Carla Tortelli
Encyclopedia
Carla Maria Victoria Angelina Teresa Apollonia Lozupone Tortelli LeBec, known as Carla Tortelli, is a waitress on the American
television
show Cheers
, portrayed by Rhea Perlman. Outwardly, at least, Carla is a mean-spirited woman who expresses disdain for many (perhaps even most) people. In a draft script for one episode, writer David Lloyd
summed up her character by instructing "Carla says something really crass and stupid here and we move on before the audience hates her." She had four children when the series started and eight children when it ended.
Carla appeared in all 275 episodes of Cheers between 1982-1993 and guest-starred on one episode of the spinoff show Frasier
("Cheerful Goodbyes"). She has also appeared on St. Elsewhere
("Cheers"), The Simpsons
("Fear of Flying
"), and the very short-lived Cheers spinoff The Tortellis
.
, Rhode Island
. Her father's name was "Benito" and her mother's maiden name was "Mussolini". According to her mother, Carla was named after her grandmother's mule. Carla has a younger sister, Annette (also played by Perlman). She also has another sister named Angeline and at least two brothers including one named Sal. She also has a nephew named Frankie whom Lilith and Rebecca were attracted to when he worked at the bar. When the show began she had four children, and when the show ended, she was the mother of eight children: Anthony (Timothy Williams
), Serafina (Leah Remini
), Gino (Josh Lozoff), Anne Marie (Risa Littman) , Lucinda (Sabrina Wiener) (all fathered by Nick Tortelli), Ludlow (Jarrett Lennon) (fathered by Frasier's mentor Dr. Bennett Ludlow), and twins Elvis (Danny Kramer) and Jesse (Thomas Tulak) {fathered by Eddie Lebec}. A devoted and often-disappointed Boston Red Sox
fan, she became friends with Sam
during his baseball days, at least five years before the show's start, and came to work for him at Cheers when he began working there after his retirement.
Carla was both feisty and highly superstitious. She expressed a particular dislike for Diane Chambers
, often referring to her by derogatory nicknames such as: The Stick, Whitey, Pencil-Neck, Fish-face, and Gozzel-head. She also had a long-standing dislike of Cliff Clavin
- in the Frasier episode "Cheerful Goodbyes", after Cliff decides to stay in Boston rather than move to Florida, Carla tries to attack him with one of his leaving gifts: a spear-gun. The only regulars she seemed to be friendly with were Norm Peterson
and Coach
, who were still not totally immune to her scathing wit. In several episodes, however, Carla showed a vulnerable side. In the cold open
for the 10th Season episode, "Unplanned Parenthood," Carla came into Cheers early to set up the bar. She turned on a cheerful song from the jukebox and danced across the tables, smiling and laughing -- only to naturally return to her acidic ways when others came in. Also in the season 9 episode "Pitch it again Sam" she broke down crying when reminiscing about Coach.
Carla seems willing to commit a crime if she thinks she can get away with it. In the episode following Frasier's and Lilith's initial separation, we learn that, while Frasier was sleeping in the Cheers office, Carla stole his Rolex
watch and class ring.
that she "got him back" by marrying him.)
At the time the series began, Carla had already divorced her first husband, Nick Tortelli
(played by Dan Hedaya
). Nick was a sleazy and obnoxious man who was excessively hairy (in the episode "Battle of the Exes", Carla shows Diane a picture of him and his new fiance Loretta
. Diane contemptuously remarks that Loretta is naked, to which Carla responds that Nick is, as well. Diane, stunned, comments, "I thought he was wearing mohair pajamas.") Despite Nick's inherent flaws and their apparently antagonistic relationship, he and Carla have a passionate sex life, which is often remarked on. Carla had five children with Nick, the eldest of which, Anthony (played by Timothy Williams
), bears a striking resemblance to him, both in looks and personality. The fifth child was fathered after she and Nick had divorced and was the first to be born while the show was running. In an effort to ensure that the child was supported financially, she convinced a cybernetics
professor, Marshall, that he was the father. Marshall proposes marriage but the ruse was discovered by Diane, who embarrassed Carla into revealing the truth. After Marshall leaves angrily, the patrons of Cheers took up a collection, declaring the baby their own by sponsorship.
