74-Year-Old ‘Cheers’ Star Shelley Long Is Unrecognizable In Rare Public Sighting

She served up drinks and smiles for over half a decade on Cheers, and these days actress Shelley Long keeps things a bit calmer. in a rare recent sighting, Long, 74, was seen keeping a casual, low profile while out and about in her neighborhood last Tuesday.

Monday, January 15, marked the 2024 Emmy Awards, which hosted a highly-anticipated Cheers cast reunion just for the occasion. However, Long, who played bar waitress Diane Chambers for much of the long-running NBC sitcom, was noticeably absent from the reunion. Days later, she was seen looking withdrawn.

Shelley Long looked unrecognizable in a rare public sighting

On Tuesday, Long was seen strolling around her Pacific Palisades neighborhood to take her dog out for a walk. Her canine companion, untethered by any leash, pawed and sniffed around at her feet while Long appeared deep in contemplative thought.

RELATED: ‘Cheers’ Cast Reunites At The 75th Emmy Awards Ceremony

The actress continued to boast her signature long blonde hair during last week’s sighting, though her contemplative eyes peered behind a large pair of square dark glasses. She kept things comfortable in a pair of casual gray pants, all while bundled in a sleek black coat and cozy-looking blue turtleneck against the unprecedented cold spell that started settling in across the country for much of last week.

Reuniting the crew

Both Long and her former Cheers colleague Woody Harrelson were no-shows at the Emmys reunion earlier in January. But her castmates are eager to break open a cold one with her again, especially Kelsey Grammer, who returned to the small screen in a recent Frasier reboot.

“I would like to see Diane come back,” said Grammer, who reprised his role as the verbose, cynical Frasier Crane for the reboot that premiered on October 12, 2023 through Paramount+. “For one of those reasons of Frasier to be able to put something to bed. To end up with a nice thing between them.”

In Grammer’s view, while the rest of the characters don’t necessarily need to return, Long’s Diane deserves an additional bit of closure, and the Frasier reboot would be an organic way to achieve that since their characters are so interwoven. “When I first got the role, the key to Frasier for me was that he loved her with his whole heart,” Grammer explained, “that he loved with all of his being. And that actually defined who he is and he’s been that way ever since. He just goes in wholeheartedly with everything — and that’s what makes him funny.”

Would you want to see Diane Chambers in the Frasier reboot?