In Cheers, the iconic TV series of the 1980s, Kirstie Alley played Rebecca big: big attitude, big husky voice, big shoulder pads, big hips. She wasn’t a “match” for bartender Sam, the central role played by Ted Danson; she had Sam pinned at all times. In an era when men were the comics, she was never the foil, the support, she was it: she ate male co-stars and one-liners for breakfast. She was — as so many millions of admiring men would say, slack-jawed, as she strode off from the Cheers bar with a killer zinger — a “helluva woman”.
Everyone loved Alley’s “bigness”, until she actually got big. Now that she has died it is important to note not just Alley’s greatness as
