Diane Chambers
Encyclopedia
Diane Chambers is a fictional character portrayed by Shelley Long
on the American
television
show Cheers
(1982–1987, 1993), and on several episodes of the subsequent Cheers spin-off Frasier
. Diane is introduced in the Cheers pilot episode, when her fiancé Sumner Sloane leaves her waiting at the bar of the show's title while he ostensibly goes back to recover his wedding ring from his ex-wife. When he never returns, she realizes she's been jilted and takes a job waitressing at Cheers to try to rebuild her life.
Diane appeared as a main character for 123 episodes of Cheers between 1982-1987, with a guest appearance in the finale, "One for the Road
." She also made four guest appearances on Frasier. Diane was number 33 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Characters list and Shelley Long has received one Emmy and two Golden Globes for her work in the series.
). It is unsure when she was born as she has said she was premature in one episode and born late in another.
Diane spent much of her early adult life attending college (it is implied in various episodes that she goes to Boston University
, while one episode mentioned she attended Bennington College
where she would have completed her undergraduate degree), and studying a wide range of disciplines at the graduate level. She changed her major numerous times, though she tended to focus on literature, social studies, and history. At one point, she claims to only be one credit away from getting a master's degree in any one of 37 different disciplines.
In the early 1980s, Diane had an affair with Sumner Sloan, one of her literature professors—he was the cad who dumped her by leaving her at Cheers' the night they were supposed to fly to Barbados and get married. Stranded at the bar, and unwilling to return to the life of a perpetual grad student, Diane took a job as a waitress at Cheers after admitting that she had no marketable skills and was unqualified for any other sort of work but has an excellent memory for drink orders, although it is also strongly implied that she stayed at Cheers due to her sexual attraction to Cheers owner/bartender Sam Malone
.
. This is hinted at in various episodes; Diane demands that the pencils and pens in her pocket be in very precise order. In the episode "Power Play" it is revealed that Diane obsessively hoards stuffed animals.
Her most complex relationship at Cheers was with bartender Sam Malone
. Diane found Sam's rugged and rather obvious charms by turns repulsive and magnetic. Sam was in turn both maddened and drawn by Diane's ambivalence toward him. Often at loggerheads during Season 1, by Season 2 they were a couple whose very rocky relationship was based more on mutual lust than any actual personal compatibility.
After a dramatically bad break up with Sam, Diane was admitted to Goldenbrook Psychiatric Hospital, between seasons 2 and 3, for extreme depression
. It was there that she met Dr. Frasier Crane
. She returned to working at the bar and, after a romance with Frasier (which she later admits was a "bit of fun," and that she strung him along), she left him at the altar in Italy
at the end of Season 3.
After having a number of sexual affairs throughout Europe, Diane tried to atone for her behavior by working at a Boston area convent
. However, she went back to Cheers again after a visit from Sam in the Season 4 opener. Although Sam and Diane said they were only friends, sexual tension ensued between them for much of Season 4, and Sam eventually proposed to Diane over the phone in the season finale.
Diane wanted to be proposed to in a more romantic fashion, and so she didn't give him an answer. Sam proposed again on a moonlit boat ride during the premiere of Season 5—only to have Diane say no because she thought that Sam was "on the rebound" from his break-up with Boston city councilwoman Janet Eldridge. Diane later changed her mind, but found that Sam was not willing to propose again. After she began to cry, Sam did propose, but Diane said no again, fearing that he was only reacting to emotional blackmail
. Sam chased her out of Cheers, and Diane fled, causing her to fall and injure herself.
Diane pressed charges against Sam for assault
and battery
. However, in the courtroom
, Sam proposed again, at the judge's behest, and Diane finally accepted. While Diane did not hold Sam to the proposal since it was made under duress, he affirmed that he still wanted to marry her.
Diane was written out of Cheers following Shelley Long's decision to leave the show after Season 5 in 1987. In the season finale, Diane was given the opportunity to finish a book she had started years before ("Jocasta's Conundrum"), and to have it published. Ironically, this opportunity was engineered for her by none other than Sumner Sloan, the man who originally brought her to Cheers.
