Who is Carla Tortelli in Cheers?

Show

Cheers

Played by

Rhea Perlman

First episode

“Give Me a Ring Sometime”Season 1, Episode 1, aired September 30, 1982

Role

Main cast

Network

NBC

Occupation

Waitress at Cheers

Show run

1982 to 1993

Also known as

Carla LeBec, Carla Lozupone

Carla Tortelli has a comeback for everyone who walks into Cheers, and most of them are not polite. Played by Rhea Perlman in every one of the show's 275 episodes, she is the bar's toughest waitress, quick with an insult for any customer who crosses her.

On Cheers, Carla Tortelli's story runs through Sam Malone (Boss and friend), Diane Chambers (Rival coworker), Cliff Clavin (Favorite target), Rebecca Howe (Manager), and Norm Peterson (Regular).

Who is Carla Tortelli?

Carla is a veteran waitress at Cheers and a fiercely loyal friend to Sam. She is a Boston Catholic, a devoted and frequently disappointed Red Sox fan, and the mother of a large family of mostly unruly children, five of them with her deadbeat ex-husband, Nick Tortelli.

Life has rarely gone her way, and she has the attitude to prove it. Carla is short, loud, and fearless, and she treats the bar as her territory. Customers who cross her, and Cliff in particular, learn quickly that she never forgets a slight.

Personality and comedy

Carla's comedy is pure insult. She skewers Diane's pretensions, Cliff's trivia, Frasier's psychiatry, and anyone else who gives her an opening, usually in a single short line. She is also deeply superstitious and has an Elvis Presley devotion that includes trips to Graceland.

Under the armor, Carla is protective of the people she loves, and the writers give her real moments of heartbreak and tenderness. Her insults are a kind of affection in their own right: if Carla bothers to mock you, you are one of the family.

Key storylines

Carla's love life is a long run of bad luck. In season five she starts dating Eddie LeBec, a goalie for the Boston Bruins, and she is pregnant with his twins when season six begins. They marry in "Little Carla, Happy at Last," but the Bruins soon drop Eddie, and he ends up performing in a traveling ice show.

In season eight, Eddie is killed in an accident with an ice resurfacing machine while saving a fellow performer. At his funeral Carla learns he had another wife at the same time, and she goes back to the Tortelli name. In later seasons she has an on-and-off fling with John Hill, the cranky owner of the restaurant upstairs, and by the end of the series she has eight children.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Rhea Perlman won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series four times for Carla, in 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1989. Along with Sam and Norm, Carla is one of only three characters to appear in all 275 episodes of the series.

Carla also appeared in the pilot of the short-lived spinoff The Tortellis, which followed her ex-husband Nick, and she visits Frasier in the 2002 episode "Cheerful Goodbyes," where Cliff's retirement party brings much of the old gang together.

Carla Tortelli: frequently asked questions

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