Since episode one of this season's Dancing with the Stars, Kirstie Alley, 60, has stood out as one of the top contenders, and is now among the show's three finalists.
According to her dancing partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Alley has beaten the odds. At this late stage in the game, "we have the very young Chelsea [Kane]. We have a very athletic Hines [Ward] …. Kirstie is the exact opposite." That hasn't stopped the actress from bringing everything she's got to the dance floor. Despite a public history of struggling with her weight and some problems with technique over the past 13 weeks, the public has been on her side since the beginning.
On Monday night's competition, Alley and Chmerkovskiy reprised the cha-cha that propelled them toward the top of the game in the episode that launched the season, only this time Alley's costume had to be taken in to fit her shrinking frame. "There's got to be like 30-some inches taken out of it," the former Fat Actress star told Zap2it backstage. "I walked in old and fat, and now I'm old and hot."
"We are constantly taking in and altering Kirstie's costumes," designer Randall Christensen said. "Isn't she looking incredible?" Despite her transformation, Alley doesn't place too much importance on a number or a dress size. "As long as I kept changing and changing and changing, I really didn't care. It was like, keep whittling, whittling, whittling. And the other thing that's really more significant to me — I mean, I love the whittling, I like being skinny — I'm really strong and really agile and it gave me new life."
Despite her success so far, Monday's performance earned Alley a 54 on the leaderboard, compared to Kane and Ward's tie at 59, calling into question her advancement to the show's final round.
Watch a clip here:
