Community service

A familiar face is missing from

which resurfaced recently on Yahoo Screen.

Yvette Nicole Brown, who played Shirley throughout the show’s NBC run, announced last summer that she wouldn’t make the move to Yahoo. Brown said at the time that her father was ill and needed her care.

In October, though, Brown became a regular on CBS’ remake of

playing Dani, assistant to sportstalk host Oscar Madison (Matthew Perry).

After CBS introduced to TV critics meeting in Los Angeles in January, Brown explained that the work load of a single-camera comedy like

is very different from a multi-camera show like

“My father has dementia,” she said, “and I’m his only caregiver.” She moved him from her hometown of Cleveland to live with her, she said. “I couldn’t do that working 80 hours a week, but now it’s like 25 hours a week, and that’s great for me.” She thanks the powers that be at for releasing her and calls a gift from God. “What’s amazing to me is that you can make a choice for the family, and God can bless you. We shoot five minutes from my house. I can go home and see my dad at lunch, make sure he’s OK, bring him back with me if I want to.

“He can come to the tapings. It’s just an easier, more relaxing type of environment. And he needs me.”

At this point, it’s just the two of them, she said.

“I don’t have any people. It’s me and my dad, in a house. I’m the one who gives him his medication, I’m the one who cooks his food, I’m the one that makes sure he’s OK. If he’s having a tough day, I get up and sit with him.”

If the time comes when she can’t do it alone, “I will get help,” Brown said. But “he’s my dad. This is my journey, with my dad. ... He was there for me.”

On Brown is much slimmer than in her Shirley days. The weight loss was a matter of health, after she developed Type 2 diabetes, she said.

“I had to put the doughnuts down and start getting on the treadmill,” she said. Her other secret: portion control.

“Before I eat something now, I go, ‘Is it worth your feet? Is it worth your feet? Do you want to walk? Or do you want to eat that?’

“And I kind of want to walk. And also, having my dad, I want to live longer. I have to take care of him, so I have to take care of me.” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch/ Tribune News Service