Carla Tortelli

Casting

According to an interview Ted Danson, Perlman was the first person of all actors to be hired as part of a cast ensemble and then was cast as Carla Tortelli, "a wisecracking, cynical waitress". Before she starred as Carla, she worked once as a waitress in a New York City restaurant, serving meals like spaghetti and fish. Also, she was trained in the Bull & Finch Pub (now called Cheers Beacon Hill) by a waitress to prepare her character. Perlman previously appeared as Louie DePalma's (Danny DeVito) sweet and kind girlfriend, in contrast to tomboy Carla, on Taxi.

I think Carla's a lot of things I'd like to be. I'm not like her, but she's a person who's always got a wisecrack. I always think of something two hours later. But we're both earthy and practical. We're survivors. The character is well-written, but you always put a lot of yourself into it.

Cheers

Carla is "feisty", "worldly-wise", and highly superstitious. When the show premiered in 1982, she has four children to support, fathered by her ex-husband Nick Tortelli (Dan Hedaya): Anthony (Timothy Williams), Serafina (Leah Remini), Gino (Josh Lozoff), and Anne Marie (Risa Littman). During marriage, he was a deadbeat father and disloyal, unfaithful husband to Carla by cheating on her with other women.

As a Catholic, she has practiced neither birth control nor traditional beliefs of monogamous sex. In "Whodunit" (1985), as learned, when she attended high school, she was pregnant. She considers herself "the most fertile woman alive". In "Swear to God" (1988), when Sam vows to believe in God, Carla scaremongers Sam into avoiding violation of his oaths and further promiscuity in order to avoid superstitious events. Over time, she gives birth to four more children: Lucinda (Sabrina Wiener) fathered by Nick, Ludlow, nicknamed Lud (Jarrett Lennon), by Frasier's mentor Dr. Bennett Ludlow (James Karen), and twins Elvis (Danny Kramer) and Jesse (Thomas Tulak) by Eddie Lebec (Jay Thomas). All children but one turn out to be unruly, rotten, and spoiled. They defy whoever is substituting for their mother Carla, including babysitters, such as Cliff Clavin, a know-it-all bar patron.

Carla was born to the Catholic family her father Benito and her mother (Sada Thompson), whose maiden name was Mussolini. grew up in the Federal Hill section of Providence, Rhode Island. According to her mother, Carla was named after her grandmother's mule. Carla has siblings, including two sisters (younger Annette (also played by Perlman) and Angeline) and two brothers (including Sal). Six of her siblings are older.

In "The Cranemakers" (1989), according to Whitney Norris (James R. Winker), representative of the estate of Carla's late grandfather, Antonio Lozuponi, Antonio deserted his wife in 1921, moved to Los Angeles with just his "lucky quarter", and made fortune selling peach and oil products. Feeling bad about leaving his family behind, he gave his surviving legitimate family a will of $20 million, suppressed by his illegitimate son, Paolo, who "squandered the entire fortune on fast horses and loose women." The will was not discovered until Paolo's death in the previous month. Norris delivers just Antonio's "lucky quarter" to Carla, devastating her.

She also has a nephew Frankie, to whom Lilith and Rebecca are attracted while he works as a temporary bartender for one time.

Waitressing

As a waitress, she is more experienced than her nemesis Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), who has nice personality and upper-class traits, in contrast to Carla. In "Pick a Con... Any Con" (1983), Carla wants to bartend as Sam and Coach's experienced substitute, but Sam picks Diane, who never has done bartending before. Then she becomes frustrated when Diane performs too slowly on making a Bloody Mary, especially with an instruction book. When Sam berates Carla for not telling Diane he had already prepared a big jug of Bloody Mary, Carla responds that she was waiting to see Diane make vodka.

