Finished reading Moonlighting: An Oral History

It was a nationwide search to cast the character of David Addison. Many actors tried out for the role, including Desi Arnaz Jr. and Bill Maher. David Alan Grier gave a fantastic audition, but they knew ABC would never go for an interracial couple at that time.

Bruce and Cybill hoped the show wouldn’t make it past its first half season, as filming for the show was laborious. It was not uncommon for 30 hour filming days, where most dramas go between 12-18.

From the start, the creator, Glenn Gordon Caron thumbed his nose at deadlines. He felt good television was not something you put on a schedule. As a result, Moonlighting was constantly behind taping and editing the episode on the day of network airing was a constant. One episode was so late in getting done, it made it to the east coast affiliates just minutes before it’s 9:00 airing. The gaps between new episodes started becoming frequent. But ABC initially didn’t care as second and even third airings of an episode would still draw big numbers.

The show was not a big hit among older viewers, many of whom found the irreverent style offputting. It was a HUGE hit among the 21-34 year old crowd, especially the college crowd.

Cybill never warmed to doing the show. Despite it reigniting her career and given her a level of acclaim and respect she has never gotten before or since, she seems to resent the Maddie Hayes character and the show itself. When she leaves after the first season to do The Long Hot Summer on hiatus, she tells Glenn she’s off to do “real work”. Allyce Beasley also claims Cybill resented Bruce from the start.

Glenn was obsessed and overly protective with the David Addison character to the point that he would veto scenes where Cybill’s character would get the upper hand or come out looking better. He frequently sided with Bruce in the shows much publicized on set blowouts.

As the third season is underway, the network and viewers start pressuring the show to finally consummate the Dave/Maddie pairing. A four part arc with Mark Harmon was conceived to end the season with plans to move the show in more of a Hart to Hart style direction the following season as Dave and Maddie become a couple. All plans go to shit when Cybill announces in the middle of shooting the four parter that she can’t do an action scene at a bowling alley because she’s pregnant with twins. An announcement that some on the staff think was intentional in timing.

With Bruce being unavailable for the summer due to shooting Die Hard, and Cybill not being available for the fall because of giving birth, Glenn quickly writes a story arc in three days where Maddie runs back to her family and Bruce is left behind at the office.

Fourth season opener A trip to the moon is actually the last episode filmed for season three.

Despite Dave and Maddie doing it and keeping them apart at the beginning of the fourth season, the show still remains a strong presence in the ratings, never going out of the top 20. But Bruce’s movie schedule increases, and Cybill effectively checks out of the show once having her twins, calling out sick constantly and demanding constant breaks between filming. Allyce Beasley and Curtis Armstrong are called upon to do heavy lifting. This takes a toll on Allyce, who winds up having a breakdown on set while filming a Casablanca themed episode.

Glenn plans a His Girl Friday story arc for Maddie’s return where she falls in love with an Ivy League David Addison-esque clone on a train and marries him. He recruits Dennis Dugan (Who had done a fantastic audition for David Addison) and writes the character of Walter Bishop.

After filming the Tracks of My tears episode, the production crew realizes they had fucked up. The character is completely out of place on the show, and the chemistry with Maddie is non existent. Cybill hates the storyline and the Bishop character, whom she deems a pathetic wimp.

When the episode airs, the show is flooded with angry calls and hate mail from viewers. ABC tells Glenn to ax the Bishop character and he is quickly written out. The ratings start to plummet and in an effort to save the show, a 3D finale at Magic Mountain is much publicized and then axed due to a writers strike. At this point, ABC steps in to deal with the shows problems. They agree to bring the show back later in the 88-89 season, but state that they want Cybill on an episode by episode basis, due to her frequent no shows.

A meeting is called at ABC with Cybill, Glenn, the ABC president and respective lawyers. The meeting turns into a blowout between Glenn and Cybill. Cybill calls the ABC brass that evening and states that she will only return if Glenn is fired. ABC calls Glenn and tells him he’s fired from his own show.

