Grace Under Fire 

Grace is a recovering alcoholic, now divorced from an abusive husband, struggling to bring up three children on her own.

Creator:

Chuck Lorre

Stars:

Brett Butler, Casey Sander, Kaitlin Cullum

Nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Another 7 wins & 19 nominations.

Cast

Series cast summary:
Brett Butler	...	Grace Kelly 112 episodes, 1993-1998
Casey Sander	...	Wade Swoboda 112 episodes, 1993-1998
Kaitlin Cullum	...	Libby Kelly 112 episodes, 1993-1998
Dylan Sprouse	...	Patrick Kelly 112 episodes, 1993-1998
Cole Sprouse	...	Patrick Kelly 112 episodes, 1993-1998
Dave Thomas	...	Russell Norton 112 episodes, 1993-1998
Julie White	...	Nadine Swoboda 98 episodes, 1993-1997
Jon Paul Steuer	...	Quentin Kelly 73 episodes, 1993-1996
Peggy Rea	...	Jean Kelly 51 episodes, 1993-1998
Walter Olkewicz	...	Dougie Boudreau 49 episodes, 1993-1997

Storyline

After divorcing her abusive, alcoholic husband and recovering from her own alcoholism, Grace tries to rebuild her life and protect her children from making the same mistakes. Against this serious backdrop, this show is actually a comedy, finding humor in the relationships between Grace and her co-workers at the oil refinery, her neighbors Wade and Nadine, and Russel Norton, the bachelor pharmacist.

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Plot Keywords:

stand up comedian | based on standup comedy | female protagonist | recovering alcoholic | small town | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Did You Know?

Trivia

Cans of President's Choice Cola can be seen being used by the fictional family of Grace Kelly. This brand of Cola is produced for Loblaw's food stores (mostly its subsidiary stores Real Canadian Superstore, Real Canadian Wholesale club and Extra foods) throughout Canada. Even though President's Choice is sold and manufactured in Canada, they also have agreements to sell the "private label" brand in other supermarket chains. Two of those chains were Jewel Supermarkets (Chicago area grocery that is independent from Loblaw's, Grace Kelly's fictional St. Louis area home, is in reality, located in a Chicago suburb. A show producer must have had a connection to Chicago, in some way, and was probably familiar with the President's Choice private label brand.) National Supermarkets, which was based in St. Louis, and was owned by Loblaw's, was the other chain that carried President's Choice. This show was filmed in Los Angeles, but the show's location was in the St. Louis area, which viewers can assume was where the fictional Grace Kelly obtained the soda.

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Goofs

During the series Grace is portrayed as a lower class southerner. She often calls herself a redneck but when her mother visits. She's as a portrayed as a southern belle.

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Quotes

[Russell is complaining as Grace has bought "Alternative Medicine"]
Russell Norton: Grace, all this phoney-baloney stuff is killing me.
Grace Kelly: Russell, you shouldn't be so homeo-phobic

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Connections

Referenced in Talking Dead: The Calm Before (2019)

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Soundtracks

Perfect World
Performed by Michael O'Brien

User Reviews

Grace is my co-pilot.

I don't understand these complaints about "cliched strong women" and "yet another brassy know-it-all female"-- all TV ever gives us is bimbos as role-models, and you complain about a rare jewel like Grace? Just goes to show how fragile men and their little egos can be. This show was the best of the best. I'm sad the Big Recession had to end and all these Strong Women shows are over, and the Man Shows are back... because we NEED more brassy know-it-all women like Grace. We need an alternative to show our daughters on TV, to keep them from developing bulimia and learning phrases like "Math is hard! Let's go shopping!"

If you had a hideous screeching racist mother-in-law, delinquent kids, a retarded deadbeat ex-husband, and a bunch of goober co-workers at the oil refinery, what would stop YOU from getting loaded? The fact that Grace stays sober under all this is as perfect a role model as you could wish for. The character doesn't (because she's a TV character), and I frankly don't care what the actress does. Grace is brilliant, incisive, witty, vulnerable, and after all, human.

Where else can you hear lines like: "When we're married, we treat our men like vegetables; when we're divorced, we treat our vegetables like men"? All hail.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 September 1993 (USA)

Also Known As:

Grace Under Fire

Filming Locations:

Elgin, Illinois, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Carsey-Werner Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

30 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1