Kirstie Alley Weight Loss Biography
In "The Case Against Biography," Michael Holroyd plays devil's advocate to all those who dismiss, demean, or devalue the genre. "First," he announces, "comes the biographer who writes about the very famous, either the living or the warm dead. This class of biographer keeps company with film stars, murderers and the royal family."1 "They trade on other people's miseries, dine out on their tragedies, and make the trivial perpetually portentous" (4-5). Originating from the eighteenth century, they remain "the most newsworthy biographers of our own day and perhaps the easiest to attack. Fat sitting ducks" (4-5). Celebrity biographers are indeed everywhere, plying their trade in books, in tabloid newspapers and gossip magazines, on entertainment television shows, and, most recently, online. From the mid-1990s, when the internet began its steady domination of popular culture to the present, websites like People.com, etonline.com and biography.com have proliferated. Devoted to the public and professional as well as the private and personal lives of celebrities, they can now comfortably be referred to as a genre in their own right: online celebrity biography.
There has been a further explosion of blogs focusing on the lives of film and television stars, athletes, musicians, politicians, models, and those increasingly ubiquitous figures who are, in Daniel Boorstin's terms, "known for [their] well-knownness" (79). Numbered in the hundreds if not thousands, these blogs constitute their own subgenre: the celebrity bio blog. Examples include sites such as those posted and maintained by media corporations and their in-house bloggers like AOL's TMZ.com and Gawker Media's Gawker.com and Defamer.com as well as by independent bloggers such as Jezebel.com, celebitchy.com, jossip.com, and Pinkisthenewblog.com. Blogger.com defines a blog as "a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world" ("Blog"). Blogs are [End Page 53] "where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not." Since 1999, when Blogger.com was created, "blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others." Blogs have also "reshaped," "impacted," and "shaken up" the genre of biography, stimulating new areas for critical and theoretical inquiry. One celebrity bio blogger and his eponymous (pseudonymous) website has become synonymous with the genre: Perezhilton.com. Hilton, whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., created what is surely the most infamous, innovative, and lucrative of bio blogs to date. Although dozens of reviews of Perezhilton.com and celebrity profiles of Hilton have been circulating in cyberspace and other media over the past few years, none of these commentaries has contextualized Hilton's blog within a tradition of biography or considered him as a member of a specifically biographical profession, as I will do here.
Begun in September 2004, and initially called "PageSixSixSix," Hilton's blog intended, inauspiciously enough, to "comment," according to Hilton, "on pop culture, like you would with your friends" (Lecaro). Now thirty-two years old, Hilton has always been obsessed with celebrity culture, living out his childhood in Miami in front of a TV screen—a position his parents happily indulged—before shifting his attention as a young adult to a computer screen. His rise within the blogosphere is "already the stuff of legend": at eighteen he went to NYU on a full scholarship to study theatre, where he began for the first time to speak openly about being gay. Upon graduation he moved to Los Angeles, tried unsuccessfully to make it as an actor, and took various jobs, including reporting for Star magazine but was soon fired. It was at this time that he launched "PageSixSixSix," the blog that became so well-known that it attracted the attention of the New York Post, which sued him in March 2005 for infringing on the copyright of its own, original gossip blog "Page Six" (Hedegaard). But as Japhy Grant reports, "the lawsuit only made his site more popular, and employment offers from Us Weekly and InTouch followed, though he decided it was more lucrative to focus solely on the blog." He was forced, of course, to change its name. According to Francisco Alvarado, "While Lavandeira was visiting his mother in Miami, inspiration for a new name struck during a night of partying on South Beach. He and some friends hit three or four venues, where they were told Paris Hilton would be making appearances." However, "[w]hen the hotel heiress was nowhere to be found, Lavandeira told his friends they were more likely to run into 'Perez Hilton.' And thus [End Page 54] 'the trashtastic Cuban cousin of Paris and Nicky,' in Lavandeira's words, was born."
