Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepard), a wealthy former model, discovers one morning that her business manager has stolen all the money she has in the bank. However, it turns out that she still owns some non-liquid assets -- money-losing companies which were maintained as tax write-offs -- one of which is a detective agency run by David Addison (Bruce Willis). Maddie meets with him to inform him that the company is to be shut down, but he persuades her to keep it open by convincing her that the detective agency can make money. Maddie becomes David's new boss and accompanies him on adventure after adventure. While their personalities clash, a sexual tension arises in the time they spend together. But the question always remains... will they or won't they?
Glamorous Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) is an ex-model with a problem--her accountant just ran off with her money. Granted, he did leave her with a few broken-down businesses. One happens to be a detective agency run by charming loudmouth David Addison (Bruce Willis). Her attempt to shutter the agency fails when they stumble across a crime and David convinces Maddie to help him solve it. And with that, one of television's most popular partnerships was born. Moonlighting made a star out of newcomer Willis and turned Shepherd (Taxi Driver), who had already found fame through fashion and film, into a bona fide TV star.
Created for ABC by Glenn Gordon Caron (Remington Steele), the romantic comedy/detective drama was a mid-season replacement that quickly became a hit. There were only six episodes in the first season, including the two-part pilot, but 18 were produced for the second. Rhyming receptionist Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) was a regular from the start, while Herbert Viola (Ray’s Curtis Armstrong) wouldn’t hit the scene until the third season (as with Paul Sorvino and Mark Harmon). The first two seasons attracted an eclectic array of guest stars, including Tim Robbins ("Gunfight at the So-So Corral"), Beasley's husband Vincent Schiavelli ("Next Stop Murder"), Dana Delany ("Knowing Her"), Richard Belzer ("Twas the Episode Before Christmas"), and Whoopi Goldberg ("Camille"), who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance. The most notable guest was surely Orson Welles, who introduces the black and white noir spoof "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice." It would be his final TV appearance. Moonlighting ran for three more years. While the Emmy-winning Willis would abandon TV for the big screen, Shepherd found subsequent small screen success with Cybill. Caron, meanwhile, would launch another mid-season replacement series which became a surprise hit: NBC's Medium with Patricia Arquette. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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