Cybill returns but on a limited schedule per doctors orders, no more than five hours of filming a day. Thus the reason for the harsher look in the last season, they had barely any time to film her much less light her.

The last scene of the finale of the show was supposed to be David and Maddie finally declaring their love for one another, but just as the scene was about to film, one of the actors (its not mentioned who) refuses to say the lines. The scene is scrapped and a montage is done instead.

Allyce Beasley admits that for the longest time she blamed Bruce and Cybill for not only destroying the show but hindering her career in the process, as she felt she was blackballed due to the shows constant negative press. But the staff agrees that Allyce and Curtis were the unsung heroes of the show who kept it going in spite of two temperamental stars.

Bruce and Cybill were both nuclear level cunts.

I still have my marbles.

I win!

No way any of the unions would allow a "30 hour filming day."

Girls, Girls -- you're both assholes!

Now what is it about those neurotic, bitchy blondes causing toxic work environments on TV?

[quote]Now what is it about those neurotic, bitchy blondes causing toxic work environments on TV?

Yeah, like what’s that all about?

I remember Bruce Willis used to complain about Cybill's hairstyle, he hated it.

Gurp brrnmp jkkkehsm fjcm ed'3 ls[;'al

Oh this is all delicious

[quote]Now what is it about those neurotic, bitchy blondes causing toxic work environments on TV?-Shelley Long

[quote]Yeah, like what’s that all about?-Suzanne Somers

I don't know? More money?

Has anyone ever liked working with Cybill Shepherd?

^^No

I feel sorry for Allyce Beasley, though i can;t imagine her career problems were because of "Moonlighting"--I don't think anyone blamed her either then or afterwarda. It was quite clear even then that it started out brilliantly and became a disaster because the three principle players--Caron , Willis, and Shepherd--all had ridiculously outsized egos,. The show just could not sustain the laborious working conditions Caron put in place once Willis wanted to be a movie star and Shepherd wanted to manipulate people (which she has done her entire career).

Beasley can blame Willis and Shepherd for the show collapsing, but she cannot blame them for what happened later to her career. If anything, I think people in Hollywood respected her for how much she had to carry in the later seasons. But the truth is she's very hard to cast given her odd looks and her odd affect.

She was a brunette Sandy Dennis!

Allyce Beasley was a real tour de force in that Silent Night, Deadly Night sequel!

She was a replacement in the La Cage Aux Folles revival on Broadway and didn't even get entrance applause.

There was a whole episode of Cheers about how ugly she was.

I need this book!

I didn’t like Allyce and Booger. Too corny.

But the show is so damn 80s LA glam. The BMWs, the sets, Shepherd’s clothes…I was around 12 when I started watching and paying attention. “Moonlighting” and a lot of the other shows around that time made being an adult look interesting and fun. It was also the time SNL had an older cast and seemed sophisticated to me.

Ah, well.

The late 80s SNL was fantastic.

In Cybill's defense, many who were interviewed for the book all but blame her pregnancy for ruining the show. Not the fact that Glenn was so behind schedule that there was no chance to actually plan ahead and think out a logical storyline for the season. All of that is tossed off as "We were making such revolutionary television!" Also the Glenn and Bruce two against one dynamic against Cybill had to have taken its toll. Curtis Armstrong implied as much in his book, saying that Cybill was not so much difficult as she was very unhappy and constantly backed against a wall.

[quote]Cybill was...constantly backed against a wall.

Befitting of how she got her start in the business.

Maddie Hayes was essentially written for Cybill.

Cybill was happy at first.

Alan Ball's great bitchy interview about being a writer on Cybill's sitcom.

Who cares?? I didn’t read the book and knew everything about what happened. Cybil is a cunt

I just ordered the book! Plus another that lists and tells stories of every episode.

Cybill may have been a pill, but Willis' acting as if HE was the show is completely out of line. Additionally, I remember his cringy appearances on Letterman during Moonlighting's run. He was all David Addison smirking asshole - without the writing. So he was Bruce Willis asshole. Dumbest jerk I'd seen on Letterman at that point.

