Diane Chambers is a fictional character in the American television situation comedy show Cheers, portrayed by Shelley Long and created by Glen and Les Charles. After her fiancé Sumner Sloan abandons her in the Cheers bar in the pilot episode, Diane works as a bar waitress. She has an on-off relationship with the womanizing bartender Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and a one-year relationship with Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), who later becomes a main character of the series and Frasier. When Long left the series during the fifth season, the producers wrote her character out. After that, they added her permanent replacement Rebecca Howe, a businesswoman played by Kirstie Alley, in the sixth season. Shelley Long made a special guest appearance as Diane in the series finale, as well as in Frasier as a one-time figment of Frasier's imagination, and as the actual Diane in the crossover episode "The Show Where Diane Comes Back".
