Here's What Happened to the Stars of 'Moonlighting'

Back in the ’80s, we had plenty of TV shows where the big question was whether or not the two leads would “do it.” There was Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) on Cheers, Remington Steele (Pierce Brosnan) and Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) on Remington Steele and, of course, David Addison (Bruce Willis) and Maddie Mayes (Cybill Shepherd) on Moonlighting. No question, it was the latter that burned the hottest (perhaps for the shortest time) of all of them.

Created by Glenn Gordon Caron, the show began with superstar model Maddie discovering that her accountant had wiped out her fortune and taken off for lands foreign to escape justice. Desperate to find some form of solvency, her lawyer informs her that she had invested in something called the Blue Moon Detective Agency as a tax write-off. She heads over to the office and finds that it, and its manager, David, are a joke — an agency not really designed to solve anything. Maddie decides that she has no choice but to do exactly that and, long story short, they start taking cases and working together. The result? Comedy, action, drama, tons of overlapping dialogue, double and triple-entendres, breaking the fourth wall to make comments to the audience and, most importantly, genuine chemistry and sexual tension between the two characters. It was so unique a mix for television that it’s hardly surprising that its shelf life was so short, but the connection it made with the audience was powerful.

bruce-willis-and-cybill-shepherd — Abc-Tv/Kobal/Shutterstock

In an interview with paleymatters.org, Glenn reflected, “I say to people, ‘You watch Moonlighting and you remember it being very, very funny. But it’s also filled with ache,’ in the sense that he — even though he was loathed to admit it — was very attracted to her and couldn’t quite make sense of why. And she, likewise, was very clearly attracted to him, but couldn’t in any rational way explain it. But that’s the voodoo of love, and I think I was trying to make sense of all that in my own head. I’m sort of a cockeyed romantic, I suppose. I directed a movie years later with Debra Winger, and she said to me, ‘All you do is men and women,’ and I thought about it, because I never thought about it that way before, and she said, ‘It’s not a criticism. The only stories worth doing are men and women.'”

Speaking with Closer Weekly, Cybill reflected, “When I met Glenn Gordon Caron, I said, ‘I know what you’ve written: a Howard Hawks-ian comedy’ like His Girl Friday. We talked that fast. Also, the key was that Bruce Willis and I had great chemistry, but we never consummated it, because that can breed contempt.”

In a biography written about the actors — Cybill & Bruce: Moonlighting Magic — Bruce is quoted as saying, “Cybill is playing a straight man, and it can be a very thankless role. It’s hard to do it well and I think she is doing great work in this thing. Some people say, ‘The chemistry between you two is what really makes the show.’ But you can’t play chemistry. You can’t say, ‘OK, Cybill, now we’re going to play chemistry.’ I do what I do and she does what she does, and what comes as a product of that is what makes the show work.”

In tribute to the two people who brought Maddie Hayes and David Addison to life, what follows is a look back at the road that led them to Moonlighting and their journey upon going their separate ways.

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Cybill Shepherd (Maddie Hayes)

By the time Moonlighting came around for her, Cybill Shepherd had already achieved so much, successfully proving herself as a model and film actress. She was born February 18, 1950, in Memphis, Tennessee, her first name the result of paying tribute to both her grandfather and father (respectively Cy and Bill). A student at Memphis’ East High School, she won the title of Miss Teenage Memphis and, when she was 16, represented the city in the Miss Teenage America pageant, where she won the award for congeniality. When she was 18, she was a part of the Model of the Year contest, resulting in her becoming a fashion star of the 1960s, which led to model assignments from the time she was in high school and beyond.

Bruce Willis (David Addison)

While Cybill Shepherd had come into Moonlighting with a wealth of experience behind her, Bruce Willis, as far as the vast majority of the world was concerned, exploded out of the gate with the show. He was born Walter Bruce Willis on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, Germany, his family (consisting of a German mother and American father) moved to the United States when he was two years old after his father was discharged from the army. The Willis family settled down in Carneys Point, New Jersey, with Bruce attending Penns Grove High School. There he developed a stuttering problem but found himself able to control it once he joined the drama club and, in turn, this led to him being appointed student council president.