Goodbye Kirstie (1951-2022)

I don’t like obituaries. They tend to be mere pro forma exercises, a kind of duty one feels bound to perform. They rarely sound sincere. Maybe one cannot put into words true emotion when it is simmering inside one’s heart like smoldering embers. Or, sometimes, they’re the cold and cruel reminders that our objects of desire, our fantasies, are real persons, living in the real world like the rest of us. Sometimes insufferable, sometimes suffering.

Kirstie Alley was one of those persons. One of those objects of desire. I don’t have much to say about her as an actress, although she was always delicious to watch in any role. In my mind she’ll forever be Rebecca Howe of Cheers, so funny and lively, and full of life. So utterly sexy. Oh yes, Kirstie Alley was an incredibly sexy woman. And she was one of the actresses that filled my teenage years with wild imaginings. Strangely, however, despite her amazing body, it was her breathtaking beauty that captivated me the most. Her exquisite, feline face, her incredible grey eyes, and that sultry, warm, raspberry voice.

I fell in love with her long before I saw her in Cheers. Her beauty had caught my attention when she was playing Virgilia Hazard in North and South (1985-1986), and then in 1984’s RUNAWAY , which I caught later on satellite TV, on a wonderful summer night, somewhere in 1986 or 1987. After that, after Cheers got to an end and she starred in LOOK WHO’S TALKING (1989) and it’s sequels, I lost track of her. Babies are not my thing, alas, even if they’re talking babies. In a somewhat misguided way it was for the better: my infatuation with Kirstie Alley endured throughout the Eighties, and dissipated with the arrival of the Nineties.

From the glorious Eighties comes a minor masterpiece by Niko Mastorakis, the film where Kirstie looks more luminous than ever: BLIND DATE (1984). It is impossible for any red-blooded male to watch that movie and not fall in love with Kirstie Alley, so young, joyous and full of life. By not following her career after the end of Cheers, I’ll forever remember her as she was then, an indelible memory of fun and joy that I ritually rekindle now and then with a dip into my DVD collection.

So here’s to you, Kirstie Alley, in loving memory. Cheers!