Rebecca Howe - Character

Character

"Volptuously beautiful" Rebecca Howe enters Cheers as the manager assigned by the bar's new corporate franchise owner, the Lillian Corporation. As discovered, in the Cheers episode, "Paint Your Office", Rebecca's life is in the mid-crisis; in another episode "Last Angry Mailman", Rebecca in the University of Connecticut, uncovered by the Cheers gang, was nicknamed "Backseat Becky" for her behavior as a party girl. Rebecca has a sister Susan (Marcia Cross), who stole her boyfriends in the past and is an actress, and a Navy father (Robert Prosky), from whom she has borrowed money. During the whole show, she sometimes drinks alcoholic beverages excessively, especially whenever she either has doubts about her feelings for any man or loses any man, and later begins to drink them more often.

During her debut season in 1987–88, Rebecca has a crush on her boss, Mr. Evan Drake (Tom Skerritt). During the whole season, she tries to have Mr. Drake notice him without success. In "Little Carla, Happy at Last" (1987), Rebecca planned Carla's wedding to please Mr. Drake, but, when Mr. Drake has not come all day, Rebecca goes drunk. During the last scene with him in "Backseat Becky, Up Front" (1988), Rebecca hijacks Mr. Drake's limo in order to confess her love for him, who is leaving for Japan. However, Mr. Drake has another woman in his arms, and Rebecca decides to let him go to Japan.

In the 1988-89 season, after Mr. Drake's departure, Mr. Drake's replacement fires Rebecca and names Sam as manager. Then Rebecca does waitressing in some time, but she gets her job back as manager.

In the 1989–90 season, Rebecca dates millionaire Robin Colcord (Roger Rees), but she finds out that Robin secretly retrieves information from Rebecca's computer for a corporate takeover. However, in the 1990–91 season, Robin turns himself in to the police and then confesses his love for Rebecca. Meanwhile, Sam retrieves ownership of the bar, and Rebecca loses her job as manager and then is rehired as manager by Sam himself. Robin proposes matrimony after he is released, and she accepts. However, at their wedding in "I'm Getting My Act Together and Sticking It in Your Face" (1991), Rebecca calls off the wedding, telling Robin, "I only loved you for your money!" Robin leaves Rebecca, as she wallows in despair.

After her fiasco with Robin, Rebecca decides to buy back the bar for herself after John Allen Hill becomes the new owner of Melville's Fine Sea Food. One time Rebecca flees to her father's house in tears, so she receives a bribe from her father and helps Sam buy back half of Cheers, resulting in their co-owning the bar. Towards the end of the show, she does minimal work. Whenever she tried to complete a task, she ends up spilling drinks and breaking the glasses, including ones that she leaves on the floor. She is unable to mail the liquor license renewal in time and spends an entire evening secretly selling non-alcoholic drinks.

When she first meets bartender and ladies' man Sam Malone (Ted Danson), Rebecca's initial reaction toward him is negative. Many times Sam tries to seduce her, but she rejects his advances. Later, she sees Sam as her friend, yet he still attempts to seduce her and becomes rejected repeatedly. One time in "Love Is a Really, Really Perfectly Okay Thing" (1990), Sam and Rebecca make love in his office, but Sam becomes unenthusiastic about it, especially when his friends discuss it. In "Wedding Bell Blues" (1991), she questions her feelings for Robin after he lost millions of dollars and then goes drunk in one night. She tries to make love to Sam, but he cannot do it under her drunken condition. During the first half of the tenth season (1991–92), Sam and Rebecca attempt to conceive a child, but they then decide to stay friends.