Emmy Award-Winning Actress. Best-Selling Author. Dancing with the Stars Season 12 Champion?
Kirstie Alley shocked and delighted fans when her first dance, a Cha Cha to Cee Lo Green’s Forget You went off without a hitch. Whizzing around the floor with enough charisma and charm for ten dancers, the 60-year-old proved that she has what it takes to be a competitor.
Kirstie Alley shocked and delighted fans when her first dance, a Cha Cha to Cee Lo Green’s Forget You went off without a hitch. Whizzing around the floor with enough charisma and charm for ten dancers, the 60-year-old proved that she has what it takes to be a competitor.
Emmy-award winning actress and Dancing with the Stars fan favorite Kirstie Alley was born Kirstie Louise Deal in Wichita, Kansas on January 12, 1951. The second of three children to Lillian (Mickie) and Robert, Kirstie’s very first acting role was at age 6 when she was the sun in a school play. She didn’t show much interest in the profession, however, until she became an adult. Kirstie was pretty much your typical Midwest teenager…high school cheerleader, wild child, boy chaser. You get the idea.
The actress, writer and producer picked up her now-famous surname at the age of 19 when she eloped with high school sweetheart Robert Alley in 1971 while studying drama at Kansas State University. After dropping out of college and divorcing Robert in 1977, Kirstie moved to California and started a career as an interior decorator, but was sidetracked by a wild party scene and developed a dangerous cocaine addiction.
1981 brought a defining moment in Kirstie’s life when Mickie and Robert were hit by a drunk driver. Mickie was killed and Robert was left seriously injured. Instead of spiraling further out of control, Kirstie decided to make some drastic changes in her life for the better. She entered Narcanon (a drug rehabilitation program), became a Scientologist and decided that she wanted to be an actress.
The actress, writer and producer picked up her now-famous surname at the age of 19 when she eloped with high school sweetheart Robert Alley in 1971 while studying drama at Kansas State University. After dropping out of college and divorcing Robert in 1977, Kirstie moved to California and started a career as an interior decorator, but was sidetracked by a wild party scene and developed a dangerous cocaine addiction.
1981 brought a defining moment in Kirstie’s life when Mickie and Robert were hit by a drunk driver. Mickie was killed and Robert was left seriously injured. Instead of spiraling further out of control, Kirstie decided to make some drastic changes in her life for the better. She entered Narcanon (a drug rehabilitation program), became a Scientologist and decided that she wanted to be an actress.
While, Kirstie struggled to get acting jobs she appeared as a contestant on Match Game PM where she took home $6000 and Password Plus where she earned $800. Her first big break, though came when she scored the role of Lt. Saavik in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982. The film was the highest grossing film at the time and Kirstie’s star began to rise (she even has her own action figure).
Around this time, Kirstie fell hard for former Hardy Boy Parker Stevenson. The two eloped on December 22, 1983.
Throughout the early 1980’s, Kirstie worked steadily acting in movies and guest starring on television shows. Most notably, she was a scene-stealer as Virgilia Hazard Grady in the TV miniseries North and South (1985) and its sequel North and South Book II (1986). Alley became a bona fide star when she was cast as the neurotic Rebecca Howe on Cheers alongside Ted Danson in 1987. During her six year run on the prime time sitcom, Kirstie earned five Emmy nominations and four Golden Globe nominations. Two of those nominations turned into trophies for Kirstie when she took home both the Emmy and the Golden Globe in 1991, as well as that year’s People’s Choice Award for Favorite Television Performer.
Kirstie made a splash on the big screen in 1989, as Mollie in the comedy Look Who’s Talking opposite her bestie John Travolta. Critics bashed it, but audiences loved it. The film made $140 mil at the box office and two blockbuster sequels followed, Look Who’s Talking Too and Look Who’s Talking Now (1990 and 1993, respectively).
With professional success came personal heartache. In 1992, Kirstie suffered a miscarriage and was told that she may not be able to have children. Determined to have a family of her own, Kirstie and Parker adopted William True that same year. In 1994, the couple adopted a daughter, Lillie Price.
After Cheers ended in 1993, Kirstie continued to make films and TV movies throughout the rest of the decade. Silver screen highlights include: Village of the Damned, It Takes Two (with the Olsen Twins and Steve Guttenberg), For Richer or Poorer (with Tim Allen), and Drop Dead Gorgeous (with a bunch of people). On the small screen, she earned another Emmy and Golden Globe set for her dramatic chops in Brian’s Mom and another nomination for her supporting role in The Last Don.
In 1997, Kirstie and Parker Stevenson ended their 14-year marriage (and get this: she reportedly had to pay him $6 million because he demanded spousal support).
Kirstie bounced back and returned to the sitcom world as the executive producer and titular character of Veronica’s Closet from 1997-2000. The People’s Choice Award came home with Kirstie once again in 1998 when she won Favorite Female Performer in a new Television Series. VC also garnered Kirstie Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. After Veronica’s Closet was cancelled in 2000, Kirstie continued to work, making TV movies.
Unfortunately, in the years that followed, Kirstie’s weight began to grab more attention than her talent. Anyone else would have buckled under the tabloids’ relentless scrutiny, but Kirstie decided to turn the tables and use her new figure to her advantage by poking fun at herself in Showtime’s Fat Actress (2005). By playing a sort of parody of herself and making jokes about eating disorders, Kirstie stirred up a little bit of controversy but it only added fuel to her ever-growing fire. After Fat Actress, Jenny Craig asked Kirstie to be their national spokeswoman and then she also penned her best-selling memoir, How to Lose Your Ass and Regain Your Life: Reluctant Confessions of a Big-Butted Star.
By November of 2006, Kirstie had lost 75 pounds and decided to show off a new figure on the highest rated The Oprah Winfrey Show of the season wearing a bikini and “stripper hose”. Her success was short lived, however, as she put back on more weight than she had initially lost after parting ways with Jenny Craig in 2009.
While filming Kirstie Alley’s Big Life for A&E, Kirstie developed her own weight loss system, Organic Liaison. To date, the star has lost more than 50 pounds on the program and hopes to lose even more on Dancing with the Stars. Whatever the number on the scale, fans will always adore Kirstie for her humor, honesty and take-no-prisoners determination.
No comments:
Post a Comment