Award-winning actress Shelley Long was born on August 23, 1949 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. An acting member of her high school’s speech team, she won the National Forensic League National Championship in 1967 for her speech on sex education. Upon graduation, she entered Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and took up drama, but left before graduating to pursue a modeling and acting career.
While in Chicago, Long joined the renowned comedy troupe The Second City, and after training and performing there, she began hosting and writing for a local television program, Sorting It Out. She later began taking significant roles on films and television, including the theatrical releases Caveman, Losin’ It and Night Shift. However, she really shot up to fame in 1982, when she joined the cast of the comedy series Cheers. She played Diane Chambers, the witty yet pretentious waitress at the bar who earns the attraction of bar owner Sam Malone (Ted Danson). The series went off to a slow start, but eventually became a hit with audiences. She herself earned an Emmy in 1982 for her role, as well as two Golden Globes.
After the show’s fifth season, in 1987, Long suddenly left Cheers, despite producers reportedly offering her a $400,000 deal. The move was surrounded by controversy and marked with disappointment from fans and critics, with some even calling it a fatal career move. Some reports stated that she did not get along with many of her co-stars, while others claimed she wanted to pursue a film career. In a recent interview, Long said that she left the program to devote more time to her family, and her then newborn daughter.
Long nevertheless took roles in numerous films and television programs after her departure from the show. After appearing in films that flopped at the box office, she appeared in Cheers’ series finale in 1993, and starred in the comedy series Good Advice, which was cancelled after two seasons. She played the role of Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie, which was released in 1995; she reprised the role in two sequels. She recently had guest roles in television comedies 8 Simple Rules and Yes, Dear.