Rebecca Howe

Rebecca Howe
Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe
Portrayed by	Kirstie Alley
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Manager/Waitress

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. Much of the show's humor had been based around the interaction and sexual tension between the womanizing, working-class main character, bartender Sam Malone, and the high-class, snobby Diane. Rebecca was intended to fill the gap as Sam's new female foil. While Diane was known to be intellectual, old-fashioned, and snobbish; Rebecca was portrayed as the "lovable loser" business manager, who was unlucky in her career and relationships.

Rebecca appeared in 147 episodes of Cheers between 1987-1993. She also appeared briefly in the season four Wings episode titled "I Love Brian." With the exception of the late Nicholas Colasanto, Alley is the only Cheers regular cast member who never reprised her role in the spin-off series Frasier.

Casting

Shelley Long's departure

In December 15, 1986, Shelley Long decided to no longer be a permanent cast of Cheers as Diane Chambers, which concluded the Sam and Diane storyline that ran for five years until 1987. The creators in February 1987 decided to find a female lead replacement whose hair is not blonde and who does not resemble Shelley Long.

An original concept of Rebecca Howe was the executive businesswoman, who was intended for the "love-hate" relationship with the ex-athlete, Sam Malone, inspired by works about "mixture of romance and antagonism of two people, [portrayed by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn], in a competitive situation." The concept evolved into a relationship between Malone and pretentious, college-educated waitress Diane Chambers. After Shelley Long's departure, the concept was reverted back to the original concept with Alley as Rebecca Howe.

Character overview

Rebecca Howe enters Cheers as the manager assigned by the bar's new corporate franchise owner. Rebecca is eager to please her bosses 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 she soon lowers her guard, revealing herself to be clumsy and neurotic. Over the course of the series, Rebecca becomes close friends with the Cheers gang.

In the episode "Paint Your Office", Rebecca reveals to Sam that she was born in San Diego and is one of the four children of a Navy officer. She mentions in the same episode that one of her two brothers is a surgeon. In the "Last Angry Mailman" we learn that she went to the University of Connecticut, where she was viewed as a party girl (she was given the name "Backseat Becky"). She has a sister, Susan, an 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 drives a custom Mercedes-Benz. After boss Evan Drake's departure, Rebecca is fired from the Lillian Corporation and Sam is promoted to manager. She gets rehired as a junior waitress with a considerable pay cut. She at first disagrees with the terms, but then resumes work so she can pay for her new vehicle. Rebecca's boss is replaced yet again. This time her boss is interested in her and decides to reassign Rebecca as manager.

Arguably, Rebecca's most prominent story line was throughout seasons 8 & 9, where she dated multi-millionaire Robin Colcord. Robin was often condescending, rude, and even dangerous 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 Norm 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 is given his bar back by the Lillian corporation in return for saving the company. When Rebecca discovers this she confronts Sam in his office, and after a heated argument the two make love for the first time. Robin enters the room after they've had sex and Rebecca lies to him assuring him that nothing happened. Robin later pleads guilty for his charges, losing all his money, and goes to prison. In season 9, Rebecca gets fired again by the corporation, while at the same time Sam buys the bar back. Shortly thereafter, Sam hires her to run the day-to-day operation of Cheers. Once Robin 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!" Robin suggests a hypothetical situation in which Robin has money stashed away, but Rebecca thinks he is bluffing. After hearing this, Robin promptly pulls his hidden money belt from out of the 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. John also orders Sam to pay unreasonable rent both in expense and in due date. One time Rebecca fled to her father's house in tears, so she receives a bribe from her father and helps Sam buy back half of Cheers, resulting in their co-owning the bar. In Season 11, it is revealed that she also became the super of her apartment complex.

Rebecca has many ideas on how to improve Cheers, most of which end poorly. In one instance, she starts a tearoom where she serves chili. The chili makes her tearoom a success, 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. Towards the end of the show, she does minimal work. Whenever she tried to complete a task, it would end up in disaster such as spilling drinks and breaking the glasses which she would leave on the floor. She is unable to mail the liquor license renewal in time, and spends an entire evening bending the rules. She also decided to leave the door flap to the bar counter closed as much as possible. One time she accidentally slammed it open, and all of the glasses fell off the shelf. At the beginning of season 11, Rebecca's cigarette causes an enormous fire, which results in Rebecca using her life savings to repair Cheers.

Rebecca constantly throws herself at the feet of rich men, first Evan Drake and then Robin Colcord, but she slept with Sam again when the two of them decided to conceive a child together. In the penultimate episode, Rebecca meets a plumber named Don Santry (played by Tom Berenger), whom she marries in the series finale. She then resigns from Cheers to devote more time to her husband and start a family. Later, in an episode of the Cheers spinoff Frasier, 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."

Bibliography

• Harmetz, Alijean. "Changes on tap at `Cheers'." The Ledger [Lakeland, FL] 23 Sep. 1987: 1C+. Google News. Web. 27 Jan. 2012.