"Look who's talking" made her famous: mourning for Hollywood star Kirstie Alley
Created: 06/12/2022, 12:15 p.m
By: Katja Kraft
Dream couple in film history: Kirstie Alley and John Travolta in Look Who's Talking Now (1993).
© ullstein picture - United Archives
Kirstie Alley has died at the age of 71.
Not only her "Look who's talking" colleague John Travolta mourns the Hollywood star.
Our obituary.
If you had googled the name Kirstie Alley a few days ago, the first thing you would have come across were a number of articles about an overweight woman whose decades of struggle with popular beauty standards are evident.
Until yesterday.
When the news broke that Alley had passed away.
At 71, after a short battle with cancer, as her two adopted children, William True and Lillie Price Stevenson, announced on Twitter.
Since then, the focus has been on what Alley was celebrated for in the eighties and nineties: light-footed entertainment cinema.
Movie-turned popcorn and ice cream confections.
Kirstie Alley © A-way!/Allphoto
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is "Look who's speaking".
This original, loveliest comedy with its equally loveliest actors.
So let's get back to the superficial for a moment: How gorgeous did Kirstie Alley, John Travolta and baby Mikey look together?
He is the easy-going taxi driver James with aviator goggles, who brings you, the heavily pregnant, hormonally slightly overstretched single lady Mollie into the delivery room with squeaky tires.
The taxi ride is followed by a roller coaster ride of emotions.
It must have been a feast for cinematographer Thomas Del Ruth capturing Alley's face;
immersed in a soft light that only exists in films from the eighties and nineties.
Her big eyes watching James play with Mikey.
with her own smile
that seemed to come straight from the heart.
A smile like a surrender of the brain to the heart.
Always had something to say.
It looked very honest.
Very little after acting.
Her breakthrough: Kirstie Alley (2nd from right) in the ensemble of the hit series "Cheers", which made her famous.
© Ira Mark Gostin
Perhaps that was Kirstie Alley's greatest weakness and at the same time its greatest strength: that she never cut the duct to her own feelings.
That makes you vulnerable.
And it's not so easy to overcome a difficult childhood.
Because Alley's first years in Kansas - father a contractor, mother a housewife - looked like the ideal of an American model family of the 1950s only on the outside.
The mother was violent towards her and the sisters;
She died in a car accident in the early 1980s.
A drunk man drove his car into her car.
It was a turning point for Kirstie, who after leaving the parental train had worked part-time jobs in Los Angeles — and often turned to spirits and other drugs to party.
With her mother's accident, Alley decided
to change her life.
Rehab, good idea.
Joining Scientology.
Maybe not such a good idea.
Her colleague John Travolta is also known to be a member of this controversial religious community.
Most recently, Kirstie Alley irritated with her support of Donald Trump
But before the two met on camera, Alley made his mark on the sitcom Cheers.
She received an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her role as Rebecca Howe.
And the career began.
Film fans remember entertaining hours with the "Look who's talking" series, with "One and One Makes Four" (1995), the "Village of the Damned" (1995).
And Kirstie Alley's unpretentious desire to bring herself and her body into play.
Kirstie Alley later irritated many with her support for Donald Trump and her conservative views.
But the actress has given us warmth many a time.
Could you watch it again?
Not just at Christmas time.