Carla treats regular customers with disdain and mostly negative sarcasm, including Norm Peterson, Cliff Clavin, and Frasier Crane. In "Woody Goes Belly Up" (1985), Carla constantly insults despondent Frasier, who comments over losing Diane, with remarks. In "Cliffie's Big Score" (1986), Carla refuses at first to dance with Cliff for a ballroom dance until he promises her a VCR. Unfortunately, Carla is given Cliff's substitute, a hippie. At the car, when Cliff inadvertently tells her that he was torn between her and Diane, Carla tricks him into assuming that Diane is attracted to him. Moments later, Cliff attempts to seduce Diane, but Diane kicks him out of the car and then leaves him stranded. In "Sam Ahoy" (1989), while Sam, Carla, and Norm are in danger of being killed by either a planted bomb in a sailboat or sharks, Carla suggests someone big (implying Norm) be thrown into the sharks, so she and Sam would be able to escape. Norm responds with a frown, "I never liked you, Carla."

A devoted and often-disappointed Boston Red Sox fan, she became friends with Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Coach Ernie Pantusso (Nicholas Colasanto) during Sam's baseball days at least five years before the show started and came to work for him at Cheers when Sam retired from baseball and then bought the bar for ownership.

Nick Tortelli and their children

In "Father Knows Last" (1983), Nick impregnated Carla with Lucinda, incorporated by Rhea Perlman's pregnancy (which happened earlier in the first season). Since Nick cannot raise her, leaving the baby without a father, Carla ends up receiving charity from bar patrons for her and her baby. In "Lil Sister Don't Cha" (1983), Lucinda is born. In "Battle of the Exes" (1984), Carla and Sam pose as a couple to spite Nick at his wedding with Loretta (Jean Kasem). Nick becomes jealous and then, after the wedding, begs her to be part of his life again. She refuses and then "prefers" Sam over him. When Nick leaves, Carla admits to Sam that she still has feelings for Nick. Then Carla and Sam finally embrace but then end up embarrassed, so they assure each other that they are still friends.

In "Little Carla, Happy at Last" (1987), Carla lets Anthony (Timothy Williams) and his wife Annie (Mandy Ingber) stay in her house after they were kicked out by Nick and Loretta. In "Slumber Party Massacred" (1988), Carla kicks them out of the house for having a child at their young age, making her the grandmother. In "Loathe and Marriage" (1993), Serafina (Leah Remini), who was previously rebellious in "Unplanned Parenthood" (1991), is pregnant with a child of her fiancé, retired officer Pat McDougall (Dennis Cockrum), and plans marriage with him, both which Carla accepts. At the wedding, Nick shows up along with his wife Loretta for his daughter Serafina, who invited them, despite bad things that Nick caused in the past. Carla wants to kick Nick out, but Serafina tells her biological parents to make amends with each other and not to spoil the wedding. Nick and Carla decide to do so for Serafina's sake.

Ludlow Sr. and Jr.

In "Whodunit?" (1985), Carla seduces Dr. Bennett Ludlow (James Karen), Frasier's mentor, and then regrettably becomes pregnant with Ludlow (incorporated by another of Perlman's pregnancies). Bennett proposes a marriage, but Carla turns him down.

In "I Kid You Not" (1989), Bennett Ludlow, Jr. (Jarrett Lennon), and who is bad at sports, whom Carla nicknames "Lud", befriends Frasier and Lilith and then enjoys his suitable activities, like opera and a foreign film, with them. Feeling bad for taking away her time with Ludlow, the Cranes invite her for dinner at the seafood restaurant. At the restaurant, Ludlow dislikes the food, so Carla tries to escort him, but the Cranes disallows in hopes that Ludlow will eventually like it. Ludlow burns Frasier's shoes, tarnishing his ties with Frasier. Carla is pleased that Ludlow is a rotten Tortelli and then takes him out for hamburgers, but not without making him apologize to Frasier. Ludlow appears briefly in two more episodes: "Unplanned Parenthood" (1991) and "Rich Man, Wood Man" (1992).

