ACTOR · BORN 1950
Cybill Shepherd
- Born
- 18 February 1950
43 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
20 Facts About Cybill Shepherd's Life and Family
- #002
Cybill was named after her grandfather Cy and her father Bill.
- #003
She actively fought against racism and in 1992 received a plaque from the National Civil Rights Museum in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. The plaque bore the slogan "equal opportunity and human dignity," followed by "Thank you Cybill Shepherd for helping break the chain of oppression." Her mother told her: "I've never been as proud of you as I am today."
- #004
She was discovered as a model for films when director Peter Bogdanovich noticed her on the cover of Glamour magazine while she was standing in a supermarket checkout line (early 1970s).
- #005
In the 1970s, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich divorced his wife Polly Platt to be with Cybill. The affair broadly inspired the film Irreconcilable Differences (1984), in which a director (Ryan O'Neal) divorces his wife (Shelley Long) to be with an aspiring star (Sharon Stone). Platt said the film "got more right than wrong," while Cybill denied that she resembled the character Stone played in the film.
- #006
She attended a charm school where she was taught to behave like a lady, and in 1967 she was named Miss America Congeniality.
- #008
She gave her former lover and artistic mentor Peter Bogdanovich a signed photograph that hung in his New York City apartment, in which she addressed him as "Sven," short for "Svengali." In George L. Du Maurier's Bohemian novel "Trilby," Svengali was a musician who, through hypnosis, taught the title heroine to sing and controlled her singing for his own purposes.
- #009
At a Hollywood party for Stella Adler, Marlon Brando was said to have remarked that she had a "great ass" as he walked away from her. Adler was the acting teacher of both Brando and Shepherd's then-boyfriend Peter Bogdanovich. Shepherd was sitting on the couch with Brando and Adler when Brando explained that he couldn't stand her meaningless talk. After the insult she stood up and left, though the great actor had complimented her rear. At the party Adler also said that her "Irish nose" kept her from being a great beauty.
- #013
Her family could not attend her first wedding to David Ford because it took place abroad in England, where she was filming The Lady Vanishes (1979), and it was a rushed wedding since she was already pregnant. Her mother attended her second wedding to her current husband, and Cybill treasured a funny photo of her mother and stepfather pointing a shotgun at the groom, Bruce Oppenheim, because it was also a "shotgun wedding," as Cybill was pregnant once again. Her father did not attend because he could not stand to be in the same room as her mother after their bitter divorce. A year later, however, he accepted her invitation when she asked him to walk down the aisle as her character's father in a scene in Chances Are (1989).
- #017
Her lookalike daughter Clementine Shepherd-Ford (Clementine Ford) is an up-and-coming actress who was named Miss Golden Globe, an honor given to the children of celebrities.
- #019
In her 2000 memoir "Cybill Disobedience" she wrote: "This book is dedicated to my mother Patty Cornelia Shobe Shepherd Micci and my father William Jennings Shepherd Jr. Thanks for falling in love." By then, however, her parents had been divorced from each other for more than 30 years and were married to other people. Her father later died in 2001 and her mother in 2012. In the meantime, she also lost her older sister Terry in 2009. The three deaths in her family devastated Cybill, but her children and her work helped her overcome her grief.
- #024
In 1995 she played a grandmother on the sitcom Cybill (1995). In real life she did not become a grandmother until 19 years later, when her daughter Clementine Ford had children with her husband Cyrus Wilcox. Cybill was overjoyed to see her grandson Elijah Shahriari Ford-Wilcox born on 23 March 2014 and later her grandson Welles Molavi Ford-Wilcox born on 13 September 2016.
- #029
Her daughter Ariel Ladensohn married Eliza Ladensohn, founder of the women's clothing brand Sloane & Tate, on 26 October 2019. Cybill attended the wedding with the rest of the family and gave a warm, funny toast.
- #032
In her autobiography "Cybill Disobedience", Cybill Shepherd revealed that her engagement to Robert Martin (given the pseudonym "Howard Roark" in the book) ended on 24 October 1998, when Robert Martin told her so during a couples therapy session.
- #033
Cybill Shepherd's family comes from Buckingham County, Virginia. Her great-great-grandfather Bernard Gaines "B. G." Shepherd (1831-1890) was a corporal in the War Between the States, serving in Company E of the 21st Virginia Infantry. That unit fought at Gettysburg and Appomattox and in dozens of other battles. Bernard's brother Benjamin Franklin served as a sergeant in Company B of the 25th Battalion Virginia Infantry (Richmond, VA). Bernard's brother Peter served in Co. C of the 56th Virginia Infantry, also at Gettysburg and Appomattox. So Cybill has a rich Southern and Confederate history.
- #034
She attended and graduated from Memphis East (TN) High School.
- #035
She was the middle child of her sister Terry and her younger brother Bill. In her memoir she wrote, "I knew I was loved by our parents, perhaps loved better than Terry or Bill, because I tried so hard to be perfect."
- #036
She has a younger half-sister named Catherine Shepherd Muse, from her father's second marriage, who lives in Senoia, Georgia.
- #038
On 13 May 1974, Cybill Shepherd appeared on the cover of People magazine with her boyfriend Peter Bogdanovich. It was the magazine's 10th issue, first published on 4 March 1974.
- #039
Cybill Shepherd announced her engagement to her boyfriend Andrei Nikolajeviç.
- #042
Cybill Shepherd's ex-husband Bruce Oppenheim married Jenilee Harrison.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work