It was an impressively shocking moment in the hit sitcom Cheers when actor Kirstie Alley opened her mouth to reveal her tongue gripping a lit cigarette – in one short, catlike movement, she expertly flipped it over, caught it between her teeth and sunk in to a satisfied puff of smoke. In the scene, Alley is wearing a pink turtleneck beneath a pink coat sporting big, 80s shoulders, the whole moment conjuring the feeling of the alpha bad girl taking a surreptitious smoke break in the ladies’ room.
That moment sums up a lot about the unique personality that Alley brought to Cheers and the decades of acting and celebrity that would follow as she hewed out a persona that was compelling in its complexity.
