Where is the “Cheers ”cast now? Here’s what the sitcom’s bartenders and barflies are up to over 40 years later

Cheers is rightly remembered as one of the best sitcoms of the 20th century, but it’s easy to forget all the hurdles it overcame to achieve that legacy.

How many other shows, after all, could not only survive the death of a main cast member (Nicholas Colasanto during season 3) and the departure of a fan favorite (Shelley Long abruptly left after season 5), but thrive despite their absence?

Cheers‘ resilience across 11 years and 11 seasons is largely thanks to the charismatic cast — playing a myriad of beer-slingers, waitresses, and barflies — whom the creative team routinely mixed up and elaborated upon to great success. Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier Crane, lest we forget, was a guest player on season 3 and didn’t become a regular until season 5. Now, he’s one of the most beloved television characters of all time.

Cheers served its last drink in 1993 with a finale watched by over 80 million people. The decision to end the series was primarily due to star Ted Danson’s desire to move on. ”If Ted had wanted to stay, we would have kept going,” co-creator James Burrows told Entertainment Weekly in 2001. “The [cast] had the best jobs in the world. We were still on top. Regardless, they were all wonderful characters who could carry their own show.”

Now, more than four decades since its premiere, let’s see where the Cheers cast is now.

Ted Danson as Sam Malone

Ted Danson starred as pitcher-turned-bartender Sam Malone on all 11 seasons of Cheers. His slick, nimble, and womanizing Sam proved so irresistible to audiences that Danson eventually became the highest-paid actor on TV. His portrayal scored him two Emmys and two Golden Globes.

Danson initially floundered in his post-Cheers years with middling films (Made In America, Pontiac Moon, Getting Even With Dad) and TV projects (Ink) that failed to land with audiences. That changed in 1998, though, with the success of Becker (1998–2004), a CBS sitcom about a grumpy doctor that Danson starred on for six seasons.

Danson has remained a reliably affable presence on TV throughout the 21st century. He got to sneer as an immoral billionaire on FX’s Damages (2007–2010), banter with Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis on HBO’s Bored to Death (2009–2011), and contemplate the meaning of life on NBC’s The Good Place (2016–2020). For his turns on Damages and The Good Place, he was nominated for six more Emmys.

Throughout it all, Danson also got to lampoon himself alongside IRL pal Larry David on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000–2024), appearing sporadically in some of the comedy’s best episodes. He’s currently starring on Netflix’s A Man on the Inside, which scored him yet another Golden Globe nomination.

Danson has been married to actress Mary Steenburgen, whom he met on the set of Pontiac Moon, since 1995.

Shelley Long as Diane Chambers

The romantic tension between Sam and Shelley Long’s waitress Diane Chambers was key to Cheers’ appeal during its early seasons. ”People love mismatches — and nobody was more mismatched than Sam and Diane,” co-creator and executive producer Glen Charles told EW in 1997.

For her charm and comedic timing, Long won an Emmy and two Golden Globes.

“We said often that we’re not sure that Cheers would have survived without Shelley in that first season because she was so strong and so confident and knew exactly who the character was and who she was,” co-creator and executive producer Les Charles told Danson and Harrelson on their Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast in 2025. “And I think all of the rest of you were finding your way a little bit.”

Long famously left the series during its fifth season to focus on a film career and her budding family. This forced the writers to end Sam and Diane’s engagement and fret over the series’ future.

“There were some critics that said when Shelley walks out the door, that’s the end of Cheers,” Glen added on the podcast.

Related: Ted Danson initially thought being paired with Shelley Long on Cheers was ‘a bad, bad idea’

Long’s post-Cheers career was a mixed bag. Outrageous Fortune (1987) was a hit, though films like Troop Beverly Hills (1989) and Don’t Tell Her It’s Me (1990) were critical and commercial flops (though the former has since become a cult favorite).

She did, however, find success with The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) and its 1996 sequel, as well as several guest roles on popular series like Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1998), 8 Simple Rules (2003), and Modern Family (2009–2018).

Long reprised Cheers‘ Diane for three episodes of Frasier (1996, 2001), scoring an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in 1996.

Long has one child, Juliana Tyson Kissick, with ex-husband Bruce Tyson. They are now divorced.

Rhea Perlman as Carla Tortelli

On Cheers, Rhea Perlman played Carla Lozupone Tortelli LeBec, the brassy waitress who knows the customer is not always right. Across 11 seasons, Perlman landed 10 Emmy nominations, winning four times, and seven Golden Globe nods.

Following Cheers, Perlman led her own CBS series, Pearl (1996–1997), about a middle-aged widow returning to college. Despite critical acclaim, Pearl lasted 22 episodes. She chased it with several TV films (Houdini, Secret Cutting) and guested on some of the biggest shows of the era, including Mad About You (1999), Becker (2001), and Ally McBeal (2001).