My analysis of Perezhilton.com that follows is predicated on the conviction that "trashtastic" though it may be, the blog is certainly worthy of our academic consideration. Holroyd concludes "The Case Against Biography" by promising to investigate how his "fellow biographers would defend themselves" in light of the charges laid against them, "what claims for biography they would make, and in what style they might launch their counter-attack" (9). Launching my own investigation, I want to consider how Hilton slides into place in a historically long line of biographers and can be understood as participating in a tradition dating from the seventeenth century in which the biographical subject has variously been apprehended along a continuum that ranges from hagiography to pathography. Hilton offers us an ongoing group or collective biography of contemporary celebrities and celebrity culture grounded in such a tradition. Further, I want to suggest that Hilton wages a "counter-attack" on Holroyd's imagined "critics" via an agenda that has helped to define and continues to redefine the ways in which the intersections of journalism, gossip, technology, fan culture, and life writing produce a new kind of celebrity biography. His blend of textual, graphic, aural, and oral narratives about and by his celebrity subjects; his engagement with his readers as well as the readers' own participation in his blog; his auto/biographical inscriptions and performances both within and linked to the site; and his use of advertising all signal a new biography that is interactively mediated by biographer, subjects, readers, and the marketplace.
Perezhilton.com testifies in particular to our obsession with celebrities, and whether or not we are interested in or entertained by their comings and goings that we cannot escape their cultural force. Nor can we hold ourselves entirely removed from the practice which drives the blog—gossiping—because as scholars like Patricia Meyer Spacks, Robert F. Goodman, Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, John Morreall, and Roger Wilkes have insisted of late, gossiping is an intrinsic feature of what it means to be human in both individual and communal terms. Gossip, which is talk about a subject who is not present, always assumes an air of familiarity and is traditionally a face-to-face exchange between two or three friends but is increasingly understood as a dialogue (oral and or textual) between TV talk shows and their audiences; tabloid magazines and their readers; and, more recently of course, blogs and bloggers. Spacks notes in Gossip that gossip can be both good and bad and is, therefore, always ambiguous. However one takes it though, she urges, "the sheer bulk of five centuries' commentary on gossip suggests a phenomenon worth taking seriously" [End Page 55] (26). Most pointedly here, gossip is worth taking seriously because it affords "new ways to read biography" (4),2 a connection that is especially meaningful given that "Just as gossip inhabits the borderlands of socially sanctioned oral discourse," so "literary species difficult to assess in orthodox critical terms"—like biography— "survive on the edges of what our culture agrees to call 'literature'" (65). A study of a bio blog like Perezhilton.com is therefore relevant to understanding and valuing life writing within the new millennial media and within our celebrity-saturated culture.
Spacks theorizes biography through gossip particularly in terms of the art, moral assumptions, and knowledge implicit in and delivered by the text. Working with the premise that gossip is a form of art involving narrative, interpretation, and judgment (13), she shows that the successful biographer, like the good gossiper, is one who has the ability to take the small, seemingly insignificant details of life (the "verbal and visual minutiae" (100)) and weave them into an engrossing tale that gives pleasure by satisfying our human desire to infiltrate the hidden recesses of (especially larger-than-life) people—which is precisely what Hilton does. In a different sense, Spacks positions biography, like gossip, on another "borderland"—between public and private—where the genres evaluate public facts in terms of the private and give public meaning to private information (262). Consequently, the moral ambiguities of gossip parallel those of biography: the material parlayed ranges from the benign to the malicious, though it is typically focused on vice over virtue, and has the potential to threaten or undermine the subject's reputation. Biography and gossip raise ethical questions, such as, How much private information should be revealed in the narratives? and How is our desire for knowledge of the subject measured and justified against the invasion of privacy necessarily taking place?
The biographer and gossiper establish themselves as figures of authority who are responsible for generating meaning out of the material (101-03) and creating an alliance with readers or listeners in the process, who in turn look to find in the biographer or gossiper a reliable guide—gossip is compelling precisely because it is considered, unlike rumor, to be true (119). Ultimately, both genres speak to our relational impulses: biography, "claiming to provide insight into actuality, provides, as does gossip, reassurance about the continuity and the comprehensibility of experience"; people read biography, just as they gossip, "partly to remind ourselves of what we share and to assure ourselves that we can interpret happenings and feelings from other lives" (119). Asserting that gossip is a useful metaphor by which we can interpret biography (118), Spacks emphasizes that biography illuminates "how gossip is good for you, not only by using it as [End Page 56] information and providing the intimate detail gossips delight in, but by inviting the reader into gossiplike relationships, calling attention to the universal hunger for knowledge of facts usually concealed by acquaintances, sometimes even by friends" (261). Such a conclusion validates the study of a bio-blog like Hilton's.
Kirstie Alley has emerged as one of the great actresses of her generation, proving time and again that she is capable of great depth and range, as well as possessing a comedic timing second to none.
Alley is currently shooting “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life," a docu-series for A&E which chronicles everything in her extraordinary life from her weight loss to her life as a single mother trying to raise two normal teenagers in the Hollywood spotlight.
