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Rebecca Howe is the manager of Cheers, from seasons six through eleven. She is played by the late Kirstie Alley.

Character[]

Elements of her back story are revealed over several years. She was born in San Diego, one of four children. Rebecca's father (Robert Prosky) is an ex-Navy man and her mother was a concert cellist. Rebecca's sister Susan (Marcia Cross) is an actress and former Miss San Diego who has stolen her past boyfriends. Revealed in The Last Angry Mailman (1987), Rebecca was nicknamed "Backseat Becky" for her behavior as a party girl, while at the University of Connecticut.

Series arc[]

When Sam sells the bar at the end of the fifth season to sail around the world, the Lillian Corporation buys the bar. Rebecca is appointed manager and corporate suggests that hiring back Sam as a bartender is an auspicious business move at the start of the sixth season. Originally Rebecca comes off as calm, cool and collected, but is gradually seen to be as neurotic as the rest of the characters on the show. She is career-minded to the point of selfish at times, as seen in Bar Wars VII: Naked Prey, where she puts her career ahead of Woody's life.

Upon meeting Sam for the first time, her reaction to him is negative and she frequently rejects his advances. It is eventually revealed that Rebecca is attracted to her boss, Evan Drake, and goes to great lengths to get his attention, to no avail. At the end of the season, Evan departs Boston for Japan with his lover, forcing Rebecca to let him go. Following Evan's departure, his successor demotes Rebecca and promotes Sam to manager. In the intervening time, she does occasional waitressing at the bar before eventually getting her job back. 

In the eighth season, Rebecca becomes involved with Robin Colcord, an English multi-millionaire industrialist. However, she and Sam discover that Robin embezzled from The Lillian Corporation and was sent to prison. Lillian lost interest in Cheers, sold it to Sam for pennies on the dollar, and ended up firing Rebecca (though Sam ends up reinstating her). After Robin is sent to jail, Rebecca finally falls for Sam, and the two have sex in the Cheers office, leaving it wrecked. Rebecca later confessed to Sam it was one of the most powerful moments in her life. However, the affair is short-lived because Sam becomes complacent about it.

After being fired from Lillian, she gets a job doing TV commercials. In the episode Rebecca Redux, Sam immediately needs help and so hired Earl to run Cheers. Sam meets Rebecca at her work and they eventually confess how much they miss each other. Sam has a talk with Earl and Earl agrees to look for another job. Earl even breaks the news to his adoring customers so Sam does not have to. But the moment Sam opens the door, he is confronted by an angry Norm Peterson.

Later in season 9, Robin is eventually released from jail and proposes to Rebecca, and she accepts. In The Days of Wine and Neuroses, Rebecca becomes drunk and confesses that she is questioning her feelings for Robin now that he has lost much of his fortune. In the following episode, Rebecca jilts Robin at their wedding and tells him, "I only loved you for your money!" Robin leaves her, retrieving a stash of $6 million hidden in the bar office under Rebecca's desk. At the end of season 9, Rebecca set a goal to buy Cheers from Sam. This tied into the story arc of John Allen Hill, who was also trying to take over Cheers. In Crash of the Titans, Rebecca decided to settle for purchasing from Hill, which resulted in a minority ownership. Occasionally she had ideas to expand Cheers. In Cheers Has Chili, she decided to add a Tea Room, which was ruined by Sam. In License to Hill, she reorganized the bar area, not knowing that if the door slammed it will cause the wine glasses to crash from the ceiling.

In the first half of Season 10, Rebecca and Sam try to conceive a child together but both soon realize that they do not have romantic feelings for each other and decide to remain friends. Prior to this, in I'm Okay, You're Defective, Rebecca had suggested that she and Sam get checked by a fertility clinic. Rebecca finds out that there is nothing wrong with her, while Sam's result is unknown due to Carla switching the papers with Frasier's will and burning them.

In season 11, one of Rebecca's cigarettes accidentally causes an enormous fire at Cheers, and she remorsefully uses her life savings to repair the bar. In Look Before You Sleep, it is revealed that she is the building superintendent at her residence. In The Guy Can't Help It, the penultimate episode of the series, Rebecca meets a plumber named Don Santry. She initially rejects his advances until Frasier advises her to give Don a chance.

In the final episode, Rebecca and Don get married, though Rebecca later admits to the others that she regrets it and feels Don is too good for her. However, Rebecca becomes happier with it when it is revealed Don got a job with the sewer department. After bidding farewell to the rest of the Cheers group, she leaves for her honeymoon with Don.

Her final lines are:

Rebecca: Ironic, isn't it? I shoot for Donald Trump and I end up with Ed Norton.

Frasier: But you did good.

Rebecca: I did, didn't I? *giggles and leaves Cheers* 

Post Series[]

She is mentioned in Frasier, when Sam tells Frasier that Rebecca is yet again "back at the bar" since Don Santry left her after gaining wealth from "a new patent for a low-flow toilet thing". Don later died in a plumbing-related accident, and shortly afterwards Rebecca married an Air Force officer by the name of Will Stanton, who happens to be related to Cliff Clavin.

Appearances outside of Cheers[]

Mickey's 60th Birthday (1988)

The Earth Day Special (1990)

Wings:S4E17-I Love Brian (1993)

Trivia[]

  • Rebecca is the only main character to not appear on Frasier.
  • The image in this show's opening credits that appears when Kirstie Alley's name is on the screen, was taken circa 1895 in Springfield, Massachusetts by the Howe brothers, known for their imagery of American workers.
  • The episode Paint Your Office is the only time in which Rebecca says the opening line to the show: "Cheers is filmed before a live studio audience."
  • Rebecca makes one appearance on an episode of Wings, which is set in the same universe as Cheers.

Gallery[]

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