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Shelley Long

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Shelley Long
Born
Shelley Lee Long
SpouseBruce Tyson (1981-2004)

Shelley Lee Long (born August 23, 1949) is a Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award-winning American film, stage and television dramatic and comedic actress.

Private life

Early life

Long was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana to Evandine, a school teacher, and Leland Long, who worked in the rubber industry before becoming a teacher.[1] She was active on her high school speech team, and in 1967 she won the National Forensic League National Championship in Original Oratory. She delivered a speech on the need for sex education in high school entitled "Sex, Perversion, Weed."[2] 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 modelling.

Personal life

In 1979, on a blind date, Long met securities broker Bruce Tyson, whom she married in October 1981. This was her second marriage. She gave birth to her only child, daughter Juliana, on March 27, 1985. In 2004, after 23 years of marriage, Bruce Tyson filed for divorce. Soon afterward, Long was admitted to a hospital for what was described as a suicide attempt, although she described it as 'an accidental overdose.'

Career

In Chicago, she joined The Second City comedy troupe, and in 1975, she began writing, producing, and co-hosting the 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 the 1979 television movie The Cracker Factory, in which she portrayed a psychiatric inmate opposite Natalie Wood. The following year she appeared in A Small Circle of Friends with Brad Davis and Karen Allen. The film about social unrest at Harvard University during the 1960s was a critical success. In 1981, she played the role of Tala in the Ringo Starr film Caveman, starring opposite Dennis Quaid.

She was also featured in the Henry Winkler comedy Night Shift, about life working on the night shift at a city morgue, and starred with Tom Cruise in the 1983 comedy film Losin' It.

Although she had starred in successful feature films, Long became a household name and famous as the character Diane Chambers in the long running and successful television show Cheers. The show was slow to capture an audience but eventually became one of the most popular shows on television and she became a most sought after actress. In 1984, Long was nominated for a Best Leading Actress Golden Globe for her performance in Irreconcilable Differences. She then appeared in a series of comedies, such as The Money Pit, starring Tom Hanks, 1986, Outrageous Fortune with Bette Midler and Peter Coyote, 1987 and Hello Again with Corbin Bernsen, 1987.

Amid much public controversy and disappointment, and declared by many a fatal career move, she left Cheers after Season 5 in 1987. Producers reportedly offered her $400,000 to stay but Long refused, though they said in later interviews they had a feeling she was going to leave as rumors were in circulation. Reports said that Long left because she did not have good relations with co-stars (who allegedly found her overbearing), and that she wanted to leave television roles for a film career. Long said in later interviews[cheers biography programme] her decision to leave was one of the hardest she ever made and that she loved every minute of working on the show. She also defended the position she put producers in by saying she had no idea she could sabotage the show by leaving and that she thought the rest of the cast were capable of going it alone. In a 2003 interview on The Graham Norton Show, Long said she left for a variety of reasons, the most important of which was her desire to spend more time with her newborn daughter. 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.

Long took several roles in films, such as Don't Tell Her It's Me and Frozen Assets, that turned out to be commercially unsuccessful.

In 1992, she appeared in Fatal Memories: The Eileen Franklin Story, a fact based made for television drama about a woman who remembers, later in life, the childhood trauma of being raped by her father and his cronies, and witnessing his murdering her childhood friend to prevent the child from "telling on him." The still controversial "recovered memories" basis for the prosecution resulted in the successful conviction and sentence of life imprisonment of George Franklin, Sr. That conviction was later overturned.

In 1993, she returned to Cheers for its series finale and starred in the short lived sitcom Good Advice with Treat Williams and Teri Garr, but the show was canceled after two seasons. In 1995, she re-appeared as Diane Chambers in an episode of Frasier

Long achieved success as Carol Brady in the 1995 hit film The Brady Bunch Movie, a campy take on the television show The Brady Bunch. In 1996, she reprised her role in A Very Brady Sequel, which had more modest success.

A series of ventures followed such as the made for TV remake of Freaky Friday, and the family sitcom Kelly Kelly, which only lasted for a few episodes on The WB Television Network.

In 2000, Long took a supporting role in the Richard Gere film, Dr. T and the Women. In 2002 she reprised her role as Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch in the White House. In 2005 she played Mitzi Robinson in independent film Trust Me. In the early and mid 2000s, Long guest starred on several sitcoms such as 8 Simple Rules where she played John Ratzenberger's wife, and Yes, Dear where she and Alan Thicke portrayed a snobby couple interested in buying the house next door to Greg and Kim.

Long has had guest starring roles in many television shows. In 1997, she played the Wicked Witch of the Beanstalk in the Sabrina, the Teenage Witch second season episode Sabrina and the Beanstalk.

Awards

Emmy Award

  • 1983 - Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series - Cheers

Emmy Award nominations

  • 1984 - Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series - Cheers
  • 1985 - Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series - Cheers
  • 1986 - Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series - Cheers

Filmography

References

  1. ^ Shelley Long - Yahoo! TV
  2. ^ http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/StudentResources/ootopics.pdf


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