Cybill Rights

To celebrate the 58th birthday of Cybill Shepherd yesterday, what better than the lovely lady's rendition of The Menopause Blues?

Cybill Shepherd - Menopause Blues

Cybill has always been a favourite of mine - not least from her eponymous show that was a huge success in the 90s. With her wry, knowing humour and skill at put-downs, she was also the perfect sparring partner for Bruce Willis in Moonlighting. During her long film career Cybill was personally chosen by a number of top directors to appear in their films, notably Peter Bogdanovitch (The Last Picture Show) - with whom she had a personal as well as business relationship - Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver) and Woody Allen (Alice).

She deserves particular kudos for her active and vocal support for issues such as gay rights and abortion rights, and was present at the opening of the National Civil Rights Museum in her home-town of Memphis. In a recent interview she was quoted as saying:

I marched on Washington in a major gay and lesbian march. The Human Rights Campaign sponsored me, and when I got there I said, "I want to be in that first row and carry the banner" and they said, "I'm sorry, unless you're gay or lesbian, we're not going to let you carry it. Because the people who've worked so hard, they deserve to carry it." I took issue with that.

I said, "I don't know why you'd have to be gay and lesbian to lead the march and carry the banner. It is an equal investment for anyone, regardless of what their orientation is or whatever you want to call it." I said, "Would Martin Luther King not have let me march with him because my skin was white? I don't see any difference in the issue." It's about bigotry and hatred.

She ended up carrying the banner.

Her wonderful attitude to gay issues continues to this day, with with a regular role in the TV show The L-Word, and she has even confessed to having a long-time crush on Salma Hayek... What a woman!

Cybill Shepherd official website

The L-Word website