Cybill - Main Cast

Main Cast

• Cybill Shepherd as Cybill Sheridan – Cybill is an aging actress who has a had a varied, though mediocre career (which, even in her salad days, seems to have consisted primarily of television commercials and B-movies). She now finds that, due to her age, roles are becoming harder to find and that the quality of roles she is offered is diminishing. Her fortunes seem to vary over the course of the series. Sometimes she has consistent work and appears to be relatively wealthy; other times she scrambles to find and keep jobs, and seems to be struggling financially as well. Cybill is a rather eccentric feminist who practices New Age philosophy, as well as a native Southerner from Memphis, Tennessee. Her loud, public and honest rantings about female sexuality, her perkiness, bouts of outrage and hysteria, and her exhibitions of “down-home” Southern behavior often embarrass her two daughters, Zoey and Rachel. Cybill has a civil relationship with her ex-husbands Jeff and Ira, even tolerating their tendency to cling to her. She does sometimes spar, however, with Jeff over his past infidelities, and is quick to remind Ira of how controlling he was when they were married. Cybill's best friend is the wealthy, alcoholic divorcee Maryann Thorpe, whom she supports emotionally and assists in her bitter war with her ex-husband. Cybill's own rival, Andrea (played by Morgan Fairchild), has also often been the target of Cybill's own immature pranks and their enmity has resulted in personal humiliations, professional loss and injury on both sides. Cybill has a caustic sense of humour and an acid tongue. Although eccentric and flawed, Cybill's strength and wisdom shines through in her support of her family and friends.

• Christine Baranski as Maryann Thorpe – Cybill's best friend, she is a former receptionist—now fabulously wealthy due to her divorce settlement with her unfaithful ex-husband, celebrity plastic surgeon Richard Thorpe (an infrequently and never fully seen character, to whom she always refers to with a sneer as "Doctor Dick"). Maryann is a bored, bitter alcoholic who often seems unstable and emotionally dependent on Cybill. When she is not stalking her ex-husband and playing elaborate and destructive pranks on him, she spends lavishly, drinks and pursues younger men. She has a few healthy relationships with men of her own age over the course of the series, including Cybill's ex-husband Ira, but these do not last. She has a son, Justin (played by Danny Masterson), who infrequently visits. A passionate environmentalist with excessive liberal beliefs, he is at odds with her frivolous and extravagant lifestyle. Maryann's most consistent and healthy relationship is with Cybill. They seem to be endlessly sharing martinis in an upmarket Hollywood restaurant and are accomplices in each other's bad behaviour. Maryann seems to spend most of her time at Cybill's house and involving herself in Cybill's family life to alleviate her own boredom. Her caustic tongue vies with Cybill's, but her remarks are more inappropriate, bitter and cynical. She is, however, a constant support for Cybill at crucial moments.

• Alicia Witt as Zoey Woodbine – Cybill's younger daughter. A high-school teenager, Zoey is brilliant, rebellious and more sarcastic than her mother. She is a piano virtuoso (as is Witt) and hopes to attend the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. A self-imposed outcast, she is a vocal advocate of celibacy. In the later seasons, she is seen in an on-again-off-again relationship with Maryann's estranged son.

• Dedee Pfeiffer as Rachel Robbins Manning – Cybill's elder daughter. Uptight and pretentious, Rachel is married to Kevin Manning (played by Peter Krause), an equally uptight, untenured assistant professor from Boston. She is prone to outbursts of hysteria similar to her mother's, especially during her pregnancies of the first and fourth season. Rachel and Kevin's first child is a boy named William; the second is a girl, Amanda.

• Tom Wopat as Jeff Robbins – Cybill's first husband. Jeff is a Hollywood stuntman with a roving eye. Though his many indiscretions were the cause of the divorce, Cybill and Jeff still have a good relationship, bound together by their daughter and grandson (and the fact that Jeff lived over Cybill's garage in the early seasons of the show). Jeff is somewhat dim, making him a prime target for Zoey's dry wit, but possesses a good heart.

• Alan Rosenberg as Ira Woodbine – Cybill's second husband. Ira is the polar opposite of Cybill's first husband, Jeff. Unassuming and rather neurotic, he is a brilliant writer, though prone to "writer's block". His marriage to Cybill ended because he was unable to stop trying to control her life; even in divorce, he cannot help meddling in her life. For several episodes of the second season, he became involved with Maryann.