Diane wanted to marry Sam before writing the book, but Sam (who knew that Diane was going to resent him for keeping her from her dreams) talked her out of it. Diane received a hefty advance for her manuscript, and left Sam to complete it. Promising to be back in six months to marry him, Diane left Boston. Knowing Diane would not return, Sam told her, "Have a good life." The episode ended with a coda
in which Sam imagined Diane and himself as an elderly married couple.
mentions in passing that the last the Cheers staff had heard, Diane had ended up in Hollywood writing for television. However, no other details were offered about Diane's actual fate until Long reprised her role in the Cheers series finale
in 1993.
In this episode, it was revealed that Diane's novel never came together, but that she had rebounded and was a successful writer of a made-for-TV movie called "The Heart Held Hostage". The movie, loosely based on Diane's memories of the life of fellow Cheers waitress Carla Tortelli
, won Diane a 1993 Cable ACE Award for best writing in a TV movie or mini-series.
After winning the award, Diane returned to Boston. Stopping at the bar for a visit, she told Sam that she was married with children. This prompted Sam to claim—falsely—that he was also married, to Rebecca Howe
(Kirstie Alley
).
Sam and Diane agreed to meet for dinner with their respective spouses. However, at the dinner Rebecca's actual boyfriend came by and proposed to her (and Rebecca accepted), and Diane's supposed "husband" was similarly whisked away by his gay
partner. It turned out that both Sam and Diane were still single, and had been desperately trying to impress each other by showing how well they had rebounded since their break-up six years earlier.
Their covers blown, they found themselves alone together once more. The old romantic spark soon rekindled, and Diane and Sam made plans to run off to California
together. However, while sitting in the plane waiting for takeoff they both had second thoughts and decided to once more call it off and say goodbye.
series, Frasier
. She is seen very briefly in a dream sequence in a second season episode, and also more extensively in a dream sequence in a ninth season two-parter called "Don Juan In Hell". The character is seen 'for real', as it were, in the February 1996 episode called "The Show Where Diane Comes Back". In this episode, it's revealed that Diane's TV writing career continued after the events of Cheers, and she worked her way to a staff writing position on the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
. She continued to be successful, living in a large Malibu beach house, and was in a seemingly stable two-year relationship. However, sometime in late 1995, she was fired from the TV show for accidentally setting star Jane Seymour
's hair on fire while trying to show her how to cauterize a wound with a branding iron.
Several months after that incident, Diane had lost her beach house and her relationship came to an end. She then travelled to Seattle to supervise the production of a play she had written called "Rhapsody and Requiem". The play turned out to be a very-thinly disguised roman a clef
about her time at Cheers, and her feelings for both Sam and Frasier, with her character as "Mary Anne
". In the episode, Frasier and Diane reconcile over her jilting him at the altar.
Diane's subconscious attraction to Sam Malone is also seen in that episode; she is seen kissing and having an affair with the actor that plays Sam in her play based on her life at Cheers. In "Don Juan in Hell", an imaginary Diane is still obsessed with Sam and she is seen painting a portrait of him.
Shelley Long
Shelley Lee Long is an American actress best known for her role as Diane Chambers on the sitcom Cheers, for which she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress...
on the American
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...
(1982–1987, 1993), and on several episodes of the subsequent Cheers spin-off 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...
. Diane is introduced in the Cheers pilot episode, when her fiancé Sumner Sloane leaves her waiting at the bar of the show's title while he ostensibly goes back to recover his wedding ring from his ex-wife. When he never returns, she realizes she's been jilted and takes a job waitressing at Cheers to try to rebuild her life.
Diane appeared as a main character for 123 episodes of Cheers between 1982-1987, with a guest appearance in the finale, "One for the Road
One for the Road (Cheers)
"One for the Road" is the name of the final episode of the American television series Cheers. This episode ran for 98 minutes and premiered on NBC on May 20, 1993. NBC later re-ran the finale in September 1993 in a ninety-minute format, and in subsequent syndicated reruns the finale is divided into...
." She also made four guest appearances on Frasier. Diane was number 33 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Characters list and Shelley Long has received one Emmy and two Golden Globes for her work in the series.
Early life
Various episodes of Cheers establish that Diane is the only child of a wealthy family. She had a friendly, if distant relationship with her eccentric mother Helen; her father, Spencer, died about ten years before her arrival at Cheers. Her only real childhood companion was her cat, Elizabeth (named after Elizabeth Barrett BrowningElizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...
). It is unsure when she was born as she has said she was premature in one episode and born late in another.
