Kirstie Alley had low-key presence in Southern Oregon

Dec. 13—With the sudden death of Kirstie Alley, the nation lost a sitcom and Hollywood star, and Jackson County lost one of the area's largest personal property owners.

Public records and Mail Tribune archives show Alley bought property outside Jacksonville in 1989 at the height of her fame on the television series "Cheers" and still owned hundreds of acres in the Ruch area at the time of her death Dec. 5 at age 71 from cancer.

More specifically, Alley owned a combined 353.39 acres of property in the 7000 and 8000 blocks of Upper Applegate Road, according to property data from the Jackson County Assessor's Office. Combined, the 11 plats were assessed as having a real market value of $5.3 million.

Attempts to reach Alley's representatives were unsuccessful, and a message to Alley's former husband, Parker Stevenson, went unreturned. But Mail Tribune archives indicate the actress's interest in Southern Oregon may have been piqued after a stay at the now-closed Under the Greenwood Tree Bed and Breakfast that was located at 3045 Bellinger Lane between Medford and Jacksonville.

Mail Tribune reporter Al Reiss, in the paper's only interview with Alley, indicated she was drawn to the animals at the bed and breakfast.

"She likes animals and is genuinely interested as innkeeper Renate Ellam shows her and Lane around the historic farm, introducing them to chickens, doves, Henrietta the donkey and Harvey, the angora rabbit," Reiss wrote in a May 19, 1988, Mail Tribune interview with Alley.

Alley was staying in Southern Oregon partly because of a trip with her cousin, Lane Alley, but also so she could travel with her black-and-gray striped cat, Trixie, as part of a road trip to Vancouver, British Columbia.

"Cheers" had just wrapped for the season, and Alley was due to be in Canada by May 25 for a comedy that, at the time, had a working title of "Daddy's Home." Movie buffs will know it better as 1989's "Look Who's Talking" — the first of three films in a series co-starring John Travolta

The 1988 interview appears to be the only time the actress gave an interview with the Mail Tribune, but archives show Alley was involved in the community, particularly in the 1990s. She donated hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for 15 needy families during Christmas 1990, for instance.

The Hollywood star apparently drew others to the area.

In October 1996, Black Bird owner Glenn Hobbs said Alley's presence in Southern Oregon referred another A-list celebrity to the longtime Medford outdoors store.

"Tom Cruise and others are friends of Kirstie Alley, who lives in the Applegate," Hobbs said at the time, noting she and Stevenson, her then-husband, "shop here a lot."

Alley tweeted about her place in Oregon in 2020 and said she was grateful for the kind people in the area.

"Everyone has always been very nice to me there, as I recall," Alley stated in her Tweet. "I thought I was the same, but who knows?"

Reach web editor Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or nmorgan@rosebudmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MTwebeditor.