Who cares?

R28 = Stephanie Zimbalist

Yo it’s 2024!

Not 1985

I watched that show too, r29 and probably enjoyed it more.

Op what decade is it??

Op is probably Repunzle

If it had been made today it would have been a perfect 2 or 3 season streaming show.

But for many reasons mentioned above it was a nightmare for network TV.

[quote]Op is probably Repunzle

Oh dear, r33.

Op is likely Muriel

[quote] Cybill was happy at first.

For about 20 minutes.

She seems to have not enjoyed acting. Ever.

She was used to being pampered by Bogdanovitch.

There’s someONE here who should go home

I've heard Bogdonavitch wanted to film a lot more cock in The Last Picture Show.

This was dire, i was a 12 or something when this came off and i watched because there were few things on. I feel absolutely no nostalgia for this show, it was seemed it was shot in a fake wood meeting room. Also. Few people are less interesting than cybil sheppard and bruce willis .

Caron sounds like he set up an impossible situation for all involved. Dysfunction starts on the top and it sounds like it gave him a thrill to oversee his stars battle. Awful troika. He had even bigger problems on Bull. Shitty person.

I remember reading in Cintra Wilson’s book “A Massive Swelling” about her meeting Bruce Willis. She was with a friend and somehow the topic of her friend’s watch came up. The watch was inherited from his grandfather or something. It was valuable in some way. Bruce asked to see it and when he was handed the watch, he broke it on purpose. He literally set it on the table and pounded his fist on it until it broke. Then he smugly grinned like what he did was so funny. Cintra was like, that pretty much sums him up.

I don't remember that.

You don't remember shitting your pants this morning, asshole.

[quote]He recruits Dennis Dugan

Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time.

In the Chart thread about the Chiller convention, it was observed that Cybill looked out of it. Not uninterested but just out of it. The pictures are indeed very disturbing.

It was the Charo thread, not the Chart thread.

OP, I could never figure out who the actress who plays Flower from Ghosts reminded me of until you mentioned Allyce Beasley. So, thanks.

The first three seasons were groundbreaking.

They were not groundbreaking by ANY stretch of anyone’s imagination

She *does* look out of it. I hope she's okay.

All you have to do is read "Cybill Disobedience" to see what an unapologetic cunt Cybill is. If you like her after reading it, you're a horrible person. She fights with almost everyone, and almost everyone is an enemy from the get-go.

A friend of mine who is an entertainment journalist interviewed Alan Ball once, and pointed out he had written for two of the most notoriously difficult women in television in the 90s: Grace Butler and Cybill Shepherd. He asked Ball off the record which of the two was worse, and Ball responded after some thought, "You know, you have to realize, all of Grace Butler's problems were because of her ongoing problems with mental illness. You had to forgive her that. It wasn't because she was at the core a desperately insecure and mean person." He left it at that.

The photo at the left at r53 is really something. She looks like she's receiving instructions from outer space.

Wow, she has no affect whatsoever and is detached from the surroundings. The author said she was gracious, thanking him for his interest, but cleraly had some deep issue. Cognitive decline, some dementia? Seems like she was trotted out there. Reminds me of stories of Willis at shoots for his last direct to video movies, out of it and not sure why he was there. He only had a few hours of work in him in the mornings before sundowning set in.

Op call 988

She’s probably loaded up on benzos so she doesn’t bite some poor elder gay’s head off when he asks her about her star turns in Martha, Inc. and Martha:Behind Bars.

Does she have good relationships with her children? I'd be appalled if that were my mother. Does she know where she is?

R34, did you mean "Brett Butler"?

I did, r60. Forgive me.

They wanted Lucy to play Alice but Gary talked her out of it.

In a way, maybe she gave us Christine Baranski.

Baranski knows the push it gave her career, and hasn't she always been tactful about the situation?

[quote] He recruits Dennis Dugan

Again and again the networks tried to sell that guy to the viewing audience. I never could understand what they thought Dugan brought to the table

I recall Dugan as a 70s character actor whose roles all seemed to be whiney, kind of ineffective guys, wet blanket-like. I can't imagine what Caron was thinking to bring him in as a romantic rival to the Willis character.

R58 not to mention that episode of law and order sexy times where she played the pastiche of Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. At least I'm pretty sure with her probably that episode will be on Ion tomorrow so I'll know then.

Bruce Willis went on to become very successful after that show. I will admit I enjoyed him in Die Hard but it's the last thing he did that I liked.

Such solid work before the show became too aware of itself. It seemed cute at the time, especially when they broke the fourth wall, but it didn't age well.

In the photo on the right at R53, she looks like she’s just coming to the full realization that she’s selling autographs in a hotel ballroom.

r54 Indeed. It was never her fault, everyone else did it.

The Sharon Stone character in irreconcilable differences was based on Cybill and I guess Alan Ball got his revenge on shepherd with the Annette Benings character in American Beauty and Catherine O’Hara’s character in six feet under.

On the subject of Bruce Willis, does anyone have any stories about his NYC days at Kamakazie Bar in the 80's? Linda Farentino mentioned a few things but Bruce may or may not have been down low Bi back then. She's mentioned the crazy 80's downtown bar/club era, in her time. Anyone Else?

^ HA HA HA HAAA

Bruce Willis threw a fondue pot at me at Kamakazie Bar while I was performing my freewheeling patio number. The closet kills.

Wow… that write up and photo and video footage of Shepard at the autograph show is surreal.

My hunch is that most of her behavior has to do with her just seriously not wanting to be there.

Faye Dunaway and Cybil Shepherd should star in the Broadway comedy “Legends”.

Shepherd seems to have a condition she's keeping private. When out with her dogs she carries a walking stick so she isn't photographed holding a cane. Daughter Ariel Ladensohn (formerly Shepherd-Oppenheim) accompanied her to the Oscars in 2022 and their posture was familiar to anyone who has ever cared for an aging, stubborn parent or grandparent.

Maybe she thinks an illness would mar her sex symbol image, or maybe she's trying not to step on daughter Clementine Ford's toes. Clementine, the one who was linked to Kate Moennig, has MS and it's one of the main things she writes about now. Ladensohn's the one whose lesbian nuptials were profiled in the New York Times a few years ago.

R77 - I believe their title would be - “Legends… in their Own Minds”

Wow, so Cybill has two daughters who have been or are lesbians.....because Clementine was (now married to a man) and Ariel is too? Damn!

[quote]No way any of the unions would allow a "30 hour filming day."

Certainly not mine.

When did 24 hour days get changed?

[quote]It was not uncommon for 30 hour filming days

Were they filming on Bajor?

That's how long it takes the sun to rotate around her massive ego. And since she thinks the universe revolves around her...

They didn’t R82

WORKING days.

All I think of when Bruce Willis comes up is him finger banging Aaron Carter.

That’s maddening to hear David Alan Grier did not get the show due to racism.

It’s a lot bigger than a finger!

I remember an interview with Whoopi Goldberg who was guest-starring on an episode of Moonlighting. Apparently, she went out to lunch Bruce Willis and was amazed at how rude he was to the waitstaff. She was surprised by his behavior because he was known to have been a bartender and waiter before his big break. 'You should be nicer' she said to him, but he just laughed it off.

I once started a thread called Who’s the Bigger Asshole, Alec Baldwin or Bruce Willis? Willis won because he’s a Republican.

Would the answer be the same today?

Baldwin is a douche and Willis is a fucking asshole.

R87 Grier was also not handsome enough and always read slightly fey, even without the In Living Color skits.

I had always heard that they were going to cast Ray Sharkey but he was too drugged up to accept.

Kate Jackson was first choice for Maddie.

R85

Well, for those of us not as smart as you or in the business, try fundamentally explaining what it means, or what you mean.

