Cybill Shepherd

Cybill Shepherd was a former beauty queen-model whose sudden rise to stardom, high-profile romances, precipitous drop in popularity and spectacular television comeback and respect earned her a reputation as one of Hollywood's most mercurial yet determined actresses. The 21-year-old blonde beauty made an immediate splash in her feature debut "The Last Picture Show" (1971), directed by auteur filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, with whom she began an intense affair during filming. With the success of her follow-up, the romantic-comedy "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972), Shepherd's future in film seemed bright indeed. That was, until the critical and commercial disasters of Bogdanovich's "Daisy Miller" (1974) and "At Long Last, Love" (1976) nearly destroyed her nascent career. She earned a brief reprieve with a pivotal role in director Martin Scorsese's intense masterpiece "Taxi Driver" (1976), although, in the wake of the string of flops that followed, a distraught Shepherd temporarily retired from the business in 1978. After some time away from the spotlight, she returned opposite future star Bruce Willis on the hit romantic-comedy, "Moonlighting" (ABC, 1985-89) then as campier TV version of herself for the sitcom, "Cybill" (CBS, 1995-98). Later, her portrayals in the docudramas "Martha, Inc: The Story of Martha Stuart" (NBC, 2003) and "Martha Behind Bars" (CBS, 2005) proved an excellent vehicle for the more seasoned actress. Having been both the ingénue and the has-been, Shepherd eventually grew into the professional persona she would most likely be remembered as - a true survivor in the unforgiving environs of Hollywood.