Cybill Shepherd fights skin cancer

The actress, 52, who once dated Elvis Presley, sought emergency treatment for the disease after looking in the mirror one morning and discovering a "scaly patch".

Her mother, Patty Micci, confirmed: "The cancer on Cybill’s back was melanoma. She was told to have it checked out, so Cybill went to her doctor in Los Angeles." She added that although doctors had been able to remove the cancerous growth, the operation had left a scar that had required plastic surgery to conceal it.

Ms Micci said that her daughter’s cancer was probably the result of spending too much time sunbathing as a child. "When Cybill was young, she went in the sun a lot. We lived near a lake, and she used to bake in the sun on a dock, applying lots of suntan oil. Back then, we had no idea just how damaging the sun’s rays could be, so we encouraged our kids to sunbathe."

The actress’s mother said that her daughter’s skin cancer was melanoma, the most serious kind. As a result of the diagnosis, "Cybill doesn’t want to take any chances. Cybill makes sure she covers herself from head to toe whenever she goes out into the sun". She added that Shepherd would even wear gloves if she was going to be in the sun for any length of time.

Mrs Micci added: "Just hearing the word ‘cancer’ is very frightening. But Cybill was lucky. She acted immediately, and now she’s going to make sure that she takes better care of herself."

Shepherd, best known for her role in the television series Moonlighting, was persuaded to seek treatment by her actress friend Jenilee Harrison.

Harrison, 43, now married to Shepherd’s former husband, Dr Bruce Oppenheim, persuaded her to make an appointment with a dermatologist. "I talked Cybill into seeing a doctor," she recalled. "She came by our place to pick up her twins, Zach and Ariel, and I spotted the patch on her back. Cybill has a very fair skin, and I was really afraid that she was looking at a cancerous growth."

Melanoma is a much deadlier form of skin cancer than the more common squamous-cell and basal-cell versions. The latter two grow slowly and if they spread throughout the body it is because they have been ignored for a long time.

Melanoma spreads more easily and can attack the liver, lungs, bones and brain. When it gets to that advanced stage, a cure is unlikely and treatment is primarily for reducing pain.

A source told the US tabloid Star: "When Cybill was first told she had melanoma, she was hysterical. All she could think of was that she was going to suffer a horrible, painful death and her children would lose their mother. She hardly slept and cried constantly.

"She reached out to the friends closest to her, calling them for emotional support. Everybody tried to comfort her, but she just kept thinking the worst. She told one friend that she’s never been so scared. She was so afraid that she was going to die."

Shepherd, who split with Dr Oppenheim in 1990, has been dating her partner, the musician Robert Martin, for the past eight years. She has recorded four jazz albums and performed as a singer in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.