The Gorgeous Transformation Of '70s Actor Cybill Shepherd

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Cybill Shepherd has had quite the roller coaster career. Since she shot to fame, her work has stretched to almost every corner of the entertainment world. She's appeared in TV and movies, she's released albums, she's graced magazine covers, and she's even trod the boards on Broadway. Shepherd's resilience has made her one of Hollywood's most notable comeback queens too, as she's repeatedly reinvented herself and her career on her own terms.

Much of that is down to her determination, as she's refused to bow to pressure regarding her career, love life, or aging. "I am strong willed. I am stubborn. I will never again give up my belief in myself," she told People in 1985. She's made it clear she knows her worth too. "I absolutely deserve all this," she told the outlet of her fame. That was never clearer when she read the first script for the 1976 movie "Taxi Driver" and realized her character didn't have lines. "I threw the script across the hotel room and tried to hit the garbage can,'" she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

While most celebrities start at the bottom with small parts in small projects, things happened almost the opposite way for this celeb. Shepherd became a movie star almost instantly, but stepped back from bigger gigs as she got older to work on her own terms. "In many ways, I started at the top and have been working my way down ever since," she joked. One thing's for sure, though: Shepherd's transformation from a young Tennessee girl to an outspoken superstar has been truly gorgeous.

Cybill Shepherd was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1950 to Patty Macci, a housewife, and air-conditioning salesman Bill Shepherd, who instilled his passion for athleticism in her. "[He] made me feel like it was OK to play as rough as the boys. I didn't have to be a wilting, withering violet," Shepherd told The Observer (via The Guardian). 

But her Southern childhood, much of which was spent singing in the church choir, wasn't without hiccups. She contracted pneumonia twice, which was so serious she told The Sunday Times magazine she almost died (via Mary Ellen Mark). When Shepherd was 8, she had a scary incident involving a barbed wire fence that cut her lip. The injury was so gruesome that the little girl needed plastic surgery to reconstruct her mouth. "That left me with a tremendous drive towards not taking things for granted," she said.

The star also struggled when her parents divorced when she was 15. "That's when I started acting out. I lied about sex a lot," she told The Observer. She also opened up to "Today" in 2015 about her past mischievous streak, admitting she had to repeat gym class because she refused to buckle down. "I was a rebel girl. I was a bad girl for a long time. I'm a good girl now, though!" she said.

Teenage Cybill Shepherd was active on the pageant scene. In 1966, she was crowned Miss Teenage Memphis, but her pageant days weren't as glittering as they seemed. "I went into Miss Teenage America and didn't even make the finals. I got 'Miss Congeniality.' I still have that award, it's pretty ugly, I put it down in the office with all my ugly awards," she told the Commercial Appeal.

Two years after her Miss Teenage Memphis win, the 18-year-old had carved out a successful modeling career. She was even named Model of the Year after winning a nationwide competition, which The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported earned her a prize of upward of $25,000. Shepherd soon began appearing on magazine covers, gracing the likes of Glamour and Seventeen. But while the career path proved lucrative, she knew it wasn't for her. "I hated being a model, in fact. I felt that people treated me like an object," she told The Hollywood Interview.

In 1971, Cybill Shepherd appeared in the movie "The Last Picture Show" alongside Jeff Bridges and Cloris Leachman, which helped her get her foot in the Hollywood door. Shepherd had landed the role after the movie's director, Peter Bogdanovich, saw her Glamour magazine cover and asked her to do a screen test. "I owe my entire career to that cover," Shepherd later told Glamour. Not only did the movie score the actor her first Golden Globe nomination, but it also began a very high-profile romance with Bogdanovich. He later confirmed to Vulture that their romance was an affair. Both had cheated on their partners, as he was married to Polly Platt while Shepherd had been dating Bridges.

Shepherd's acting career continued amid the scandal (she landed roles in the likes of "The Heartbreak Kid" and "Taxi Driver"), but her love life was still hitting headlines in the '70s. Despite her controversial romance with Bogdanovich, she was linked to Elvis Presley. "I was interested in him because of who he was as a human being, and he was one of the most sexy human beings I ever met. He was extremely sensual and we had a great chemistry," she'd later tell The Sunday Times (via Mary Ellen Mark).