Over the last few decades, Perlman reunited with Cheers costar Kirstie Alley as a main cast member on Kirstie (2013–2014) and recurred on The Mindy Project (2014–2017). She also branched out into voice work, lending her pipes to series like Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021–2023) and the 2016 animated film Sing. She also reprised Carla for appearances on The Simpsons (1994) and Frasier (2002).

Most recently, she played a pivotal role in the seismically popular Barbie (2023), and appears on Peacock’s Poker Face (2023–present) and Apple TV+’s The Studio (2025).

Perlman has been married to actor Danny DeVito since 1982, though the couple separated in 2017 on cordial terms, with no intention to divorce. They share three children and two grandchildren.

George Wendt as Norm Peterson

Norm! George Wendt played suds-slugging Cheers regular Norm on all 11 seasons, a role that earned the Chicago-born-and-bred actor six consecutive Emmy nominations.

Speaking with EW in 2020, Cheers writer David Isaacs said the creative team valued Norm due to how challenging it was to pen his jokes. “The writing with the greatest degree of difficulty was writing an entrance for Norm,” said Isaacs. “He would always come in and they’d say, ‘Hi, Norm,’ and then the running joke was the question, so: ‘How you doing?’ ‘What’s up?’ ‘What are you up to?’ And then you had to write a joke from Norm’s ‘my life is just nothing’ attitude to fit that, which is hard because it’s like writing a joke from nothing. You don’t get a running start because it’s not coming out of context, it’s not coming out of the conflict or situation, so you have to write a joke by itself.”

The challenge led to what Isaacs described as one of his favorite lines ever on the series, written by his writing partner, Ken Levine. “We said, ‘Okay, let’s try, What are you up to?’ And Ken just said, ‘My ideal weight if I was 11 feet tall.’ I said, ‘You just broke the bank. We’ll never top that.'”

Wendt remained wildly prolific following Cheers, lending his laconic charm to dozens of films (Man of the House, Spice World, Sandy Wexler, VFW) and series (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Becker, George Lopez). He briefly led his own CBS sitcom, The George Wendt Show (1995), which lasted for one season.

The actor embraced his enduring legacy as Norm, reprising the character on Cheers spinoffs The Tortellis and Frasier, as well as on The Simpsons, Family Guy, Wings, and St. Elsewhere. He also paid homage to the character on the Boston-set season of Top Chef.

Wendt had three children with his longtime wife Bernadette Birkett, whom he married in 1978. He died on May 20, 2025, at age 76. According to his agent, the actor passed peacefully at his home.

John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin

John Ratzenberger’s Cliff Clavin served as a constant companion to Wendt’s Norm across all 11 seasons. A font of useless knowledge, Ratzenberger’s amiable mailman scored the actor two Emmy nominations.

Ratzenberger dusted off Cliff for episodes of The Tortellis (1987), Wings (1990), The Simpsons (1994, 2014), and Frasier (2002), as well as several Disney specials.

Related: Cheers star John Ratzenberger recalls man wielding a samurai sword with costars’ names on it: ‘It was creepy’

The actor, after all, had a special relationship with the Mouse House, serving as a voice actor for the Disney-owned Pixar, beginning with his turn as Hamm in the Toy Story franchise (1995–2019).

You can also hear his amiably gruff voice in multiple Monsters, Inc. (2001–2013), Cars (2006–2018), The Incredibles (2004–2018), and Inside Out films (2015–2024), among several others, including WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), and Coco (2017).

He was married to Georgia Stiny for 20 years, having two children. The two divorced in 2004, and Ratzenberger went on to wed Julie Blichfeldt in 2012.

Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd

Debuting in season 4, Woody Harrelson’s dim and sweet Woody Boyd helped fill the gap left behind Cheers‘ bar by the late Nicholas Colasanto, who played “Coach” Ernie Pantusso. Harrelson earned five Emmy nominations for his work on Cheers, winning in 1989. He’d later be nominated in the Guest category after reprising the role on a 1999 episode of Frasier.

Following Cheers, Harrelson quickly shed the simple-minded affects of Woody with searing, occasionally controversial turns in Indecent Proposal (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994), and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), the latter of which landed him his first Academy Award nomination.

Related: Ted Danson and Cheers costars constantly pranked Woody Harrelson because they ‘couldn’t beat him at anything’

Over the next 30 years, Harrelson has effortlessly slipped between broad comedy (Kingpin, Semi-Pro), high-stakes drama (The Thin Red Line, LBJ), complex thrillers (No Country For Old Men, Seven Psychopaths), and genre experiments (A Scanner Darkly, Zombieland).

He’s also appeared in numerous franchises, from Marvel (Venom: Let There Be Carnage) and Star Wars (Solo: A Star Wars Story) to Planet of the Apes (War for the Planet of the Apes) and in The Hunger Games as the oafish but big-hearted Haymitch Abernathy (2012–2015).

