CARLA TORTELLI (Actress: RHEA PERLMAN)
Another stalwart who appeared in every episode of the show, Rhea Perlman’s impatient waitress was well-known for her violent temper and disdain for almost everyone in the bar aside from Sam.
Her scathing banter with Diane was always a comic highlight, as was her ever-expanding brood of children, with Carla herself unable to remember how many she had (and by how many husbands) by the end of the show.
Like the majority of her castmates, Perlman had little success before Cheers, although she had a small role on popular comedy Taxi.
After the show, she reprised her role as Carla on a few occasions, including on The Simpsons and Cheers spin-off Frasier, and also made sporadic appearances in films including 1996’s Matilda as the heartless mother, alongside real-life husband Danny DeVito.
In the past few years, she has also guested in hit comedies including The Mindy Project, Mom, and Hot in Cleveland.
Perlman and DeVito have been married since 1982 and have three children, with the eldest daughter Lucy following her parents into acting.
NORM PETERSON (Actor: GEORGE WENDT)
‘Cheers’ was a place ‘where everybody knows your name’, as the theme song goes, and that was certainly true for Norm.
He was the king of the running joke on the show, such as his constant complaints about his never-seen-on-screen wife Vera, to the witty, dry one-liners which always followed his entrance – which always saw the entire bar crowd shout his name.
Wendt is the other actor to appear in every single episode alongside Danson and Perlman, in a role that was initially a bit-part in the script for the pilot, only for Wendt to impress the creators so much they expanded it.
Hailing from Chicago, prior to acting Wendt was expelled from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana over poor grades before moving into showbusiness, where his first job was sweeping a theatre floor.
Guest roles in Taxi and MASH were followed by his big break on Cheers, and two years after it finished he launched a self-titled sitcom on CBS, but it was canceled after eight episodes.
He has made several guest appearances over the years and has even made his way to these shores, playing Tweedledee in Alice in Wonderland in 1999, filmed in Buckinghamshire, while he also appeared in an episode of Only Fools and Horses spin-off The Green Green Grass in 2007. More recently he was in shortlived barbershop-based comedy series Clipped, while his recent Broadway credits include Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Elf – The Musical.
Wendt has been married to Bernadette Birkett – who played the voice of the mysterious Vera on Cheers – since 1978 and they have one daughter and two sons. The couple lives in Los Angeles.