Rebecca Howe-Sandtry is a fictional character on the
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
show
CheersCheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with Paramount Television for NBC, having been created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...
, portrayed by
Kirstie AlleyKirsten Louise "Kirstie" 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 as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for 1991....
. She is introduced after
Shelley LongShelley Lee Long is an American actress.-Early life:Long was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana at 7:00 A.M. on Tuesday, August 23, 1949. The daughter of Evandine, a school teacher, and Leland Long, who worked in the rubber industry before becoming a teacher...
, who played overeducated barmaid
Diane ChambersDiane 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...
, left to pursue a movie career. Much of the show's humor had been based around the interaction and sexual tension between the womanizing, working-class main character, bartender
Sam MaloneSam "Mayday" Malone is a character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Ted Danson. The central character of the series, Sam was a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team who owned Cheers and tended bar there. He was a recovering alcoholic and...
, and the high-class, snobby Diane. Rebecca was intended to fill the gap as Sam's new female foil.
Rebecca appeared in 147 episodes of Cheers between 1987-1993.
Rebecca Howe-Sandtry is a fictional character on the
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
show
CheersCheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for eleven seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions in association with Paramount Television for NBC, having been created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...
, portrayed by
Kirstie AlleyKirsten Louise "Kirstie" 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 as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for 1991....
. She is introduced after
Shelley LongShelley Lee Long is an American actress.-Early life:Long was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana at 7:00 A.M. on Tuesday, August 23, 1949. The daughter of Evandine, a school teacher, and Leland Long, who worked in the rubber industry before becoming a teacher...
, who played overeducated barmaid
Diane ChambersDiane 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...
, left to pursue a movie career. Much of the show's humor had been based around the interaction and sexual tension between the womanizing, working-class main character, bartender
Sam MaloneSam "Mayday" Malone is a character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Ted Danson. The central character of the series, Sam was a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team who owned Cheers and tended bar there. He was a recovering alcoholic and...
, and the high-class, snobby Diane. Rebecca was intended to fill the gap as Sam's new female foil.
Rebecca appeared in 147 episodes of Cheers between 1987-1993. She also appeared briefly in the season four
WingsWings was an American sitcom that ran on NBC from April 19, 1990, to May 21, 1997. Starring Tim Daly and Steven Weber as brothers Joe and Brian Hackett, the show was set at the fictional “Tom Nevers Field” airport, a small airport in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where the Hackett brothers operated...
episode titled "I Love Brian."
Character overview
Rebecca Howe enters
Cheers as the manager assigned by the bar's new corporate owner. Rebecca is eager to please her bosses (see "
The Gift of the Woodi"The Gift of the Woodi" is the episode from the seventh season of the American television series Cheers in which the character Woody Boyd sings the memorable Kelly Song to his girlfriend. The title is in reference to "The Gift of the Magi" written by O. Henry.-Plot outline:Rebecca Howe determines...
" episode) and move up the corporate ladder, although the atmosphere of the
Cheers bar is like purgatory to her. She is initially presented as a tough, no-nonsense corporate type ("this one eats live sharks" Carla comments) but her façade soon drops, revealing her neurotic and clumsy tendencies.
In the episode "Paint Your Office" Rebecca reveals to Sam Malone that she was born in San Diego and is one of the four children of a Navy officer. In the "Last Angry Mailman" we learn that she went to the University of Connecticut where she was viewed as a party girl.
Rebecca is fired from the Lillian Corporation at the same time Sam gets the bar back from the corporation. Sam keeps Rebecca on staff as a "hired babe," technically as a waitress, though she is practically never seen waiting tables. Shortly thereafter, Sam hires her to run the day-to-day operation of Cheers. She has a cigarette addiction, which causes an enormous fire, which results in Rebecca using her life savings to repair Cheers.
Arguably, Rebecca's most prominent story line was throughout seasons 8 & 9, where she dated multi-millionaire
Robin ColcordRobin Colcord, is a character on the American television show Cheers, portrayed by Roger Rees.Robin was a multi-millionaire industrialist, who spent most of his time on Cheers as a love interest for the gold-digging Rebecca Howe...
. Robin was often condescending and rude to the rest of the Cheers gang, making him disliked. He even cheated on Rebecca with other women, stating not being able to decide on which one to settle with, but Rebecca stayed loyal because Robin stated she was "in the lead." At the end of season 8; Rebecca, Sam, and
NormHillary 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....
discover Robin had been dating Rebecca to gain insider information on the Lillian Corporation. After Sam turns Robin in to the police for Rebecca's safety, he returns to profess his love to her. Robin pleads guilty for his charges, losing all his money, and goes to prison. Once he is released, he proposes matrimony and she accepts. However, on their wedding day, Rebecca calls off the wedding, telling Robin "I only loved you for your money!" After hearing this, Robin promptly pulls his hidden money belt from out of Sam's office full of six million dollars. Robin leaves Rebecca, as she wallows in despair.
After her fiasco with Robin, Rebecca decides to buy back the bar for herself, after John Allen Hill, their upstairs neighbor, becomes the new owner of Melville's Fine Sea Food. Mr. Hill also becomes a rival of Sam Malone, and he obtains half of Cheers, forcing Sam to pay rent in addition to using Cheers as the waiting lounge of Melville's. Rebecca receives an allowance from her father and helps Sam buy back half of Cheers, resulting in their co-owning the bar. She also becomes the
superA building superintendent or building supervisor is a manager responsible for repair and maintenance in a residential building. They are the first point of contact for residents of the building. They are expected to take care of minor issues and repairs, such as small leaks or blockages...
of her apartment complex.
Rebecca has had many ideas on how to improve Cheers, most of which that ended poorly. One instance, she has a tea room, where she serves chili. The chili provides success to her tea room, but Sam misuses the chili cooker, resulting in a huge explosion and a gigantic hole in the wall. She responds by smashing the windows of Sam's Corvette.
She has a sister Susan, a movie actress. When Susan comes to visit, Sam tries playing each of the women against the other, for his own advantage—until Rebecca and Susan compare notes. They stage a confrontation in the bar's office, in which Rebecca takes a pistol and shoots her sister six times, sending Sam into a state of shock. He gets his comeuppance when the "deceased" Susan, whom he has dragged out into the main bar area, says "I'm dead!" and Carla, Woody, Frasier, Lilith, Cliff, and Norm stand up inside the bar area to witness Sam's humiliation.
Rebecca constantly throws herself at the feet of rich men, first
Evan DrakeEvan Gregory Drake is a recurring character on the television series Cheers, portrayed by Tom Skerritt. Appearing as Rebecca Howe's boss when she was first introduced in 1987, it was revealed that she had an unrequited crush on him for years before she started working at Cheers, and she wanted...
and then Robin Colcord, but she eventually sleeps with Sam when the two of them decide to conceive a child together. In the penultimate episode, Rebecca meets a plumber named Don Santry (played by
Tom BerengerTom Berenger is an American actor known mainly for his roles in action films.-Early life:Berenger was born as Thomas Michael Moore in Chicago to an Irish Catholic family. Berenger's father was a printer for the Chicago Sun-Times. Berenger has a sister, Susan...
), whom she marries in the series finale. Later, in an episode of the
Cheers spinoff
FrasierFrasier is an American sitcom 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 Paramount Television.A spin-off from Cheers, Frasier stars Kelsey Grammer as psychiatrist...
, Sam visits Frasier and tells him that Don left Rebecca after making a fortune on a plumbing-related invention, and that Rebecca was "back at the bar." When Frasier asks if that meant she was working at Cheers again, Sam replies, "No, she's just back at the bar."