Related: Woody Harrelson recounts his alien experience from 1974: ‘It was so freaky, even for me’

He was nominated for two more Academy Awards for The Messenger (2009) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), as well as numerous Emmys and Golden Globes for his work on projects like Game Change (2012), True Detective (2014), and White House Plumbers (2023).

Harrelson met his wife, Laura Louie, in 1987. They married in 2008 and share three daughters, the last of whom was born in 2006.

Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane

As the erudite Frasier Crane, Kelsey Grammer is perhaps the most enduring figure from the Cheers extended universe, having built his own successful series around the character with Frasier (1993–2004) and its two-season revival (2023–2024) on Paramount+.

Frasier debuted as a guest player in Cheers‘ season 3 premiere as a love interest for Diane, but stuck around due to the character’s popularity, eventually becoming a main cast member in season 5.

Related: Kelsey Grammer reveals why he and Cheers costar Ted Danson didn’t talk for 30 years

For his turns as Frasier, Grammer was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, winning four times, and eight Golden Globes, winning twice. He also won an Emmy for his sublime voice work as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons (1990–present) and received another Golden Globe in 2012 for his performance as a scheming Chicago mayor on Starz’s Boss (2011–2012).

Grammer’s career has truly been a marvel, with the golden-voiced actor hopping between lauded West End theater productions, big-budget franchise work in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), The Expendables (2014), and Transformers (2014) films, and self-skewering roles on 30 Rock (2010–2012), Entourage (2015), and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2016).

He reprised his X-Men character Dr. Hank McCoy, a.k.a. Beast, in the post-credits scene of The Marvels (2023) and will play the character again in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday.

Bebe Neuwirth as Lilith Sternin

Bebe Neuwirth first bellied up to Cheers as the icy, educated Lilith as a date for Grammer’s Frasier in season 4. She and Frasier eventually married and had a child, though they divorced by the beginning of the Frasier spinoff. Still, Neuwirth’s Lilith remained a consistent presence on Frasier and appeared on its 2023 revival. She won two Emmys for the role.

An icon of the stage, Neuwirth is a two-time Tony winner for her performances in Sweet Charity (1986) and Chicago (1997). On film, she bounced between voice work (All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, An Extremely Goofy Movie) and live-action roles in enduring hits like Jumanji (1995), The Faculty (1998), and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003).

She remains a fixture on TV, having appeared in several network procedurals (Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Blue Bloods, The Good Fight).

Recently, she helped lead the cast of HBO Max’s Julia (2022–2023) and earned another Tony nomination for her work on the 2024 Broadway revival of Cabaret.

Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe

As Rebecca Howe, Kirstie Alley had the unenviable task of filling the romantic void left by Long’s absence. But Alley’s whip-smart, hard-edged Rebecca won over fans upon arriving in season 6, and the show remained a ratings and awards winner. She won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance.

Alley’s winning presence onscreen translated to big-screen success in the Look Who’s Talking trilogy (1989–1993) and cult devotion in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999). She also led her own sitcom, Veronica’s Closet (1997–2000), for which she received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.

Throughout the 2000s, she bounced all over the small screen, starring in series such as TV Land’s Kirstie (2013–2014) and Fox’s Scream Queens (2016), as well as her own A&E reality show, Kirstie Alley’s Big Life (2010). Alley also appeared on Dancing With the Stars (2011), Celebrity Big Brother (2018), and The Masked Singer (2022).

Alley died in 2022 at age 71 after a brief battle with colon cancer, leading to several of her Cheers costars sharing tributes to the actress.

“I was on a plane today and did something I rarely do. I watched an old episode of Cheers. It was the episode where Tom Berenger proposes to Kirstie, who keeps saying no, even though she desperately wants to say yes,” Danson said in a statement to EW.

He continued, “Her ability to play a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown was both moving and hysterically funny. She made me laugh 30 years ago when she shot that scene, and she made me laugh today just as hard. As I got off the plane, I heard that Kirstie had died. I am so sad and so grateful for all the times she made me laugh. I send my love to her children. As they well know, their mother had a heart of gold. I will miss her.”

Nicholas Colasanto as “Coach” Ernie Pantusso

Nicholas Colasanto was a veteran actor and director, having helmed over 100 episodes of shows like Bonanza and Hawaii Five-O. He helped lead the first three seasons of Cheers as “Coach” Ernie Pantusso, who, like Danson’s Sam, was a former ballplayer tending bar.

Sadly, Colasanto died of a heart attack in February 1985 as Cheers was wrapping its third season. In the fourth season premiere, Coach was mourned by the cast and replaced by Woody Harrelson’s Woody Boyd, who we learned was a pen pal of Coach’s.

Co-creator James Burrows described Colasanto as a father figure for the cast, per an EW report from 1994. “He was the older, more experienced one of all of us. Nick was Coach.”

Where can I watch Cheers?

Cheers is currently streaming on Paramount+ and Hulu.

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