Diane spent much of her early adult life attending college (it is implied in various episodes that she goes to Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
, while one episode mentioned she attended Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
where she would have completed her undergraduate degree), and studying a wide range of disciplines at the graduate level. She changed her major numerous times, though she tended to focus on literature, social studies, and history. At one point, she claims to only be one credit away from getting a master's degree in any one of 37 different disciplines.
In the early 1980s, Diane had an affair with Sumner Sloan, one of her literature professors—he was the cad who dumped her by leaving her at Cheers' the night they were supposed to fly to Barbados and get married. Stranded at the bar, and unwilling to return to the life of a perpetual grad student, Diane took a job as a waitress at Cheers after admitting that she had no marketable skills and was unqualified for any other sort of work but has an excellent memory for drink orders, although it is also strongly implied that she stayed at Cheers due to her sexual attraction to Cheers owner/bartender Sam Malone
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...
.
The Cheers Years (1982-1987)
Though bright and witty, Diane Chambers was also often pretentious, snobbish and woefully lacking in street-smarts. Working at Cheers, she seemed amusingly out of place in comparison to the bar's general clientele and staff. Perhaps due to the stress of waitressing, Diane also suffered from an occasional nervous facial tic, and from obsessive-compulsive disorderObsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
. This is hinted at in various episodes; Diane demands that the pencils and pens in her pocket be in very precise order. In the episode "Power Play" it is revealed that Diane obsessively hoards stuffed animals.
Her most complex relationship at Cheers was with bartender Sam Malone
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...
. Diane found Sam's rugged and rather obvious charms by turns repulsive and magnetic. Sam was in turn both maddened and drawn by Diane's ambivalence toward him. Often at loggerheads during Season 1, by Season 2 they were a couple whose very rocky relationship was based more on mutual lust than any actual personal compatibility.
After a dramatically bad break up with Sam, Diane was admitted to Goldenbrook Psychiatric Hospital, between seasons 2 and 3, for extreme depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
. It was there that she met Dr. Frasier Crane
Frasier Crane
Frasier W. Crane, M.D., Ph.D., A.P.A. is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Frasier and Cheers. He was played by Kelsey Grammer for 20 years, tying the record for the longest-running character on prime-time American television, which was set by James Arness, who played Marshal...
. She returned to working at the bar and, after a romance with Frasier (which she later admits was a "bit of fun," and that she strung him along), she left him at the altar in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
at the end of Season 3.
After having a number of sexual affairs throughout Europe, Diane tried to atone for her behavior by working at a Boston area convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
. However, she went back to Cheers again after a visit from Sam in the Season 4 opener. Although Sam and Diane said they were only friends, sexual tension ensued between them for much of Season 4, and Sam eventually proposed to Diane over the phone in the season finale.
Diane wanted to be proposed to in a more romantic fashion, and so she didn't give him an answer. Sam proposed again on a moonlit boat ride during the premiere of Season 5—only to have Diane say no because she thought that Sam was "on the rebound" from his break-up with Boston city councilwoman Janet Eldridge. Diane later changed her mind, but found that Sam was not willing to propose again. After she began to cry, Sam did propose, but Diane said no again, fearing that he was only reacting to emotional blackmail
Emotional blackmail
Emotional blackmail is a term used to cover a central form of psychological manipulation - 'the use of a system of threats and punishment on a person by someone close to them in an attempt to control their behavior'. "Emotional blackmail.....
. Sam chased her out of Cheers, and Diane fled, causing her to fall and injure herself.
Diane pressed charges against Sam for assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
and battery
Battery (crime)
Battery is a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact, distinct from assault which is the fear of such contact.In the United States, criminal battery, or simply battery, is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact...
. However, in the courtroom
Courtroom
A courtroom is the actual enclosed space in which a judge regularly holds court.The schedule of official court proceedings is called a docket; the term is also synonymous with a court's caseload as a whole.-Courtroom design:-United States:...
, Sam proposed again, at the judge's behest, and Diane finally accepted. While Diane did not hold Sam to the proposal since it was made under duress, he affirmed that he still wanted to marry her.
Diane was written out of Cheers following Shelley Long's decision to leave the show after Season 5 in 1987. In the season finale, Diane was given the opportunity to finish a book she had started years before ("Jocasta's Conundrum"), and to have it published. Ironically, this opportunity was engineered for her by none other than Sumner Sloan, the man who originally brought her to Cheers.