Carla's second husband was Eddie LeBec
, an ice hockey
player with the Boston Bruins. Carla and Eddie met during the show's fifth season and began dating while Eddie was on a winning streak. Unfortunately, once they began dating, Eddie's streak came to an end, and because both were superstitious, they ended their relationship in order to avoid ruining Eddie's ability to play. They reconciled shortly thereafter and began a practice of breaking up before every game to avoid the "curse".
Eddie and Carla married in the show's sixth season after it was revealed that Carla was pregnant with twins. Carla almost quit her job at Cheers after Eddie said he would take care of her financially, but then the Bruins released him from his contract and he couldn't find another team. Eddie ended up taking a job as a mascot character for a traveling ice show. He spent much of his time away from home, and he shipped Carla his laundry monthly. In the eighth season, Eddie was killed by a Zamboni
while attempting to save the life of another member of the ice show. At the funeral, it was revealed that he had cheated on Carla while away with the ice show. He had married his mistress, Gloria, out of obligation after he had impregnated her with twins as well. Carla went back to her previous married name ("Tortelli") to avoid being confused with the other "Mrs. LeBec".
Later in the series, Carla becomes unaccountably attracted to John Allen Hill (played by Keene Curtis
) -- possibly because of his similarly acidic personality -- who runs Melville's seafood restaurant upstairs from Cheers. Sam even finds him as an overnight guest in Carla's house.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
show Cheers
Cheers
Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...
, portrayed by Rhea Perlman. Outwardly, at least, Carla is a mean-spirited woman who expresses disdain for many (perhaps even most) people. In a draft script for one episode, writer David Lloyd
David Lloyd (writer)
David Lloyd was an American screenwriter and producer for television.He wrote for many popular and award-winning sitcoms, such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Taxi, Cheers, Frasier and Wings. Lloyd wrote the Emmy-winning "Chuckles Bites the Dust", an episode of the...
summed up her character by instructing "Carla says something really crass and stupid here and we move on before the audience hates her." She had four children when the series started and eight children when it ended.
Carla appeared in all 275 episodes of Cheers between 1982-1993 and guest-starred on one episode of the spinoff show Frasier
Frasier
Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...
("Cheerful Goodbyes"). She has also appeared on St. Elsewhere
St. Elsewhere
St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982 to May 25, 1988. The series is set at fictional St. Eligius, a decaying urban teaching hospital in Boston's South End neighborhood...
("Cheers"), The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
("Fear of Flying
Fear of Flying (The Simpsons)
"Fear of Flying" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons sixth season. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on December 18, 1994. In the episode, Homer is banned from Moe's Tavern and struggles to find a new bar. When he destroys a plane after being mistaken for a pilot at...
"), and the very short-lived Cheers spinoff The Tortellis
The Tortellis
The Tortellis is an American sitcom that aired from January to May 1987 on NBC. A spin-off of the hit series Cheers, The Tortellis stars Dan Hedaya and Jean Kasem....
.
Character biography
Carla grew up in the Federal Hill section of ProvidenceProvidence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
. Her father's name was "Benito" and her mother's maiden name was "Mussolini". According to her mother, Carla was named after her grandmother's mule. Carla has a younger sister, Annette (also played by Perlman). She also has another sister named Angeline and at least two brothers including one named Sal. She also has a nephew named Frankie whom Lilith and Rebecca were attracted to when he worked at the bar. When the show began she had four children, and when the show ended, she was the mother of eight children: Anthony (Timothy Williams
Timothy Williams
Timothy Williams is a bilingual British author who has written five novels in English featuring Commissario Piero Trotti, a character critics have referred to as a personification of modern Italy. Williams' books include Black August, which won a Crime Writers' Association award...
), Serafina (Leah Remini
Leah Remini
Leah Marie Remini is an American actress and model. She is best known for her role as Carrie Heffernan on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens and as Stacey Carosi on the NBC sitcom Saved by the Bell...
