With the success of Cybill, the hit CBS sitcom starring Cybill Shepherd which premiered January 1995, Tom Wopat has once again reasserted his versatility and enormous popularity. As Jeff Robbins, Cybill's ruggedly handsome stuntman ex-hus-band #1, he proves to be one of the few traditional leading men on television today willing to play comedy. But then Tom Wopat has always done more than one thing at a time. On his days off from Broadway or, these days, taping Cybill, it's not unusual to find him on his way to a Nashville recording studio or to a performing arts center somewhere in the country for a concert.

The friendly, fun-loving and engaging Tom Wopat first came to public attention in the late Seventies as the freewheeling Luke Duke on the comedy-adventure TV series, The Dukes Of Hazzard. But Wopat's background was a far cry from car smashes and corny humor.

Born on a small dairy farm in Lodi, Wisconsin, Tom Wopat began singing and dancing in school musicals when he was 12 years old. Upon graduating high school, Wopat enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in Madison to study music, at one point leaving to be the lead singer and trombone player in a rock band. But Tom Wopat later re-turned and began his acting career in campus productions of the musicals West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar and South Pacific. After performing in summer stock productions at the Barn Theatre in Michigan for two seasons, Tom Wopat decided to go to New York for "a serious try at musical comedy."

Within weeks of his arrival in 1977, Tom Wopat appeared off-Broadway in the musical A Bistro Car On The CNR. He then signed for the title role of The Robber Bridegroom at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Once back in New York, he made his Broad-way debut in Cy Coleman's I Love My Wife. After three months, Tom Wopat joined an off-Broadway production of Oklahoma as Curly.

Soon after his whirlwind success, during a trip to the West Coast, he auditioned for and won the role of Luke Duke. "I read the script in New York on Tuesday and was on a plane that night for Los Angeles. My screen test was on Friday and 10 days later I was in Georgia for filming."

For seven seasons, 1978-1985, The Dukes Of Hazzard was a popular phenom-enon. For Tom Wopat, it provided both stardom and an education. "I had a wonderful time," he says. "I developed relationships that I've held in good stead, I learned both the responsibility a leading man had in a show, and I learned how to direct (which he did for five episodes)."

During the show's span, Tom Wopat also continued to develop his musical talents, touring the country with his then-band, The North Hollywood All-Stars. When the series went off the air, the singer-songwriter-guitarist returned to his roots, creatively and geographically. In 1987, To Wopat moved to Nashville, where he resides for half of each year, and debuted his brand of contemporary country-rock with the album Tom Wopat, produced by Mike Post. "Although I live in both Los Angeles and Nashville for love career reasons. I'm happy spending a lot of time in Nashville. I sincerely love the town because it feels like the Midwest to me and there's a great climate for writing music."

Tom Wopat's follow-up album, A Little Bit Closer, was released later that same year, pro-duced by Herb Pedersen and Jerry Crutchfield. Then came Don't Look Back (1991), also produced by Crutchfield, and Learning To Love (1992), produced by Rick Hall. Along the way, Tom Wopat enjoyed two Top 20 country hits (The Rock and Roll of Love and Susannah), a Top 5 country video A Little Bit Closer and a Top 5 hit as a song-writer co-writing Shadow Of A Doubt, performed by Earl Thomas Conley. With his current group, The Full Moon Band, Tom Wopat has also toured throughout the U.S. and Eu-rope.

Tom Wopat has performed at the Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He has played the Greek god Jupiter in Olympus On My Mind at the Lambs Theatre in New York. From January to June 1991, Tom Wopat took over the lead role of the hard-boiled Detective Stone in the 1990 Tony Award-winning Best Musical City of Angels at Broadway's Virginia Theater. From October 1992 to April 1993, Tom Wopat was Sky Masterson in the 1992 Tony Award-winning revival of Guys And Dolls at the Martin Beck Theatre. For the winter of 1993-1994 season, he reprised that role. On occasion, To Wopat would also sing Broadway show tunes with the Cincinnati Symphony Or-chestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

There was still television too, reuniting with fellow Duke, John Schneider, for a CBS Movie-Of-The Week, Christmas Comes To Willow Creek (1987), then starring in the drama series Blue Skies (CBS, 1988) and Peaceable Kingdom with Lindsay Wagner (CBS, 1989). In December 1992, Tom Wopat starred in the critically-acclaimed NBC movie-of-the-week Just My Imagination, co-starring Jean Smart.

Then, after finishing his second run of Guys And Dolls in February 1994, Tom Wopat began to explore the possibilities of a change-of-pace. Enter Cybill. Called "a smart, bawdy adult comedy" by the show's creator, Chuck Lorre, Cybill had all the right genes. Lorre (coincidentally a former songwriter himself had created the hit Grace Under Fire. The show's executive producers also included Moonlighting's Jay Daniel and the producers of The Cosby Show and Roseanne (Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach) as well as Shepherd. Though he had never done a sitcom before, Tom Wopat seized the opportunity.

Now, tens of millions of viewers each week see yet another side of one of America's most popular, recognizable and multi-faceted performers.