Diane wanted to marry Sam before writing the book, but Sam (who knew that Diane was going to resent him for keeping her from her dreams) talked her out of it. Diane received a hefty advance for her manuscript, and left Sam to complete it. Promising to be back in six months to marry him, Diane left Boston. Knowing Diane would not return, Sam told her, "Have a good life." The episode ended with a coda
Epilogue
An epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...
in which Sam imagined Diane and himself as an elderly married couple.
Return to Cheers (1993)
In a 1987 Cheers episode, Woody BoydWoody Boyd
Huckleberry Tiberius "Woody" Boyd is a lovable, albeit extremely naive and unsophisticated, character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Woody Harrelson. Woody came to Cheers at the beginning of the fourth season of Cheers in 1985....
mentions in passing that the last the Cheers staff had heard, Diane had ended up in Hollywood writing for television. However, no other details were offered about Diane's actual fate until Long reprised her role in the Cheers series finale
Series finale
A series finale refers to the last installment of a series with a narrative presented through mediums such as television, film and literature. In many Commonwealth countries, the term final episode is commonly used in regards to a television series...
in 1993.
In this episode, it was revealed that Diane's novel never came together, but that she had rebounded and was a successful writer of a made-for-TV movie called "The Heart Held Hostage". The movie, loosely based on Diane's memories of the life of fellow Cheers waitress Carla Tortelli
Carla Tortelli
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 people...
, won Diane a 1993 Cable ACE Award for best writing in a TV movie or mini-series.
After winning the award, Diane returned to Boston. Stopping at the bar for a visit, she told Sam that she was married with children. This prompted Sam to claim—falsely—that he was also married, to Rebecca Howe
Rebecca Howe
Rebecca Howe-Santry is a fictional character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Kirstie Alley. She is introduced after Shelley Long, who played overeducated barmaid Diane Chambers, left to pursue a movie career...
(Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991...
).
Sam and Diane agreed to meet for dinner with their respective spouses. However, at the dinner Rebecca's actual boyfriend came by and proposed to her (and Rebecca accepted), and Diane's supposed "husband" was similarly whisked away by his gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
partner. It turned out that both Sam and Diane were still single, and had been desperately trying to impress each other by showing how well they had rebounded since their break-up six years earlier.
Their covers blown, they found themselves alone together once more. The old romantic spark soon rekindled, and Diane and Sam made plans to run off to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
together. However, while sitting in the plane waiting for takeoff they both had second thoughts and decided to once more call it off and say goodbye.
The Post-Cheers Years
Long also reprised the Chambers character in subsequent guest appearances on the Cheers spin-offSpin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
series, 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...
. She is seen very briefly in a dream sequence in a second season episode, and also more extensively in a dream sequence in a ninth season two-parter called "Don Juan In Hell". The character is seen 'for real', as it were, in the February 1996 episode called "The Show Where Diane Comes Back". In this episode, it's revealed that Diane's TV writing career continued after the events of Cheers, and she worked her way to a staff writing position on the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman is an American post-Civil War western/drama series created by Beth Sullivan. Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn, played by Jane Seymour, left Boston in search of adventure. She goes to Colorado Springs, Colorado where she establishes herself as doctor/adviser.The show ran on CBS...
. She continued to be successful, living in a large Malibu beach house, and was in a seemingly stable two-year relationship. However, sometime in late 1995, she was fired from the TV show for accidentally setting star Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour (actress)
Jane Seymour, OBE is an English actress best known for her performances in the James Bond film Live and Let Die , East of Eden , Onassis: The Richest Man in the World , and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman...
's hair on fire while trying to show her how to cauterize a wound with a branding iron.
Several months after that incident, Diane had lost her beach house and her relationship came to an end. She then travelled to Seattle to supervise the production of a play she had written called "Rhapsody and Requiem". The play turned out to be a very-thinly disguised roman a clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
about her time at Cheers, and her feelings for both Sam and Frasier, with her character as "Mary Anne
Mary Sue
A Mary Sue , in literary criticism and particularly in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader...
". In the episode, Frasier and Diane reconcile over her jilting him at the altar.
Diane's subconscious attraction to Sam Malone is also seen in that episode; she is seen kissing and having an affair with the actor that plays Sam in her play based on her life at Cheers. In "Don Juan in Hell", an imaginary Diane is still obsessed with Sam and she is seen painting a portrait of him.