Alley will soon be seen in the independent romantic comedy “Nailed,” directed by David O. Russell opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel.
In 2005, Alley co-created, executive produced, wrote and starred in the Showtime Network series "Fat Actress." Alley played a comedic interpretation of herself as a successful actress struggling in Hollywood after putting on some extra weight. After Kirstie lost the weight, she unveiled her new body by appearing in a bikini on a highly anticipated episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (the highest rated "Oprah" show of 2006).
In 1999 Kirstie starred in the dark comedy film “Drop Dead Gorgeous” opposite Ellen Barkin, Amy Adams and Kirsten Dunst. The mockumentary follows the contestants in a beauty pageant in Minnesota and has become a cult classic.
From 1997 to 2000, Alley played the title character in the NBC sitcom "Veronica's Closet," as well as served as executive producer. This popular series garnered several award nominations, and in 1998 Alley won the People's Choice Award for "Best New Comedy Series," while Alley took home Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series. In addition, Alley’s comedic talent was recognized as she was nominated for a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Alley delivered a captivating performance in the 1997 television miniseries "The Last Don II." For her efforts, Alley was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or a Special. The acclaimed series was adapted from a Mario Puzo novel and nominated in the Emmy category of Outstanding Miniseries. Alley reprised her role as "Rose Marie Clericuzio" the next year in the "The Last Don II."
In 1997, Alley starred in Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry." Alley played a psychiatrist who is married to Woody Allen's character ("Harry") who is angered upon learning that he has had an affair with one of her patients. Also in 1997, Alley co-starred with Tim Allen in the comedy "For Richer or Poorer."
Alley made her executive producing debut in 1996 with the TV movie "Suddenly," in which she also starred. 1996 was a busy year for Alley, as she also appeared in TV movies "Radiant City" and "Peter and the Wolf."
In 1994, Alley showcased her dramatic range when she starred in the CBS TV movie "David's Mother" as a single mother raising her autistic son. Alley's work was recognized with a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television as well as an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in Miniseries or Special.
In 1989, Alley starred alongside John Travolta in the hit film "Look Who's Talking," which grossed $297 million worldwide. Alley played a single mother searching for a reliable and normal boyfriend. The success of "Look Who's Talking" spurred two more movies in which Alley starred: "Look Who's Talking Too" and "Look Who's Talking Now."
In 1987, Alley joined the cast of a long-running hit NBC sitcom “Cheers” as the neurotic Rebecca Howe. Alley received critical accolades and won both an Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991. The same year, she earned a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Television Performer. In addition to those wins, Alley's work on “Cheers” earned her Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1988, 1990, 1992, and 1993. Alley also earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy/Musical Series in 1990, 1992, and 1993.
While filming "Cheers," Alley also appeared in "Madhouse," "Sibling Rivalry" (both 1990) and "Loverboy" (with Patrick Dempsey) in 1989.
Alley made her movie debut in 1982 in "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan," in which she played the beautiful Vulcan officer Lieutenant Saavik. Shortly thereafter, Alley made her splash into television in the series "Masquerade."
Some of Alley's other film credits include "Shoot to Kill," "Summer School," "North and South," "North and South, Book II," and "The Hitchhiker." Alley has also done numerous television guest spots and hosted "Saturday Night Live" twice.
Kirstie served as the spokesperson for Pier One from 2000 to 2004 and Jenny Craig from 2005 to 2008.
In 1995, Alley was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Referring to both traditional and new media forms of the genre, Hamilton concludes that "the myriad biographical depictions we are producing today—artistic and inartistic, noble and tacky—will form the record we leave of ourselves to posterity" (291). Hilton scours the web for his information, feeding off the reporting of others, but he is a savvy web designer who uses innovative graffiti and acerbic commentary to make ironic the tabloidization of our culture. Peters believes that group biography has "great experimental potential both in content and pattern, and its practice promises to expand the scope of biography considerably" (51). PerezHilton.com represents just such an experiment. Graphic, aural, oral, auto/biographical, collaborative, and collective, it is a postmodern celebration of and desecration of the life and times of fame today. Hilton's blog supports Spacks's conclusion that "gossip will not be suppressed" and that biography, as a form of literature "transforming gossip's preoccupations and dramatizing its operations, testifies to [gossip's] powerful forms of survival" (263). To be sure, "artistic and inartistic, noble and tacky," Hilton has bio blogged himself, and our celebrified culture, to posterity.
