People tend to toss around the word "legend," but when it comes to 14-time Emmy nominee Jeff Greenberg, the casting director certainly deserves the title.
Greenberg is responsible for helping cast some of the greatest ensembles in TV history: Frasier, Wings and Modern Family, the latter of which he won an Emmy for in 2010. But he is arguably best known for his first major gig: Taking over the casting of Cheers in 1986, before the classic NBC sitcom's fifth season. It was Greenberg who cast the late Kirstie Alley as Shelley Long's replacement, which rejuvenated the show and cemented it as one of the most memorable sitcoms ever.
With Frasier recently getting the reboot treatment on Paramount+, Greenberg took the Television Academy behind the scenes of his considerable career and his experiences at the bar where everybody knows your name.
Television Academy: Your first year on Cheers was Shelley Long's last, and you were immediately tasked with replacing her. Welcome to Cheers, Jeff! How challenging was that process for you?
Jeff Greenberg: [Cheers creators] Glen and Les Charles, and [James] Burrows, they said they would get into it at the end of the season, but I said, "Well, I think the more time we have, the better." So we started earlier, but it was under the umbrella of enormous secrecy. The guys didn't want Shelley to feel that the wolves were yapping at her heels, and that she was being replaced already. So I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, including my own assistant.
How early in the process did Kirstie enter the picture?
I thought of her right away. I had just seen Kirstie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Mark Taper Forum, and she brought great humor to that role, which I hadn't seen before. I just thought it was the perfect fit. I called her agent and said, "By any chance, this is a long shot, and I really can't give you too many details, but might Kirstie be interested in doing a series I may be working on?" He got the subtext right away. He says, "Well, I'll tell you that all the networks want Kirstie for a TV series. She doesn't want to do a TV series. Let me talk to her." He calls back, says, "She still doesn't want to do a TV series, but she'd love to do Cheers."
And that was the end of that, right? She's cast, everyone wins, the end?
(Laughs) The next step was to introduce Kirstie to my creative [partners]. She showed up all in green. She was a vision. They had a great meeting, and we all were optimistic about who she was in terms of the kind of role they were looking for. Then Ted Danson had lunch with Kirstie, and they clicked. Then they wanted her to read, so we set up a secret audition on a Saturday at the studio with Ted and Rhea Perlman. They read a couple of scenes and it went well. For a reason I really can't remember, we didn't film it, which was not a good decision on our part, because we told the network on Monday, "Here's who we want to go with." They said, "We love Kirstie, but is she funny?" We said "Yeah," and they said, "Well, show us." And there really wasn't any ammunition to show them. We kept telling them, "This is who we want, you've got to trust us." There's chemistry there with her and Ted and her and Rhea, and they wouldn't buy it. They communicated that they we're not comfortable with that. "We really need you to see other people."
So then it became a very public search.
We had to release it in a breakdown to the whole town. Actors were submitted and we had hundreds of readings for the role of Rebecca over five months. A few of the ones I remember at the time were Sharon Stone, Kim Cattrall and Marg Helgenberger, and we really liked Madeline Smith Osbourne. Osbourne later did a single episode as an object of Sam's affection. She was great. I think NBC would have gone with her, but Glen, Les and Jimmy wanted Kirstie. They were just positive she was the gal. Finally, Brandon Tartikoff, who was then the head of the network, said, "At this point, if we can't trust these guys then who can we trust? Let's give it a go."
Rewatching the show, there are many actors that were brought in who went on to have successful careers, like Roger Rees, Marcia Cross, Emma Thompson and Lisa Kudrow, just to name four.
One of the things that got me hired was my love of theater. Actors from the theater are always so great, because [Cheers] is like doing a little play on camera and keeping every take fresh as they do it time after time after time. I ended up just hitting a goldmine of people who wanted to be on the show. Roger is a perfect example of that.
How did he get on your radar? Wasn't the thing that made him famous Nicholas Nickleby?
Right. He happened to be in Los Angeles doing a Tom Stoppard play with Judy Davis at the Huntington Hartford Theater, and while he was in town, that part came up and I called to see if he wanted to come over and meet us. The producers saw Nicholas Nickleby. They knew he was great. Robin Colcord wasn't written to be British, but Roger was so wonderful, they decided to go with him.
Tom Skerritt is another actor who later did TV but wasn't known for it in the mid-'80s. How did you cast him on the show as one of Rebecca's love interests?
My marching orders were: try to not bring in faces we see on other TV shows. I always did my best to bring in people that hadn't been doing sitcoms. People like Tom Berenger and Tom Skerritt were not known for their comedy.
Berenger is someone I was going to ask about, because he's the guy you brought in to marry Rebecca in the final episodes. How did he come up? Was that your idea?
I think so. We always aimed high for every part to see the best we could get. There were some really hard things to do on the show, but over the seven years I was on it, it was a dream job. The shows I've worked on — Cheers, Modern Family, Frasier, the new Frasier — they're known for their writing. And really smart actors want smart writing, so it's always easier to go get better actors when you have the ammunition of a great script, or even a great reputation.
Is there anything that you look back on and think this is the thing of which I'm most proud?
Casting Kirstie. I mean, that just worked out so well, and it gave the show a real boost. Kirstie won the Emmy, and the show got higher ratings again, and it was just fun. The show was always fun. It was where everybody wanted to be.
Cheers and Frasier are streaming on Paramount+.