R38 It's difficult to like something you're so terrible at.

R93 No, she was not. The part was written for Cybill.

R81 and others - you'd be surprised.

Why are so many people making up things? Kate Jackson was NOT, repeat NOT, considered for anything on MOONLIGHTING.

It was written for Kim Carnes but America stopped fingering themselves to her music.

WHEN WE! 🎶

Kate Jackson had her own show then, with Bruce Boxcutter.

aka the former Mr. Shitbra

Maddie was written for Lucille Ball (that uppity Angela Lansbury had just started Murder She Wrote so it was ok to do detective shows).

It was actually going to be a Sunset Boulevard scenario with Lucy playing a reclusive star and Bruce Willis playing her boytoy. Each week a stranger would knock on her villa door pleading with Lucy/Norma to help them solve a mystery.

For once, Gary tried to talk her into it. The producers agreed to hire Gale Gordon as Max the Chauffeur.

Then Lucy found out that the show was being sponsored by Massengill and she said, “Oh, hell no. I had to smoke on I LoveLucy to promote the cigarette sponsorship. I am certainly not going to massengill on this show to promote that sponsorship.”

And that, folks, is why Cybil Shepherd ruined the comedy Moonlighting.

hurl

David was written for Lee Majors.

R103 that was painfully bad.

[QUOTE]Bruce Boxcutter

WEHT him? Amazing how Melissa Gilbert went from Rob Lowe to Bruce to Timothy Busfield.

Bitch started at the top and made her way down to the bottom

R107, maybe that infamous shitbra had something to do with it. It had a way of sniffing out Republicans.

[quote] In the photo on the right at [R53], she looks like she’s just coming to the full realization that she’s selling autographs in a hotel ballroom.

Exactly my takeaway too. I'm glad that some people find these events thrilling and fun, and that some of these had-beens can make a little extra money, but Good God it all looks so fucking sad. I don't get it. Who wants to see Fred Dryer using a walker or Charo with six layers of foundation trying to pass for 50?

This was a dream sequence when Maddie found out that David was married and divorced. She came up with this elaborate scenario with Sandahl Bergman as his wife. It ends with the first David/Maddie kiss, albeit in a dream but Maddie also realizes her attraction to David. The scene was directed by Stanley Donen and remains one of the most innovative and memorable scenes I've ever seen on TV. An entire (incorrect) history is created but there's an amazing amount of character detail spun with no words. Absolutely brilliant.

It's what you choose to make it, r110.

[quote]R9 I remember Bruce Willis used to complain about Cybill's hairstyle, he hated it.

Straight men can be so demanding about how women look, yet at the same time clueless about what’s needed to achieve a certain look.

Shepherd’s hair started out longish and FLOWING. Cascading bedroom hair that moved.

Because it’s not artificially held in place with a lot of hairspray, this type of style has to be coaxed and combed back into place a lot between takes.

Waiting for this drove Glenn Gordon Caron and Bruce Willis crazy - so in the later seasons Shepherd had to have her hair cut shorter and heavily sprayed into place. Willis thought this soccer mom look was “dippy” but he also didn’t want to wait through the RIGHT way to style long, sexy hair, so… you know, you’re just stuck with guys who complain no matter what you do.

Basically, assholes.

[quote] It was actually going to be a Sunset Boulevard scenario with Lucy playing a reclusive star and Bruce Willis playing her boytoy. Each week a stranger would knock on her villa door pleading with Lucy/Norma to help them solve a mystery.

I’d watch that.

R110

[quote]...it all looks so fucking sad

That was my take as well. I know those people worked in show business and this is a way to pick up some extra cash, but, ....looks depressing.

I wonder what they really think of those people who sit grinning beside them as a photo is taken?

