FOR SHEPHERD, NEW LEASE ON MIDLIFE; `MENOPAUSE IS NOT A DISEASE, IT'S JUST A PART OF LIFE'.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Staff Writer

It's a job former teen model Cybill Shepherd never imagined she'd have: poster girl ... er, poster woman ... for menopause.

Teaming up with a New York obstetrician-gynecologist and hormone researcher and a company promoting an herbal alternative to traditional hormone replacement therapy, Shepherd's ``Say Yes! to Midlife'' message is simple: The physical change in a woman's maturing body is not the end of her life.

And the star of a half-dozen movies and two groundbreaking TV series couldn't set a better example.

In a black, boat-neck top and skinny black pants, flip-flops on otherwise bare feet, and an absolute minimum of makeup, nobody could mistake Shepherd, 49, as anything but raring to go. More than 30 years after her blemish-free face appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine, her skin is still unlined, her hair flawlessly blond.

And when she talks about the possibilities the rest of her life holds, her eyes light up and her grin is wide and warm.

Aging is just what happens when you live long enough, says the Encino actress and singer, famed for her irreverence and her outspokenness. She has regrets in her life - which has included two ex-husbands and less-than-glowing reviews for some of her early films - but none of them has anything to do with getting older.

``I consider it great to be the right age at the right time to do this,'' said Shepherd. ``Menopause is not a sickness. It's not a disease. Doctors don't need to cure you. It's just a part of life.

``It's something we, as women, have to take control of. Women our age have more power, more knowledge, more education, more money than women ever did before. Instead of being the end of something, I see menopause as the beginning of something new and exciting in terms of who I am. A lot of women don't want to use the word `menopause.' They say, `I'm not going to ``pause,'' I'm not going to stop for anything. I've worked so hard to get here, and now I'm going to enjoy it.' ''

It took her awhile to arrive at this conclusion.

For months, all she knew was, boy, was it hot in here! The hot flashes - made worse by the hot lights on the set of her 1995-98 sitcom, ``Cybill'' - were unexpected and unpredictable, but unmistakable.

All of a sudden, she'd feel as if she'd been plunged into a sauna. Her face would flush. She'd gasp for cool air and start shedding garments.

``I was so hot, I was dyin','' Shepherd said, rolling her eyes and flapping her arms as if to generate a breeze. ``I could control the hot flashes, sort of, by drinking ice water and wearing as little clothing as possible. But I really didn't understand what was happening.''

In Memphis, Tenn., where she grew up, ``the change of life'' was a subject that no lady ever discussed, at least in public. Nobody had ever explained that when she reached a certain age, her body would begin to change in preparation for the end of her childbearing years.

So, Shepherd started to investigate on her own, reading voraciously about women and midlife. She discovered that, at 49, she's what doctors term ``perimenopausal'' or ``premenopausal,'' meaning her menstrual periods will likely stop within four to seven years and she will be unable to bear more children. It set her to thinking seriously about what she could do to make menopause an OK thing to talk about.

``It's a natural thing,'' Shepherd said, looking back on her sitcom about a mature actress that at times went where polite conversation had never gone before. ``I wanted to do an episode of the show about it, but the producers said, `Uh, is that really a good idea?' It made them really nervous. I'd talk about it at parties, and it would kill the conversation. People would move away from me.''

But she's not known as outspoken and irreverent for nothing. She got her way.

In the 1996 episode, ``When You're Hot, You're Hot,'' her character, Cybill Sheridan, was having hot flashes, tearing off clothing in an effort to put out the fire in that internal sauna, and bemoaning what age was doing to her body while trying to find a pill or potion that would return everything to normal.

After the episode aired, ``women in airports and restaurants began to come up to me and tell me their stories about menopause and hot flashes. Women wanted to talk about this. And businesses started sending me their products.''

Hesitant to try just anything, she read that soy, which contains natural estrogen (called isoflavone phytoestrogen), could cure hot flashes, and gave it a try - for a while.

``I used to like tofu - until I had to eat it,'' Shepherd said, wrinkling her nose. ``And you have to eat so much of it. You can get the same isoflavones from lentils or chickpeas, but who can eat three cups of lentils or chickpeas a day?

She was intrigued by a product called Promensil by Novogen, tablets that contain four plant-based estrogens found in red clover. She tried it, and after three weeks, her hot flashes had diminished by 50 percent.

Convinced the product worked, she became a paid spokeswoman for the little reddish-brown pills.

But in her menopause-awareness campaign, Shepherd's not pushing the product; she's encouraging women to learn about what's happening (or about to happen) to their bodies, how to deal with it, and how to do it gracefully, with no more psychological trauma than picking out a new pair of shoes.

``I'm not saying all women should be taking this product,'' Shepherd said. ``Women should take whatever's right for them. But I don't want women to feel bad about themselves, whatever they're taking.''

When she enters menopause, she may decide to take doctor-prescribed hormone replacement therapy - and she may not. Shepherd wants to investigate more and talk with her doctor before making that commitment.

Whatever she decides, she intends to keep prodding people to talk more openly about menopause. It's time: About 20 million American baby boomers have either hit menopause or will reach that biological milestone in the next six to eight years, according to the American Medical Association.

In an article she wrote last year for People magazine, Shepherd confessed that she'd been afraid since she was a teen-ager of losing the looks that made her a cover girl and a movie star.

``But I now realize there's another kind of beauty,'' she wrote. ``Instead of being the end of something, menopause began to seem like the beginning of something in terms of who I was.

``My advice for women entering menopause is to trust your feelings. Explore. Invest in yourself, whether it be through school or therapy or church. Believe in yourself, find out who you are. When I started in this business 30 years ago, nobody believed I could do what I do today. I did it by sheer not giving up.''

Today, Shepherd - who runs her own production company, River Siren - revels in the economic freedom to do pretty much as she pleases. That includes singing (she's appearing Friday and Saturday, and Aug. 27 and 28 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel's Cinegrill) and writing her autobiography, ``Cybill Disobedience,'' which should be on bookshelves by next spring. And she's spending lots more time with her 11-year-old twins, Ariel and Zack, and helping daughter Clementine, 20, plan her wedding later this summer.

``I think that midlife, for me, is a great thing,'' Shepherd said. ``I finally have the freedom to do what I want. What I love about this period is it's given women in general the opportunity to give birth to themselves. Maybe we don't want to do what we've always done. Maybe we want to try something new. It's a very exciting time to be a woman.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) From teen model to role model

Cybill Shepherd shares a midlife message on growing older

(2) Cybill Shepherd: ``Instead of being the end of something, I see menopause as the beginning of something new and exciting in terms of who I am.''

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(3) ``When I started in this business 30 years ago, nobody believed I could do what I do today. I did it by sheer not giving up,'' says Shepherd, who starred in the 1971 film ``The Last Picture Show.''