Cybill Shepherd

In Taxi Driver (1976), Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy makes us curious about someone other than Travis. Martin Scorsese keeps pulling us back towards Robert De Niro’s central performance, even when we want to consider her separately from him. We felt frustrated by how little time the film gave that curiosity to develop. That is our reservation about a film we strongly recommend: Shepherd gives us a reason to look away from its central character, and the film seldom lets us. Jodie Foster’s Iris faces the same restriction.

She began on screen as Jacy Farrow in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971), then appeared in The Heartbreak Kid (1972) before Taxi Driver. We would not let those early film credits push her television work aside. Being cast as glamorous women is only part of the story. Her comic timing and flair for sharp exchanges explain why the later work matters to us.

Moonlighting (1985–1989) gives that side of her a sustained job. As Maddie Hayes, opposite Bruce Willis, she has a partner for the romantic banter rather than a film continually drawing our attention elsewhere. The pleasure is in the timing between them, and in her ability to make a sharp tongue work within a romantic pairing. This is the television work we would use to introduce her: it makes good use of qualities that a smaller film role cannot always accommodate.

Cybill (1995–1998), in which she starred and took on producing duties, gives her another comic partnership, with Christine Baranski. It also suggests a limit: the central character can be too carefully protected, leaving the supporting players more interesting things to do. Giving Shepherd more space does not, by itself, solve everything. She needs writing that lets another performer challenge her, not merely admire her. For that, start with Moonlighting and the exchanges with Willis.