Amid the salacious headlines, Shepherd was nurturing her smarts. In 1973, she told The Sarasota Herald-Tribune she'd studied at New York University and New York's Hunter College and was preparing to attend classes at the University of Southern California. "I'm determined to get a degree one day," she said. But life got in the way, and Shepherd didn't finish her degrees in either art history or English literature.

Amid her increasingly busy acting career and student life, Cybill Shepherd was determined to show off her singing skills. In 1974, she launched a singing career and released her debut album, the jazz-inspired "Cybill Does It... ...To Cole Porter." But despite fast becoming one of the biggest stars in the country (and wearing some '70s fashion trends we hope never come back), she wasn't totally enamored by the bright lights of Hollywood.

After her 1975 movie "At Long Last Love," directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Burt Reynolds, failed to set the box office alight, she returned to her hometown of Memphis and swapped movies for theater gigs. The move came at the suggestion of her friend and director Orson Welles, and Shepherd revealed in her memoir "Cybill Disobedience," after an emotional call home to her mom. "That's when I really came alive as an actress and a singer but I was barely breaking even financially," Shepherd, who demonstrated some of the '70s more popular beauty trends, told People.

While back in Memphis, the star, who had officially split with Bogdanovich, fell in love. She married David Ford, and they welcomed a daughter named Clementine Ford in 1979, the same year Shepherd released her sophomore album "Vanilla." By 1982, though, their marriage was over. The star later claimed to The Observer (via The Guardian) that Ford had cheated on her, and their relationship didn't survive the cheating scandal like these Hollywood marriages.

After a few years in Tennessee, Cybill Shepherd returned to Hollywood. This time, she was more focused on TV, and she appeared in the likes of "Fantasy Island" and "The Yellow Rose." "I looked great. I had confidence. For the first time people in the business saw that I was standing on my own two feet, and I was no longer Peter Bogdanovich's girlfriend," she told People. Shepherd also opened up about how much her priorities had changed since becoming a mom. She shared that she put her daughter to bed every night and ensured weekends were strictly reserved for family time.

In 1985, Shepherd landed one of her most successful and most notable TV gigs alongside Bruce Willis. They took on the lead roles in the drama "Moonlighting," which ran for five seasons until 1989 and earned Shepherd her first Emmy nomination and Golden Globe Award. But she and Willis didn't have the most loving friendship. "At one point in the show, it had gotten to where we just hated each other," Shepherd told Entertainment Weekly. "It was a very volatile show anyway, but that's also what made it great."

Amid the show's success, Shepherd walked down the aisle for the second time. She married chiropractor Bruce Oppenheim in 1987, and they welcomed twins, Ariel Ladensohn and Cyrus Zachariah Shepherd-Oppenheim, the following year. But, sadly, divorce loomed again soon after. Shepherd and Oppenheim called it quits in 1989, the same year she returned to movies and starred in the fantasy rom-com "Chances Are" alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan O'Neal.

Cybill Shepherd proved how big her star power had become in 1995 when she landed her own TV show, the CBS sitcom "Cybill." It also starred gorgeous "The Gilded Age" leading lady Christine Baranski and received a series of prestigious accolades, including Golden Globes for Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy for Shepherd. The series ran for four seasons and would become one of the jewels in the mom of three's career crown.

Shepherd would later tell The Hollywood Interview she believed her character's lack of glamour partly contributed to the show ending what she considered prematurely. "I remember I called up (writer/co-exec producer) Chuck (Lorre) and said 'Why don't we have my character have her first grand-baby, and we'll do an episode about that?' He said 'God, you're so brave!'" she said. Shepherd also put the show ending down to an encounter she had with then-CBS boss Les Moonves. She purported on "The Michelle Collins Show" (via The Hollywood Reporter) in 2018 that she shut down Moonves' advances while the show was still filming, which she suggested influenced the show not staying on air longer.

With decades of high-profile moments behind her, Cybill Shepherd got candid about her life and journey to the top in the 2000 memoir "Cybill Disobedience." As an older woman in Hollywood still embracing her sexuality, the multiple Emmy nominee wasn't afraid to speak out about traditionally taboo topics. "Getting older is not a wonderful thing and menopause is definitely not necessarily respected in our culture. As we get older, we do not get less sexual," Shepherd told The Sunday Times (via Mary Ellen Mark) magazine while promoting the book. 

