Diane Chambers
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Diane Chambers (played by actress Shelley Long) was the demure, rather snobbish barmaid from the sitcom Cheers (1982-1993).
The character kept audiences enthralled over the course of a lengthy plot arc: the will-they-won't-they romantic tribulations between Diane and Sam Malone (Ted Danson).
Attractive, in a non-threatening way, Long was ideally cast. Frequently left looking on at Sam's bustier and scantily attired conquests, Long's contrast was compelling.
Diane found Sam's rugged and rather obvious charms, by turns, repulsive and magnetic. Sam was driven by his insatiable lust (as always) and was both maddened and drawn by Diane's ambivalence toward him.
Diane was also a persistent thorn in the side of her feisty barmaid peer Carla Lupozone Tortelli LeBec (Rhea Perlman) who had little time for Diane's myriad pretensions, spending much of her shift bursting Diane's pomposity with rapier wit.
In comparison to the bar's general clientele, Diane Chambers seemed amusingly out of place, until she introduced intellectual psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane into the mix. Diane and Frasier had a romance (ended when Diane left Frasier at the altar) that was sandwiched between Dianes romances with Sam.
Long left the series in 1987 but reprised the character in a special appearance in the Cheers series finale in 1993.
Long also reprised the Chambers character in subsequent guest appearances on the Cheers spin-off series, Frasier. In "The Episode Where Diane Comes Back" she and Kelsey Grammer reconciled on and off the screen. On the screen, Frasier and Diane reconciled over the time she jilted him at the altar. Off screen, they reconciled over the fact that she wanted him written off "Cheers."