In "The Case Against Biography," Michael Holroyd plays devil's advocate to all those who dismiss, demean, or devalue the genre. "First," he announces, "comes the biographer who writes about the very famous, either the living or the warm dead. This class of biographer keeps company with film stars, murderers and the royal family."1 "They trade on other people's miseries, dine out on their tragedies, and make the trivial perpetually portentous" (4-5). Originating from the eighteenth century, they remain "the most newsworthy biographers of our own day and perhaps the easiest to attack. Fat sitting ducks" (4-5). Celebrity biographers are indeed everywhere, plying their trade in books, in tabloid newspapers and gossip magazines, on entertainment television shows, and, most recently, online. From the mid-1990s, when the internet began its steady domination of popular culture to the present, websites like People.com, etonline.com and biography.com have proliferated. Devoted to the public and professional as well as the private and personal lives of celebrities, they can now comfortably be referred to as a genre in their own right: online celebrity biography.
There has been a further explosion of blogs focusing on the lives of film and television stars, athletes, musicians, politicians, models, and those increasingly ubiquitous figures who are, in Daniel Boorstin's terms, "known for [their] well-knownness" (79). Numbered in the hundreds if not thousands, these blogs constitute their own subgenre: the celebrity bio blog. Examples include sites such as those posted and maintained by media corporations and their in-house bloggers like AOL's TMZ.com and Gawker Media's Gawker.com and Defamer.com as well as by independent bloggers such as Jezebel.com, celebitchy.com, jossip.com, and Pinkisthenewblog.com. Blogger.com defines a blog as "a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world" ("Blog"). Blogs are [End Page 53] "where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not." Since 1999, when Blogger.com was created, "blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others." Blogs have also "reshaped," "impacted," and "shaken up" the genre of biography, stimulating new areas for critical and theoretical inquiry. One celebrity bio blogger and his eponymous (pseudonymous) website has become synonymous with the genre: Perezhilton.com. Hilton, whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., created what is surely the most infamous, innovative, and lucrative of bio blogs to date. Although dozens of reviews of Perezhilton.com and celebrity profiles of Hilton have been circulating in cyberspace and other media over the past few years, none of these commentaries has contextualized Hilton's blog within a tradition of biography or considered him as a member of a specifically biographical profession, as I will do here.
Begun in September 2004, and initially called "PageSixSixSix," Hilton's blog intended, inauspiciously enough, to "comment," according to Hilton, "on pop culture, like you would with your friends" (Lecaro). Now thirty-two years old, Hilton has always been obsessed with celebrity culture, living out his childhood in Miami in front of a TV screen—a position his parents happily indulged—before shifting his attention as a young adult to a computer screen. His rise within the blogosphere is "already the stuff of legend": at eighteen he went to NYU on a full scholarship to study theatre, where he began for the first time to speak openly about being gay. Upon graduation he moved to Los Angeles, tried unsuccessfully to make it as an actor, and took various jobs, including reporting for Star magazine but was soon fired. It was at this time that he launched "PageSixSixSix," the blog that became so well-known that it attracted the attention of the New York Post, which sued him in March 2005 for infringing on the copyright of its own, original gossip blog "Page Six" (Hedegaard). But as Japhy Grant reports, "the lawsuit only made his site more popular, and employment offers from Us Weekly and InTouch followed, though he decided it was more lucrative to focus solely on the blog." He was forced, of course, to change its name. According to Francisco Alvarado, "While Lavandeira was visiting his mother in Miami, inspiration for a new name struck during a night of partying on South Beach. He and some friends hit three or four venues, where they were told Paris Hilton would be making appearances." However, "[w]hen the hotel heiress was nowhere to be found, Lavandeira told his friends they were more likely to run into 'Perez Hilton.' And thus [End Page 54] 'the trashtastic Cuban cousin of Paris and Nicky,' in Lavandeira's words, was born."
My analysis of Perezhilton.com that follows is predicated on the conviction that "trashtastic" though it may be, the blog is certainly worthy of our academic consideration. Holroyd concludes "The Case Against Biography" by promising to investigate how his "fellow biographers would defend themselves" in light of the charges laid against them, "what claims for biography they would make, and in what style they might launch their counter-attack" (9). Launching my own investigation, I want to consider how Hilton slides into place in a historically long line of biographers and can be understood as participating in a tradition dating from the seventeenth century in which the biographical subject has variously been apprehended along a continuum that ranges from hagiography to pathography. Hilton offers us an ongoing group or collective biography of contemporary celebrities and celebrity culture grounded in such a tradition. Further, I want to suggest that Hilton wages a "counter-attack" on Holroyd's imagined "critics" via an agenda that has helped to define and continues to redefine the ways in which the intersections of journalism, gossip, technology, fan culture, and life writing produce a new kind of celebrity biography. His blend of textual, graphic, aural, and oral narratives about and by his celebrity subjects; his engagement with his readers as well as the readers' own participation in his blog; his auto/biographical inscriptions and performances both within and linked to the site; and his use of advertising all signal a new biography that is interactively mediated by biographer, subjects, readers, and the marketplace.
