appeared in a London revival of Can-Can. She also participated in the Chorus Line extravaganza to celebrate its then record-breaking run on Broadway in September 1983. Later career Her television work included a regular role on the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows early in her career. After her rise to fame, she made guest appearances on Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, and Cheers (as Debra, the ex-wife of Sam Malone). She played Suzi Laird on several episodes of Fame. In the early 1990s, McKechnie appeared off-Broadway twice, first in a revue entitled Cut the Ribbons, followed by Annie Warbucks, a less successful sequel to the hit Annie. In 1993, she reunited with most of the original cast of Company for three concert performances. In 1996, she was awarded the Fred Astaire Award for Best Female Dancer for her performance in a Broadway adaptation of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's film State Fair. In the same year, she was in a production of You Never Know at the Pasadena Playhouse. In February, 1997, she played Phyllis in a concert performance of Follies at London's Drury Lane Theatre, and the following year took on the role of Sally in a production of that same show at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. McKechnie also starred opposite Carol Lawrence in the Los Angeles and New York production of Joni Fritz's Girl's Room, produced by Dennis Grimaldi and directed and choreographed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, both former Michael Bennett dancers. In 2001, McKechnie created the role of Lela Rogers, mother of Ginger Rogers, in the world premiere of Ginger: The Musical. In 2002, McKechnie starred in the pre-Broadway production of the Jerry Herman musical revue Showtune. In recent years, she has toured periodically in her one-woman show Inside the Music, a potpourri of songs, dances and anecdotes about her life in the theater and her successful battle with arthritis, directed by her old Chorus Line castmate, Thommie Walsh. Her autobiography, Time Steps: My Musical Comedy Life, written with Greg Lawrence, was published by Simon & Schuster on August 29, 2006, only weeks before the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line opened on October 5. In June 2010, McKechnie appeared at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. McKechnie was on the faculty of HB Studio in New York City. In 2015, she served as the standby for Chita Rivera in Kander and