She was also open about her unconventional dating life and how her approach to romance had changed. The actor told The Observer (via The Guardian) in 2008 that she was dating multiple men and felt liberated post-menopause. "It used to be that when you met someone, you needed to have sex as soon as possible, because by the time you got to know them you probably wouldn't want to. I used to do that, and I'm thinking about starting it again," she said.

Shepherd's career continued to thrive in the 2000s. She appeared in two episodes of "8 Simple Rules," an episode of Christina Applegate's "Samantha Who?," and multiple episodes of "The L Word." "One of the things that really changed for me in my life is that I've learned how to be a guest star," she told The New York Times in 2009. But her career resurgence came amid a serious health scare. Shepherd's mom, Patty Micci, told The Scotsman her daughter had a melanoma on her back, which had been successfully removed. Micci told the outlet that although the discovery was scary, Shepherd would be okay thanks to fast treatment.

Having released eight albums throughout Cybill Shepherd's long career and appearing in several more recent movies and TV shows (including 2010's "The Client List" with Jennifer Love Hewitt and "Another Harvest Moon" with Doris Roberts), it seemed like a natural fit for the multi-hyphenate to make the move to stage shows. In 2011, she was due to appear in a North Carolina Theatre production of "Hello Dolly!" but had to cancel her appearances after getting injured. "That was heartbreaking. I actually thought, 'Maybe I can do this in a wheelchair with a broken knee,' but then I realized I couldn't do the stairs. I was crushed," she told Broadway Buzz.

But the star was determined to tread the boards, and did so the following year — on Broadway. She made her debut in a celeb-filled Big Apple production of "The Best Man," appearing alongside "Full House" star John Stamos and "Sex and the City"'s Kristin Davis. "'The Best Man' is the perfect Broadway debut — it's an emotional ride, even though it doesn't appear that way on the surface," she said.

Though Cybill Shepherd had two divorces in her rearview mirror, she accepted a third proposal in 2012. She told the New York Daily News she was engaged to psychologist Andrei Nikolajevic, despite admitting she didn't see herself walking down the aisle again before they met. But the two never married. Shepherd opened up to ET about the split in 2015, sharing, "I think I had a bit of a broken heart, and there was a part of it that wasn't going to heal, and that's when I turned to Jesus and then I got the offer to do this film." The star was referring to her role in the Christian movie "Do You Believe?" By 2018, Shepherd made it clear a fourth engagement ring likely wasn't in her future. She told the Commercial Appeal she no longer believed in marriage and questioned her past attempts. 

The "How To Murder Your Husband" actor also used her platform to promote a positive attitude toward aging — especially for women. "It's not fun getting older. Let's face it. But I think the most important thing, especially for women, is to learn to love ourselves as we age and to accept that there's something more important than just the external shapes, weight, and stuff and really more of a spiritual journey and what we can give back," she said on "CBS This Morning."

Cybill Shepherd's crusade to dispel negative connotations surrounding aging continued well into the 2020s. She shared her positive mantra with the Las Vegas Review-Journal as she encouraged other women not to let their age define them. "I believe that if you love yourself as you age, it's easier to accept some of the changes," she said, admitting she appreciated how much she'd learned over the years. "Being older means you can truly avoid making the same old mistakes, plus you realize now that it's not about you, but what you can give back. Life now becomes more of a spiritual journey," she said.

The talented actor brought that important life mantra to her career. In 2025, she reflected on and celebrated her decades-long career in the show "An Evening with Cybill Shepherd: Music, Conversation & Stories at Catalina Jazz Club." "I like to make the audience laugh, but I like to keep them in touch with me," she told People of the nostalgic production, which ran in Los Angeles for two nights.

At the time of writing, the star hasn't appeared on screen since 2023's "How To Murder Your Husband," but that seemed to be her own choice. "I've gotten everything out of the way that I've wanted to accomplish. I've been very, very fortunate like that.... older feels better," she said. The actor also had an inspiring response when asked what she wanted her legacy to be, telling the outlet, "Just having fun." And we can see plenty more fun in Shepherd's future.