Perezhilton.com testifies in particular to our obsession with celebrities, and whether or not we are interested in or entertained by their comings and goings that we cannot escape their cultural force. Nor can we hold ourselves entirely removed from the practice which drives the blog—gossiping—because as scholars like Patricia Meyer Spacks, Robert F. Goodman, Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, John Morreall, and Roger Wilkes have insisted of late, gossiping is an intrinsic feature of what it means to be human in both individual and communal terms. Gossip, which is talk about a subject who is not present, always assumes an air of familiarity and is traditionally a face-to-face exchange between two or three friends but is increasingly understood as a dialogue (oral and or textual) between TV talk shows and their audiences; tabloid magazines and their readers; and, more recently of course, blogs and bloggers. Spacks notes in Gossip that gossip can be both good and bad and is, therefore, always ambiguous. However one takes it though, she urges, "the sheer bulk of five centuries' commentary on gossip suggests a phenomenon worth taking seriously" [End Page 55] (26). Most pointedly here, gossip is worth taking seriously because it affords "new ways to read biography" (4),2 a connection that is especially meaningful given that "Just as gossip inhabits the borderlands of socially sanctioned oral discourse," so "literary species difficult to assess in orthodox critical terms"—like biography— "survive on the edges of what our culture agrees to call 'literature'" (65). A study of a bio blog like Perezhilton.com is therefore relevant to understanding and valuing life writing within the new millennial media and within our celebrity-saturated culture.
Spacks theorizes biography through gossip particularly in terms of the art, moral assumptions, and knowledge implicit in and delivered by the text. Working with the premise that gossip is a form of art involving narrative, interpretation, and judgment (13), she shows that the successful biographer, like the good gossiper, is one who has the ability to take the small, seemingly insignificant details of life (the "verbal and visual minutiae" (100)) and weave them into an engrossing tale that gives pleasure by satisfying our human desire to infiltrate the hidden recesses of (especially larger-than-life) people—which is precisely what Hilton does. In a different sense, Spacks positions biography, like gossip, on another "borderland"—between public and private—where the genres evaluate public facts in terms of the private and give public meaning to private information (262). Consequently, the moral ambiguities of gossip parallel those of biography: the material parlayed ranges from the benign to the malicious, though it is typically focused on vice over virtue, and has the potential to threaten or undermine the subject's reputation. Biography and gossip raise ethical questions, such as, How much private information should be revealed in the narratives? and How is our desire for knowledge of the subject measured and justified against the invasion of privacy necessarily taking place?
The biographer and gossiper establish themselves as figures of authority who are responsible for generating meaning out of the material (101-03) and creating an alliance with readers or listeners in the process, who in turn look to find in the biographer or gossiper a reliable guide—gossip is compelling precisely because it is considered, unlike rumor, to be true (119). Ultimately, both genres speak to our relational impulses: biography, "claiming to provide insight into actuality, provides, as does gossip, reassurance about the continuity and the comprehensibility of experience"; people read biography, just as they gossip, "partly to remind ourselves of what we share and to assure ourselves that we can interpret happenings and feelings from other lives" (119). Asserting that gossip is a useful metaphor by which we can interpret biography (118), Spacks emphasizes that biography illuminates "how gossip is good for you, not only by using it as [End Page 56] information and providing the intimate detail gossips delight in, but by inviting the reader into gossiplike relationships, calling attention to the universal hunger for knowledge of facts usually concealed by acquaintances, sometimes even by friends" (261). Such a conclusion validates the study of a bio-blog like Hilton's.
Kirstie Alley has emerged as one of the great actresses of her generation, proving time and again that she is capable of great depth and range, as well as possessing a comedic timing second to none.
Alley is currently shooting “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life," a docu-series for A&E which chronicles everything in her extraordinary life from her weight loss to her life as a single mother trying to raise two normal teenagers in the Hollywood spotlight.
