Rebecca Howe is a fictional character of the American television sitcom Cheers, portrayed by Kirstie Alley and created by Glen and Les Charles.

She debuts in the season six episode "Home Is the Sailor" after Shelley Long—who played waitress Diane Chambers—left the show to pursue a movie career.

Much of the show's humor in previous seasons had been based around the interaction and sexual tension between the womanizing, working-class main character, bartender Sam Malone, and the high-class, snobbish Diane.

Rebecca's sister Susan (Marcia Cross) is an actress and former Miss San Diego who has stolen her past boyfriends.

Revealed in "The Last Angry Mailman" (1987), Rebecca was nicknamed "Backseat Becky" for her behavior as a party girl while at the University of Connecticut.

In the eighth season, she dates millionaire Robin Colcord (Roger Rees), but Sam discovers that he intends to secretly retrieve information from Rebecca's computer to facilitate a corporate takeover, leading to their breakup.

Rebecca finally falls for Sam after he saves her from Robin's scheme, and after three years of suppressed attraction the two have sex in the Cheers office, leaving it wrecked.

During the first half of the tenth season, Sam and Rebecca try to conceive a child, but they realize they have no feelings for each other and then decide to stay friends (the arc was originally to write in Alley's pregnancy, but was scrapped when she unfortunately miscarried).

In the eleventh and final season, Rebecca's cigarette causes an enormous fire at Cheers, and she remorsefully uses her life savings to repair the bar.

In the series finale, she marries Don and resigns from Cheers to devote more time to her husband and to start a family.

Alley opted not to appear on an episode of Frasier due to the sitcom being centered on two psychiatrists, which conflicted with her Scientology beliefs.

[5] Kirstie Alley, one of the first actresses to audition for the role of Rebecca Howe, was championed by casting director Jeff Greenberg and seemed to be the ideal choice.

[7][8] The main reservation on the part of the network and producers was whether Alley would be funny enough to play the role, since she had a dramatic acting background rather than one in comedy.

"[18] A syndicated television columnist from Chicago in 1989 said that in her second season on the show, Rebecca was "nothing more than an annoying presence on a program otherwise populated with lovable wackos".

[22] Steve Craig from the University of North Texas in 1993 considered Rebecca a parody of femininity for rejecting Sam's advances and attempting to marry a tycoon.

[24] In 2006, Lance Mannion in his Typepad blog said Rebecca wanted to be "part of a world the gang at Cheers could never join.

Mannion praised Kirstie Alley for physical comedy and her comical scenes with Ted Danson in the series.

[26] Screen Rant critic Simone Torn in 2019 wrote that Rebecca's transformation from "a smart, goal-oriented businesswoman" to "a poorly-written woman who only cared about frivolous matters" has been one of "[ten] things from Cheers that have not aged well."

]"[27] This role earned Kirstie Alley a Golden Globe Award in 1991 as the Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical Series.