), Gino (Josh Lozoff), Anne Marie (Risa Littman) , Lucinda (Sabrina Wiener) (all fathered by Nick Tortelli), Ludlow (Jarrett Lennon) (fathered by Frasier's mentor Dr. Bennett Ludlow), and twins Elvis (Danny Kramer) and Jesse (Thomas Tulak) {fathered by Eddie Lebec}. A devoted and often-disappointed Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
fan, she became friends with Sam
Sam Malone
Sam "Mayday" Malone is a fictional character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Ted Danson. The central character of the series, Sam is a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team who owns Cheers and tends bar there. He is a recovering alcoholic and...
during his baseball days, at least five years before the show's start, and came to work for him at Cheers when he began working there after his retirement.
Carla was both feisty and highly superstitious. She expressed a particular dislike for Diane Chambers
Diane Chambers
Diane Chambers is a fictional character portrayed by Shelley Long on the American television show Cheers , and on several episodes of the subsequent Cheers spin-off Frasier...
, often referring to her by derogatory nicknames such as: The Stick, Whitey, Pencil-Neck, Fish-face, and Gozzel-head. She also had a long-standing dislike of Cliff Clavin
Cliff Clavin
Clifford C. Clavin, Jr. is a character on the American television show Cheers, co-created and portrayed by John Ratzenberger.- Character history :...
- in the Frasier episode "Cheerful Goodbyes", after Cliff decides to stay in Boston rather than move to Florida, Carla tries to attack him with one of his leaving gifts: a spear-gun. The only regulars she seemed to be friendly with were Norm Peterson
Norm Peterson
Hillary Norman "Norm" Peterson is a character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by George Wendt. Norm's real first name was revealed to be Hillary, named after his grandfather....
and Coach
Coach Ernie Pantusso
Ernie "Coach" Pantusso is a fictional character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Nicholas Colasanto for the first three seasons.Coach appeared in 70 episodes of Cheers between 1982-1985.-Character overview:...
, who were still not totally immune to her scathing wit. In several episodes, however, Carla showed a vulnerable side. In the cold open
Cold open
A cold open in a television program or movie is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening of the show, before the title sequence or opening credits are shown...
for the 10th Season episode, "Unplanned Parenthood," Carla came into Cheers early to set up the bar. She turned on a cheerful song from the jukebox and danced across the tables, smiling and laughing -- only to naturally return to her acidic ways when others came in. Also in the season 9 episode "Pitch it again Sam" she broke down crying when reminiscing about Coach.
Carla seems willing to commit a crime if she thinks she can get away with it. In the episode following Frasier's and Lilith's initial separation, we learn that, while Frasier was sleeping in the Cheers office, Carla stole his Rolex
Rolex
Rolex SA is a Swiss watchmaking manufacturer of high-quality, luxury wristwatches. Rolex watches are popularly regarded as status symbols and BusinessWeek magazine ranks Rolex No.71 on its 2007 annual list of the 100 most valuable global brands...
watch and class ring.
Romantic life
Carla's promiscuity and sexual prowess (if not odd sexual tastes) was a running gag. She described herself as a "fast breeder", and gave birth four times during the show's run, each pregnancy produced by a different man. She likes dominant men; she tells Sam that "every woman wants to be controlled...Women like power". Despite this, she is depicted as being fairly unlucky when it came to dating, since most of the men she dated has one flaw or another. In the episode "Affairs of the Heart" in season two, she meets a man named Henry "Hank" Zenzola whom she is reluctant to date because of her previous bad luck in the dating circuit. She decides to date him anyway after Diane's urging, only to discover that he has a heart problem that prevents him from any exertion (sex included). After the death of her second husband, her attempts to date Red Sox player Darryl Mead are thwarted by paranoid hallucinations of her second husband appearing to her in various places. She takes this as a "sign" and breaks off the relationship. On her luck with men, Carla remarked that men usually ignore her (on one occasion, she noted about one man who didn't reciprocate feelings: "It's as if I slept with him."). Despite this, Carla is resilient and, on more than one occasion, tells anecdotes in which she punishes men for not treating her well. (Of her notorious first husband, after a story about how he had treated her poorly, she tells SamSam Malone
Sam "Mayday" Malone is a fictional character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Ted Danson. The central character of the series, Sam is a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team who owns Cheers and tends bar there. He is a recovering alcoholic and...
that she "got him back" by marrying him.)
