Kirstie Alley dies at 71

Actor Kirstie Alley has died of cancer, her family announced Monday evening.

Alley, 71, was battling cancer “only recently discovered,” according to a statement by her children, True and Lillie Parker.

“She was surrounded by her closest family and fought with great strength, leaving us with a certainty of her never-ending joy of living and whatever adventures lie ahead,” said the statement shared on Alley’s social media.

Alley, a Kansas native, rose to fame after taking over the female lead on Cheers in 1987 after the departure of Shelley Long and her character, Diane Chambers. The much-beloved sitcom not only survived but thrived after the cast shakeup, with Alley’s character, Rebecca Howe, as the new manager of the show’s titular bar.

In 1989, Alley teamed with John Travolta and director Amy Heckerling in one of the year’s biggest and perhaps most surprising smashes, Look Who’s Talking, which earned nearly $140 million at the domestic box office. She later starred in the sitcom Veronica’s Closet, which ran from 1997 to 2000.

Alley worked as an interior decorator in Wichita until she packed up and drove to Hollywood one day in 1981 an impulse. Six months later, she was making her feature film debut in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

“I’d always wanted to be a star,” she said at the time. “I’m from an ordinary middle-class family in Kansas. When I was five, I announced I wanted to be an actress. They laughed. I thought to myself, ‘I will, I will, I will – and when you least expect it!’”

In recent years, Alley sparred with establishment Hollywood figures over her conservative political views.

The actor claimed she was blackballed from the industry after voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

“On Twitter I had many celebrities follow me and now I think three follow me,” she told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in 2021. “I’m the same person. I’m the girl who voted for Obama, twice. And I’m like, ‘Oh, so you liked me when I voted for Obama and now you’re this?’ And it’s made me have to rethink, weirdly, my whole friendships, all my friendships.”

( Los Angeles Times/TNS)