Kirstie Alley’s belongings go up for auction a year after her death
The ‘Cheers’ actress was an interior designer before becoming one of the most popular faces on the sitcom, and her children are now selling off some of the more ‘fun and unique things’ she collected
Some of the personal belongings of Kirstie Alley, the actress who played one of the most popular characters in the television hit Cheers, are going up for auction a year after her death at the age of 71, victim of a devastating colon cancer. It was her children True and Lillie Parker who announced the sale on Wednesday. “Our mother collected so many fun and unique things over her incredible life. We want to share some of them with others in the hopes of spreading her love of decorating,” they said in statements to People magazine. The company Those Two Girls Estate Sales is organizing the event through the online bidding platform LiveAuctioneers, and interested parties will have three opportunities to own part of the actress’s estate, which mainly includes furniture and household items from her homes in Maine, California, and Clearwater, Florida.
Alley worked as an interior designer before becoming an actress. The furniture reflects Kirstie’s personality, her former representative told the magazine. “A lover of both style and function, she surrounded herself with items she loved no matter where they came from. She was always looking for the next great piece and had no problem designing around them or waiting for inspiration to strike.” It was Kirstie Alley herself who spoke about her love for decorating in 1996, during an appearance on the Rosie O’Donnell show. “Although I am working on television, I am an interior designer,” the actress stated that year.
The first part of the auction began on December 21 and will run until Sunday, January 7. This first sale focused on French antiques, lamps, bronze statues, clocks, upholstered chairs and gilded wood mirrors in the Rococo style. Many of the objects may be familiar to fans of the actress, as they appeared in her 2010 show, Kirstie Alley’s Big Life, which was filmed in her home in Los Angeles.
The second sale will run from January 22 to February 4, and will include some of “her favorite garden decor and salvaged items,” according to her former rep, such as statues, cast iron planters, a pre-Columbian artifact, salvaged copper dormers and a Victorian bird cage. There will also be a Third Empire chandelier with mermaid ornaments, Italian ceramics, a French oak kitchen table, glassware and hand-painted decorative panels from the estate of the late design legend Sister Parish.
The last part of the sale will be held from March 18 to April 7, and will focus on the sale of the actress’s fashion pieces. Luxury clothing from brands such as Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Alexander McQueen and a few more will be included.
Alley rose to fame in 1987 when she played Rebecca Howe on Cheers. She won a Golden Globe for best actress and an Emmy for outstanding lead actress for her role in the series filmed in Boston from 1982 to 1993. Alley became a star of a series that boosted both her career and those of Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Kelsey Grammer (whose character in the series, the psychiatrist Frasier Crane, later starred in a spin-off series, Frasier) and George Wendt. “I was really poor, I didn’t have any money and I was starving — that was one reason I went on,” said the actress in 1996 about her appearance on the game show Match Game in 1979. After Cheers, her life changed: she was one of the best-known faces in the United States, but internationally she achieved great success thanks to her role in the family films Look Who’s Talking and its sequels, together with actor John Travolta, which set the tone for family comedies in the 1990s.
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