Eddie LeBec

In two-part episode "Never Love a Goalie" (1987), Carla meets the Boston Bruins ice hockey player, Guy "Eddie" LeBec (Jay Thomas), who has an endless winning streak and a French Canadian background, and then begins to date him. However, because of their relationship, Eddie's streak unfortunately comes to an end. Since both are superstitious, they end their relationship in order to avoid ruining Eddie's ability to play. Nevertheless, they reconcile shortly thereafter and promise to break up repeatedly before every game to avoid the "curse". In "Home Is the Sailor", Carla is revealed to be several months pregnant with Eddie's twins (incorporated by another of Perlman's pregnancies). In two-part episode "Little Carla, Happy at Last", Carla and Eddie wed. She almost quits her waitressing job because Eddie said that he would take care of her financially. However, the Bruins released him from his contract due to his age and declining athletic performance, and he could not find another team. In "Airport V" (1988), Eddie ends up as a penguin mascot for a traveling ice show in another state. Later in the 1987–88 season, Carla gives birth to their twin boys, named Elvis and Jesse.

In "Death Takes a Holiday on Ice" (1989), Eddie was killed by an ice resurfacer when he saved the life of another member of the ice show. At the funeral, it was revealed that he had concurrently another wife Gloria with twins, as well. Carla changes her surname back to Tortelli to avoid being confused with the other "Mrs. LeBec". The demise of Jay Thomas's character Eddie LeBec has been claimed to stem from Thomas's comments "about" Perlman in a radio show. However, Thomas denied this and declared that he was referring only to the Carla character. Despite Ken Levine's praise on Thomas's acting and pairing of Eddie and Carla, Eddie was written out of the show because Perlman thought that the pairing would make her "not part of the people in the bar."

Other men

In "Affairs of the Heart" (1983), Carla dates Hank (Don Amendolia), a sweet intelligent man, despite her reluctance. However, she learns that Hank has a heart problem and that any excitement, like sex, would put him at fatal risk. She dumps Hank but then calls him her "best" boyfriend whom she ever had. In "Head Over Hill" (1991), Carla tries to pull a vengeance on John Allen Hill (Keene Curtis), Sam's upper-class rival, owner of the restaurant Melville's, and co-owner of Cheers, on Sam's behalf. However, she ironically ends up sleeping with him. Since then, she has on-and-off sexual encounters with John. In "Feelings... Whoa, Whoa, Whoa" (1992), she comes into terms of her feelings for John, but she and John find each other incompatible except in bed.

Frasier

In her only episode of Frasier, "Cheerful Goodbyes" (2002), according to her, two of Carla's sons are imprisoned and her house is on the verge of foreclosing. She is relieved that Cliff will be retiring into Florida. However, in his retirement party, influenced by his friends' farewell comments - including a vicious tirade by Carla which he mistakes as a sarcastic tribute - Cliff decides to stay in Boston, much to her dismay. She attempts to attack him with a harpoon but is restrained by others.

Reception

Carla Tortelli was voted a favorite character by eight percent of 1,011 people, who were surveyed in 1993 by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now Pew Research Center). She was ranked No. 66 out of Bravo's The 100 Greatest TV Characters of all-time. Steve Craig of the University of North Texas noted that she "lacks the charm, warmth, and demureness of the feminine ideal" and is a ridicule of anti-feminism for her "un-ladylike" promiscuity. Bill Simmons, previously of ESPN, praised her in episodes that do not mainly focus on her.

Heather Hundley noted that the series sends a "double standards" about men and women, involved in promiscuity. She noted that the series portrays Sam Malone as heroic, who never suffers from negative consequences of his promiscuity, while it portrays Carla as "nymphomaniac", who regrets her own promiscuities for out-of-wedlock pregnancies and wrong lovers. She finds the series's portrayal of premarital sex "negative and unhealthy", especially for omitting other dangers of promiscuity, like sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

Rhea Perlman won Emmy Awards as an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1989 for her portrayal of Carla. She was honored as the Best Supporting Actress (Comedy) by Viewers for Quality Television in 1985 and the "Funniest Supporting Actress" by the American Comedy Awards in 1989. Simon Cocks from Television Addiction website called her "the show's weak link" and was "irritated [by] her [a]nd her constant insensitive and unfunny remarks[.]"