Emmy award-winning actress Shelley Long was spotted talking a mid-day fall stroll a day after her former Cheers co-star, George Wendt, was pictured being wheeled out of a dialysis clinic.
The 75-year-old star, best known as the ditzy barmaid Diane Chambers on the TV sitcom Cheers, strolled alongside a male friend in the Los Angeles neighborhood as they walked a small white dog on November 20.
The adorable pup’s leash was strapped to the belt loop of her pal’s black jeans. He also wore a black vest, a navy blue button-up shirt and a black cowboy hat.
Long wore a blinged-out gray baseball cap, a gray L.L. Bean zip-up, a black turtleneck and gray sweatpants.
The sighting occurred a day after 76-year-old Wendt was spotted in Sherman Oaks a day earlier being rolled out of a local medical dialysis facility in a wheelchair with a visibly frail appearance.
The specifics of Wendt’s recent or current health struggles remain private, but the actor was known to have suffered a health scare back in 2012 when he was hospitalized with chest pains.
Actress Shelley Long, 75, was spotted smiling during a mid-day fall stroll with a male friend in the Los Angeles neighborhood on November 20
Long sported a casual look including a blinged-out gray baseball cap, a gray LL Bean zip-up, a black turtleneck and gray sweatpants
Her Cheers co-star George Wendt, 76, was spotted in Sherman Oaks on November 19 being rolled out of a local medical dialysis facility in a wheelchair with a visibly frail appearance
Wendt and Long have been connected since their time on Cheers together in 1982. Wendt played the role of the bar regular Norm Peterson, who had the running gag that he was so popular that anytime he walked through the bar’s doors, everyone would yell out his name in greeting.
Long’s character Diane Chambers would deviate from this gag slightly by yelling out moments after everyone else his whole first name: ‘Norman!’
They would reunite on screen in the 2012 Lifetime original Christmas film Merry-in-Laws, where Long played Mrs. Claus and Wendt played Santa.
In an interview with Channel Guide, Long said that she had to do the film when she found out Wendt would also be in it.
‘This was meant to be,’ she added.
The actress said this holiday movie had bonded them further – the amount of time she was on screen during her time on Cheers didn’t present her the opportunity to bond with the majority of her castmates, she explained.
Long and her unknown male friend walking a small, fluffy dog in the Los Angeles neighborhood
Wendt and Long (middle right) have been connected since their time on Cheers together, back in 1982. Wendt played the role of the bar regular Norm Peterson (right) while Long played ditzy barmaid Diane Chambers
‘But I think I embarrassed him more than once. Because before I discovered this — before I thickly realized that maybe George is more shy than we think — looking back on it, I probably wouldn’t have pulled some of the tricks.
‘He was being very quiet and I was thinking, ‘I have to liven things up here!’ — because it was that kind of movie. But I think that he still enjoyed what I was doing.
‘Forgive me, George, if this is all wrong. But he’s a sweetie, of course — and I would have been a little more discrete with my antics.’
Long was known for being the on-and-off love interest of main character, former Red Sox relief pitcher, Sam Malone, played by Emmy-winner Ted Danson
During her time on Cheers, Long’s character Diane was an academic-focused graduate student attending Boston University, who used her memorization skills to accurately deal with drink orders.
She also was the on-and-off love interest of main character, former Red Sox relief pitcher, Sam Malone, played by Emmy-winner Ted Danson.
Their on-screen chemistry ‘only made the writing better,’ co-creator James Burrows told an audience at the Cheers reunion on June 2, 2023.
Long would win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work as Diane in 1983, and would be nominated five more times during her run on the show.
She also won two Golden Globe Awards in 1982 and 1983 for Best Supporting Actress for a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and Best Actress in a Motion Picture for a Musical or Comedy.
But Long would quit the show in season five with hopes of moving onto the big screen – she also felt that the character had run its course.
She reprised her Cheers role to appear as a guest character on Frasier opposite on-screen love interest Kelsey Grammer.
Her leaving could also be indicative of the tension between the show’s producers and her, as Grammer wrote in his 1995 biography, So Far, that Shelley was unpopular with producers on Cheers.
He also claimed producers grew tired of her constant complaints about his own character and plotlines.
Long would quit the show in season five with hopes of moving onto the big screen – she also felt that the character had run its course
Long was mysteriously absent on the Emmys stage on January 16 where her former Cheers co-stars, including Wendt, reunited around a recreated set of the show’s iconic bar
But the issues seemed to have reconciled, despite Grammars’ claims, as she returned to the show in 1993 for the series finale – an episode that brought her another Emmy nomination.
Strangely, Long was mysteriously absent on the Emmys’ stage last January when her former Cheers co-stars, including Wendt, reunited around a recreated set of the show’s iconic bar.
Long’s career didn’t quite pan out to the heights of the Hollywood blockbusters, but she still starred in a couple of hit movies such as The Money Pit (1986), Troop Beverly Hills (1989), Hello Again (1987) and The Brady Bunch Movie (1995).
Her most recent notable work was as DeDe Pritchett the insane ex-wife of Jay Pritchett in the show Modern Family, which she played for eight episodes.
Long currently resides in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles and keeps a low profile, rarely coming out of her house, according to her neighbors.