At the time the series began, Carla had already divorced her first husband, Nick Tortelli
Nick Tortelli
Nick Tortelli, was a recurring character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Dan Hedaya. Nick was Carla's sleazy first husband who occasionally stopped by Cheers for one reason or another. Nick married his second wife, Loretta, in the second season episode "Battle of the Exes"...
(played by Dan Hedaya
Dan Hedaya
Daniel G. “Dan” Hedaya is an American character actor. He often plays sleazy villains or uptight, wisecracking individuals; three of his best-known roles are as Italian Mafia boss Tony Costello in Wise Guys, a cuckolded husband in the Coen brothers' crime thriller Blood Simple, and the scheming...
). Nick was a sleazy and obnoxious man who was excessively hairy (in the episode "Battle of the Exes", Carla shows Diane a picture of him and his new fiance Loretta
Loretta Tortelli
Loretta Tortelli is a character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Jean Kasem. Loretta was Nick Tortelli's ditzy blonde trophy second wife who occasionally stopped by Cheers with Nick...
. Diane contemptuously remarks that Loretta is naked, to which Carla responds that Nick is, as well. Diane, stunned, comments, "I thought he was wearing mohair pajamas.") Despite Nick's inherent flaws and their apparently antagonistic relationship, he and Carla have a passionate sex life, which is often remarked on. Carla had five children with Nick, the eldest of which, Anthony (played by Timothy Williams
Timothy Williams
Timothy Williams is a bilingual British author who has written five novels in English featuring Commissario Piero Trotti, a character critics have referred to as a personification of modern Italy. Williams' books include Black August, which won a Crime Writers' Association award...
), bears a striking resemblance to him, both in looks and personality. The fifth child was fathered after she and Nick had divorced and was the first to be born while the show was running. In an effort to ensure that the child was supported financially, she convinced a cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
professor, Marshall, that he was the father. Marshall proposes marriage but the ruse was discovered by Diane, who embarrassed Carla into revealing the truth. After Marshall leaves angrily, the patrons of Cheers took up a collection, declaring the baby their own by sponsorship.
Carla's second husband was Eddie LeBec
Eddie LeBec
Guy Édouard Raymond "Eddie" LeBec ia a character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Jay Thomas. Eddie was an ice hockey player of French Canadian background, and was married to Cheers waitress Carla Tortelli. Carla and Eddie had met when Eddie began frequenting the bar after...
, an ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
player with the Boston Bruins. Carla and Eddie met during the show's fifth season and began dating while Eddie was on a winning streak. Unfortunately, once they began dating, Eddie's streak came to an end, and because both were superstitious, they ended their relationship in order to avoid ruining Eddie's ability to play. They reconciled shortly thereafter and began a practice of breaking up before every game to avoid the "curse".
Eddie and Carla married in the show's sixth season after it was revealed that Carla was pregnant with twins. Carla almost quit her job at Cheers after Eddie said he would take care of her financially, but then the Bruins released him from his contract and he couldn't find another team. Eddie ended up taking a job as a mascot character for a traveling ice show. He spent much of his time away from home, and he shipped Carla his laundry monthly. In the eighth season, Eddie was killed by a Zamboni
Ice resurfacer
An ice resurfacer is a truck-like vehicle or smaller device used to clean and smooth the surface of an ice rink. The first ice resurfacer was developed by Frank J. Zamboni in 1949 in the city of Paramount, California...
while attempting to save the life of another member of the ice show. At the funeral, it was revealed that he had cheated on Carla while away with the ice show. He had married his mistress, Gloria, out of obligation after he had impregnated her with twins as well. Carla went back to her previous married name ("Tortelli") to avoid being confused with the other "Mrs. LeBec".
Later in the series, Carla becomes unaccountably attracted to John Allen Hill (played by Keene Curtis
Keene Curtis
Keene Holbrook Curtis was an American character actor.-Film career:Curtis made his film debut in the 1948 Orson Welles adaptation of Macbeth...
) -- possibly because of his similarly acidic personality -- who runs Melville's seafood restaurant upstairs from Cheers. Sam even finds him as an overnight guest in Carla's house.