Side High School in Fort Wayne, she studied drama at Northwestern University, but left before graduating to pursue a career in acting and modeling. In Chicago she joined The Second City comedy troupe. Then, in 1975, she began writing, producing, and co-hosting the popular television program Sorting It Out. The local NBC broadcast went on to win three Emmy Awards for Best Entertainment Show.

Her first notable role came in 1980 with A Small Circle of Friends, opposite Brad Davis and Karen Allen. The film about social unrest at Harvard University during the 1960s was a critical success, though it remained relatively obscure. In 1981, she played the eye candy in the prehistoric Ringo Starr vehicle Caveman, opposite Dennis Quaid. She was also featured in the Henry Winkler comedy Night Shift about life working the night shift at a city morgue and she starred with Tom Cruise in the 1983 comedy film Losin' It.

In 1979, while pursuing her acting career, Long met securities broker Bruce Tyson, whom she married in October of 1981. She gave birth to her daughter, Juliana, on March 27, 1985.

The breakthrough Long desperately needed happened when she was cast as vain barmaid, Diane Chambers in Cheers. Though innovative, the show was slow to capture an audience, but it eventually became one of the most popular shows on television. She was nominated for an Emmy four years in a row and for three Golden Globes for the NBC sitcom, winning one Emmy and two Golden Globes. The series was also nominated for five Emmys and Golden Globes for Best Comedy series, winning 2 Emmys, during her five year tenure on the show. Thereafter, she became a sought-after comedic talent.

1984 brought a rare opportunity for Long to stretch her acting muscle, in the melancholy comedy-drama Irreconcilable Differences. In the story, Long's character, Lucy Van Patten, marries her love, played by Ryan O'Neal and has a daughter. The two, who are in the movie business, grow apart and eventually divorce. The film follows Lucy as she breaks down and the separated couple's own daughter, played by a young Drew Barrymore, files for emancipation. Long was nominated for a Best Leading Actress Golden Globe for her performance. The film also marked the first major motion picture of rising star Sharon Stone.

Despite the clout gained through Cheers and Irreconcilable Differences, many of the roles offered to Long were slapstick comedies. These included The Money Pit, starring a young Tom Hanks, the crime caper Outrageous Fortune featuring Bette Midler and Peter Coyote, and the universally panned Hello Again, in which Long played a woman brought back to life several years after death.

Amid much controversy, Long abandoned her trademark Diane Chambers role and the Cheers series after the season wrapped in mid-1987, at the height of the series' popularity. Her first post-Cheers project was Troop Beverly Hills, where she played a housewife who starts a 'Wilderness Girl' troop as a distraction from her divorce proceedings.

In 1995 she appeared in the campy big-screen remake The Brady Bunch, which was a surprise hit, and which breathed new life into her career as a comedienne. The following year, she reprised her role as Carol Brady in A Very Brady Sequel, which saw more modest success. Unfortunately, she followed her career revival with a series of unsuccessful television ventures, including the television remake of Freaky Friday and the family sitcom Kelly Kelly.

In 1999 she starred in another TV drama film Vanished Without a Trace, about a woman who simply refuses to accept the kidnapping of her 13-year-old daughter and relentlessly pursues the villain's capture. Long also took a supporting role in the Richard Gere vehicle, Dr. T and the Women, and returned for the third Brady installment, The Brady Bunch in the White House.dy in the TV film The Brady Bunch in the White House.[20]

She has guest starred in several TV shows such as 8 Simple Rules, Yes Dear, Strong Medicine, and Boston Legal. She has a recurring role on the popular ABC sitcom Modern Family as DeDe Pritchett, the ex-wife of Jay Pritchett. She starred in made-for-television movies, including Falling in Love with the Girl Next Door and Holiday Engagement. In 2012, she made a guest appearance on Switched at Birth and produced and acted in the feature film Different Flowers.

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