Alley will soon be seen in the independent romantic comedy “Nailed,” directed by David O. Russell opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel.
In 2005, Alley co-created, executive produced, wrote and starred in the Showtime Network series "Fat Actress." Alley played a comedic interpretation of herself as a successful actress struggling in Hollywood after putting on some extra weight. After Kirstie lost the weight, she unveiled her new body by appearing in a bikini on a highly anticipated episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (the highest rated "Oprah" show of 2006).
In 1999 Kirstie starred in the dark comedy film “Drop Dead Gorgeous” opposite Ellen Barkin, Amy Adams and Kirsten Dunst. The mockumentary follows the contestants in a beauty pageant in Minnesota and has become a cult classic.
From 1997 to 2000, Alley played the title character in the NBC sitcom "Veronica's Closet," as well as served as executive producer. This popular series garnered several award nominations, and in 1998 Alley won the People's Choice Award for "Best New Comedy Series," while Alley took home Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series. In addition, Alley’s comedic talent was recognized as she was nominated for a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Alley delivered a captivating performance in the 1997 television miniseries "The Last Don II." For her efforts, Alley was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or a Special. The acclaimed series was adapted from a Mario Puzo novel and nominated in the Emmy category of Outstanding Miniseries. Alley reprised her role as "Rose Marie Clericuzio" the next year in the "The Last Don II."
In 1997, Alley starred in Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry." Alley played a psychiatrist who is married to Woody Allen's character ("Harry") who is angered upon learning that he has had an affair with one of her patients. Also in 1997, Alley co-starred with Tim Allen in the comedy "For Richer or Poorer."
Alley made her executive producing debut in 1996 with the TV movie "Suddenly," in which she also starred. 1996 was a busy year for Alley, as she also appeared in TV movies "Radiant City" and "Peter and the Wolf."
In 1994, Alley showcased her dramatic range when she starred in the CBS TV movie "David's Mother" as a single mother raising her autistic son. Alley's work was recognized with a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television as well as an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in Miniseries or Special.
In 1989, Alley starred alongside John Travolta in the hit film "Look Who's Talking," which grossed $297 million worldwide. Alley played a single mother searching for a reliable and normal boyfriend. The success of "Look Who's Talking" spurred two more movies in which Alley starred: "Look Who's Talking Too" and "Look Who's Talking Now."
In 1987, Alley joined the cast of a long-running hit NBC sitcom “Cheers” as the neurotic Rebecca Howe. Alley received critical accolades and won both an Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991. The same year, she earned a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Television Performer. In addition to those wins, Alley's work on “Cheers” earned her Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1988, 1990, 1992, and 1993. Alley also earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy/Musical Series in 1990, 1992, and 1993.
While filming "Cheers," Alley also appeared in "Madhouse," "Sibling Rivalry" (both 1990) and "Loverboy" (with Patrick Dempsey) in 1989.
Alley made her movie debut in 1982 in "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan," in which she played the beautiful Vulcan officer Lieutenant Saavik. Shortly thereafter, Alley made her splash into television in the series "Masquerade."
Some of Alley's other film credits include "Shoot to Kill," "Summer School," "North and South," "North and South, Book II," and "The Hitchhiker." Alley has also done numerous television guest spots and hosted "Saturday Night Live" twice.
Kirstie served as the spokesperson for Pier One from 2000 to 2004 and Jenny Craig from 2005 to 2008.
In 1995, Alley was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Referring to both traditional and new media forms of the genre, Hamilton concludes that "the myriad biographical depictions we are producing today—artistic and inartistic, noble and tacky—will form the record we leave of ourselves to posterity" (291). Hilton scours the web for his information, feeding off the reporting of others, but he is a savvy web designer who uses innovative graffiti and acerbic commentary to make ironic the tabloidization of our culture. Peters believes that group biography has "great experimental potential both in content and pattern, and its practice promises to expand the scope of biography considerably" (51). PerezHilton.com represents just such an experiment. Graphic, aural, oral, auto/biographical, collaborative, and collective, it is a postmodern celebration of and desecration of the life and times of fame today. Hilton's blog supports Spacks's conclusion that "gossip will not be suppressed" and that biography, as a form of literature "transforming gossip's preoccupations and dramatizing its operations, testifies to [gossip's] powerful forms of survival" (263). To be sure, "artistic and inartistic, noble and tacky," Hilton has bio blogged himself, and our celebrified culture, to posterity.
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley Weight Loss
Kirstie Alley's Weight-Loss Plan
Kirstie Alley On Her Weight Loss
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