People

By Guy D. Garcia

It's about time, as Cybill Shepherd sees it. The erstwhile cover girl made a dazzling film debut 14 years ago as a budding beauty in The Last Picture Show, but the early promise of that role seemed to go unfulfilled. Several movies and a television series, Yellow Rose, flopped. Then last spring she let her hair down as the frosty and funny Maddie in the ABC-TV series Moonlighting. The critics applauded, and since it returned to the air this fall, the show has made several appearances in the Top Ten. "It was real hard for me to break out of that aloof-beauty thing," says Shepherd. "People don't seem to laugh at people who look like I do. One of the things I'm enjoying most is that it seems O.K. to laugh at what I say now." Shepherd, 35, has been moonlighting off the set. She earned critical plaudits for her steamy performance as Eula in this month's TV production of The Long Hot Summer. She plans to record a new album (adding to three not very successful earlier ones) and hopes to produce a screenplay she co-wrote. Juggling all that and a six- year-old daughter "ain't easy," she says, but "it feels great."