Bruce must not have been in any relationships with women in the 80s. Once we got past the perms of earlier in the decade, that big hair look inspired by Cindy Crawford and co was all like R113 describes. Normal women couldn't have those styles except for special occasions, because they just wouldn't stay in place long enough. Even at Cybill's length, the length of the hair would pull the extensive curling, waving and height off the face out, tending to entropy. Demi Moore's hair, say, in About Last Night, looks much less "done", and may have pleased Bruce from that point of view, but it must have been teased to hell AND set, to frame her face the way it does at the length it is.

Maddie's original hair was a masterpiece.

Thanks to DL, I watched the 6 episode first season on Hulu yesterday. First time since the original run (I was 9 when it began airing!).

Really fun watch. The writing was better than most of what you see now, the chemistry between the two was off the hook and the stories were engaging. Especially the one with the dead guy being a Russian spy.

Going to start season two when I get home tonight.

Just stay away from the last season, R117.

What could it be? What could it be? Don't dance around the question. She's had a stroke, people. All the signs are there.

The episode with Dana Delaney I watched last night was really good.

Not sure why posters are saying Shepherd can't act. She exceptionally good and hilarious on this show.

The way she and Willis play off each other (especially if they really did loathe one another) is incredible.

I don't know why people say she can't act either. It's probably the bitch thing or not liking her. I've seen nearly everything she's ever done and have really enjoyed her work. Chances Are is one of my favorite lazy days movie.

She doesn’t have a lot of range but she’s good in her limited capacity. Caron wrote to her strengths so she really did shine on Moonlighting

R122 and when she has a leading man who she has chemistry with like Willis or DeNiro, the results are amazing.

R120 Dana was fantastic in that episode,

All the fun cases with the nutty climaxes took a backseat to all that Dave/Maddie drama.

And yeah, Shepherd’s leave was endless.

Of all the 1970s former models who started acting, (including some of the worst ever on screen like Ali MacGraw and Lauren Hutton), Cybill was the best - in the right role. Maddie Hayes was the right role.

Love Cybill’s outrageous 80s hair in this ad.

It’s kind of silly but kind of sexy and hot.

Funny how chemistry between two leads is often detected between those who despise each other. And when real life couples are paired it often falls flat.

This is fascinating. It’s the two stars waiting for a half hour for a sound problem to be fixed, unaware they’re being filmed.

Great find r129.

ABC let the two of them get away with a lot. Several of other promising shows died on the vine because the network’s attention was on Moonlighting.

R130 - Like what?

Moonlighting opened a lot of creative directions for TV.

Sharon Stone, who was a gorgeous model, would have made an amazing Maddie Hayes. Her stellar comedic timing and impeccable professionalism would have made “Moonlighting” a 10-year series that would still be sizzling in syndication today.

ABC tried to duplicate Moonlighting’s success with Jack and Mike starring Cheryl Ladd. They even scheduled it to follow Moonlighting on Tuesday nights, hoping lighting would strike twice. It didnt.

Also agree that Cybill was excellent on the show and should have won an Emmy. She has a fantastic monologue in the Mulberry Street episode where Bruce’s monologue won him his Emmy. But she got squeezed out of a nomination by the LA law women. (Talk about an overrated show.)

It does seem cold and shallow, but her pregnancy and how it was handled did ruin “Moonlighting.”

Those twins wrecked her looks permanently.

Cybill scored some primo dick in her day:

Elvis

Jeff Bridges

Don Johnson

There’s probably more.

The first season really was fresh and different, but it was the kind of show that might have had a couple short seasons on a streaming service if had been done today.

Remember those Seagram’s wine cooler commercials. I remember being 9 or so and feeling funny when I saw Bruce in those good-fitting jeans.

He’s pushing nice box in the beginning and has the cutest ass.

Al Jarreau's theme song was fabulous.

[quote]R54 All you have to do is read "Cybill Disobedience" to see what an unapologetic cunt Cybill is. If you like her after reading it, you're a horrible person.

[italic]“I liked it! I LIKED IT!” [/italic] (Margaret White)

I found her memoir really interesting. Shepherd IS unapologetic, and in a woman I think most people find that incredibly grating.

