What You Don't Know About Martha
Cybill Shepherd takes on the role of the domestic diva in the new CBS TV movie, "Martha: Behind Bars." The movie with the Golden Globe award winner shows events that led to Stewart's downfall and return to the top.
The movie premieres on Sunday, Sept. 25, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
For most of her career, Stewart had been the darling of daytime television. And in the process, she had amassed an empire of wealth matched by few. But in the spring of 2004, Martha Stewart was convicted of lying to the federal government about a stock trade and served five months in Alderson Federal prison.
Shepherd, who starred in the television movie "Martha Stewart, Inc.," says she was very pleased to take on the role again and dig into the private life of the lifestyle celebrity.
"It's a great story," Shepherd says. "Even though we may think we know everything, Martha was not particularly a public person. We didn't know much about her personal or private thoughts. It was an opportunity to find some emotion in a different way than what we've seen."
To make the character real for herself, Shepherd says she did what one of her mentors taught her.
She says, "Orson Wells once said to me, 'Never play a lie.' So, whenever an actor plays a character, the actor has to find something about that person that is likable. I had to make Martha real for myself.
"I also really do feel a greater admiration for her than ever. I look at the drama outside of the courtroom she experienced and compare it to the men behind the Tyco fiasco. They were punished far more harshly, and committed far more egregious crimes, but the press didn't hound them the way they hounded Martha. It seems like a double standard."
Shepherd has also starred in and produced the television series "Cybill." Recently, she guest starred on the series "Eight Simple Rules" and "I'm With Her." She also served as host of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus."
Her other television credits include the movies "Journey of the Heart" and "There Was A Little Boy," "While Justice Sleeps," "Baby Brokers," "Stormy Weathers," "Which Way Home," "The Long Hot Summer," "Telling Secrets and " "Yellow Rose." For the series "Moonlighting," she won four Golden Globe awards and four People's Choice Awards for best actress in a television comedy.
Her feature film credits include: "The Last Picture Show," "The Heartbreak Kid," "Taxi Driver," "Daisy Miller," "Alice," "Married To It," "Once Upon a Crime," "Texasville," "Chances Are" and "Marine Life."
Her theater credits include: "Shot in the Dark," "The Seven Year Itch," "Last of the Red Hot Lovers," "Lunch Hour," "Vanities" and "Picnic."
Shepherd has recorded 11 albums, including "Cybill Getz Better," "Vanilla," "Somewhere Down the Road," "Cybill Does It To Cole Porter," "At Long Last Love," "Talk Memphis to Me," "Songs from the Cybill Show," "Live at the Cinegrill" and "At Home With Cybill."
She also has written a memoir, "Cybill Disobedience: How I Survived Beauty Pageants, Elvis, Sex, Bruce Willis, Lies, Marriage, Motherhood, Hollywood, and the Irrepressible Urge to Say What I Think." Shepherd recently finished a sold-out run of her one-woman show "Cybill Disobedience…With Music" at the Soho Theatre in London. Prior to that, she completed the feature film "The Detective."