Kirstie Alley Felt Like ‘Cheers’ Was A ‘Boys Club’

While Kirstie Alley played the new boss on Cheers when she joined the show in season six, she’s now opening up about how she didn’t feel much in charge at all. Kristie played Rebecca Howe in the beloved series. After the show ended, Kristie called it “a boy’s club” and even a “dictatorship.”

She explained, “’Cheers’ is a dictatorship. It is a boys’ club and they dictate what the girls do and that is the way you do it (laughs). There are no conferences about what your character is or should be. It makes people go unconscious. They just tell you what your character is doing in the script, period.”

Kristie Alley says that ‘Cheers’ was a ‘dictatorship’ but she was okay with it

Kirstie was referring to Glen and Les Charles along with James Burrows, who co-created the series together. The brothers were the head writers and all three of them had the final say on the script and everything that went into the award-winning series.

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Kristie clarified that it didn’t bother her that the show was run this way. It went on for 11 seasons, so clearly they were doing something right. She added, “But I sort of like that. It is sort of refreshing. There is a certain peacefulness in dictatorship because you know there are no other answers and no hashing it through. You don’t have to think about it and you can basically be mindless. There’s a nice inner peace in being mindless (laughs).”

Kirstie also spoke about how well things ran on the set. She admitted that she likes to be able to get on set, say her lines, and head home. She doesn’t want to be involved in the script but just wants to perform its beautiful lines.

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