Ted Danson Says It Took 2 Years on 'Cheers' to Accept Sex-Symbol Status

Q: How did the sitcom 'Cheers' unexpectedly play a key role in helping another famous actor get sober?

It was Andrew McCarthy. He said *Cheers* unexpectedly helped him get sober during alcohol rehab in 1992. McCarthy recalled that while he was in a Minnesota treatment facility, the patients were having trouble connecting. Each night, after counselors left, they began gathering to watch reruns of *Cheers* together. The irony was obvious: they were in rehab bonding over a sitcom set in a bar. But that routine became meaningful. McCarthy said the group would watch Ted Danson’s bartender character, Sam Malone, and talk about the drinks being poured, even jokingly analyzing who had a “heavy hand.” That shared ritual helped the patients bond, creating a sense of community that supported his recovery. On Danson’s podcast, McCarthy said the experience “changed my life,” adding that he had not had a drink since. In that sense, *Cheers* played an indirect but important role in his sobriety by giving him and other patients a nightly point of connection during treatment.

Q: What recent health scare forced Ted Danson to confront his mortality and adopt new daily habits with his wife?

Ted Danson said it was a recent but undisclosed health scare that made him confront his mortality. He described the episode as “humbling” and said it drove home that “mortality is the real deal.” Afterward, Danson said he and his wife, Mary Steenburgen, adopted new daily habits, most notably meditating together twice a day. He said the scare pushed him to stop merely talking about meditation and actually make it part of their routine. Some reports also note that the couple now spend mornings together drinking coffee and playing word games on their phones, but the clearest change Danson himself highlighted was the twice-daily meditation practice.

Q: His wife called him a 'junkyard dog,' so what did Ted Danson do to confront his hidden meanness?

Ted Danson confronted it by acknowledging that his wife Mary Steenburgen was right: beneath his longtime “nice guy” image, he did have a mean, harsher side. Danson has said Steenburgen once told him he was “as mean as a junkyard dog.” He initially dismissed the comment, but later came to see it as an important truth about himself. In reflecting on that period, he said their relationship helped him “grow and develop” enough to recognize, in effect, that “Oh yeah, I do have that.” That self-recognition appears to have been the key step. Rather than describing one dramatic corrective act, Danson has framed it as introspective work and emotional growth—especially during a messy period in midlife when he says he was forced to mature. In other podcast conversations, he has similarly admitted he can be a “d---,” or “grumpy Ted,” showing that he now openly owns that side of his personality instead of denying it. So the answer is that he confronted his hidden meanness by accepting it existed, largely through Steenburgen’s blunt honesty and the self-examination that followed.

2 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jun 1

Ted Danson, 78, said on his podcast that he did not believe women found him attractive until the second year of "Cheers," when he learned to stop protesting compliments.
Sam Malone's image, he said, felt partly manufactured by casting "very sexy looking women" around him, making him think the show's setup — not his own appeal — sold the persona.
Lisa Ann Walter pushed back during the interview, telling Danson he was "selling it" himself, not just benefiting from the women placed around him.
"Cheers" ran 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993, and Danson said in a 2025 podcast episode that he left to test whether he could succeed beyond the role that won him 2 Emmys.
That post-"Cheers" career stretched from "Becker" and "CSI" to "The Good Place," and he is now starring in Netflix's "Man on the Inside."