The thing about her is in most major ways she’s led a charmed life. Combined with - or because of - her perfect white bread looks, she doesn’t need you. And that infuriates people… maybe especially men.

R132 - I could see Sharon Stone for a late 90s/ early 00s Moonlighting. I could see Virginia Madsen, who played Maddie’s niece as Maddie in the late 00s. I could see Katherine Heigl today.

You lost me at Katherine Heigl, R140.

Perhaps Margot Robbie or Rosamund Pike for a present-day Maddie Hayes?

Cheryl Ladd? CHERYL FUCKING LADD?

While reading this thread I realized I saw Cybill live in her only Broadway show, as part of the replacement cast of The Best Man revival. Cybill replaced Candice Bergen. She was more zaftig than I expected but fine in the role, not as good as Bergen but it's unlikely she had the full rehearsal period the original cast had. Broadway replacements typically get 10 days to 2 weeks to rehearse with the understudies.

Shepherd was onstage with Elizabeth Ashley (replacing Lansbury), John Stamos (replacing Eric McCormack) and Kristin Davis (replacing Kerry Butler). Hard to believe this was 12 years ago. She left a few weeks before the show closed to care for her dying mother.

Shepherd's other onstage appearances appear to not have gone too well. She workshopped a one-woman show called Curvy Widow at the Alliance, with the Atlanta Journal Constitution writing "Perhaps it was opening night jitters. But in my six years of reviewing theater for this newspaper, I have never seen a performance as embarrassing and painful to watch as this."

She was slated to do Hello, Dolly in Raleigh NC in 2011 but sustained an injury during rehearsals and had to be replaced.

It seems she had a sister of the Lesbyterian faith who died, and she has been a friend to the gays in general, receiving awards from GLAAD, the Atlanta Human Rights Campaign, and others.

In some universe there’s a version of Steel Magnolias with Cybill Shepherd as Ouiser and Allyce Beasley as Annelle (of course Cybill would want M’Lynn or even Shelby but I’m casting to type)

I remember moments on moonlighting when Shepherd seemed quiet and vulnerable, when her haughty armor was pierced by the David character. She was good at sometimes revealing that side.

In the episode where David goes back for a family funeral and runs into his ex wife, he comes back to the hotel sloppy drunk. Shepherd was effective as she listened, letting him lie so the events reflected better on him.

Those first seasons of Moonlight were absolutely amazing to me as a kid. Still one of the greatest TV shows. Bruce and Cybill were fire. Some of the best chemistry I’ve ever seen on screen. Their egos and misery getting in the way was such a disappointment. Oh, well. Sad that both Bruce and Cybill seem to be ailing. Age is a bitch.

Sharon and Bruce shared the screen in this classic commercial from the “Moonlighting” days.

From the moment she appears on screen, you can see the star quality that would soon blossom into one of cinema’s most beautiful and talented performers.

Cybill was stunning those first seasons R113. Even as a kid I thought the way they treated her in the press and the way Willis and Caron treated her was shocking. A real early lesson for me about the misogyny in Hollywood.

R144 When was this?

Christine Baranski could have had Cybill on The Good Fight playing a college chum of Diane’s. She had no problem working with Uber cunt Julianna Marguiles and hanging out with her off the show.

[quote]But she got squeezed out of a nomination by the LA law women. (Talk about an overrated show.)

LA Law was shown directly opposite Moonlighting on Australian TV. Whether you were an LA Law person or a Moonlighting person was such a thing, it was a question you might be asked on a first date. LA Law people were meant to be serious, and Moonlighting people frivolous.

I'm delighted that Moonlighting has comprehensively won the battle in retrospect. Both of them have influenced subsequent TV shows: LA Law the formulaic procedurals with multiple spinoffs and a big, undiscriminating fan base, and Moonlighting the creative ones with a quirky sense of humour that win all the Emmys.

[quote] But she got squeezed out of a nomination by the LA law women. (Talk about an overrated show.)

Tell us about it!

I'm hearing The Doors in my head.