CHEERS, KIRSTIE!

The death of sitcom sweetheart Kirstie Alley has been greeted with an outpouring of sadness. We take a look back at her often controversial life

- MAXINE PETERS

MAKING your way in the world today takes everything you've got. So, began the theme song to Cheers, the beloved '80s show that made her famous and it's a line that fitted her as well as the bikini she regretted wearing on the Oprah show.

Kirstie Alley went from house cleaner to sitcom darling to movie star and all the way to almost zero again.

She was ridiculed for putting on weight, vilified for being a Donald Trump supporter, and scorned for being a Scientologist. But each time she put on her big girl panties and just kept going.

So, when news broke earlier this month that she'd died, there was an outpouring of sadness. Poke fun at her all you like, but Kirstie was one of a kind. That smoky voice, that throaty laugh, and that comic timing were as comforting and kooky as any episode of Cheers.

Ted Danson, who played Sam in the sitcom, says that by chance he watched an episode of the show on the day she died. "Kirstie was truly brilliant in it. Her ability to play a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown was both moving and hysterically funny. As I got off the plane, I heard she'd died.

"I'm so sad and so grateful for all the times she made me laugh. I send my love to her children. Their mother had a heart of gold.

Her children, True (30) and Lillie Parker (28), posted a heartrending message after their 71-year-old mother died of colon cancer - a disease few knew she had.

"As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother [to True's six-year-old son, Waylon]. She leaves us inspired to live life to the fullest, just as she did."