Actress Cybill Shepherd is on the mend after receiving treatment for a form of skin cancer, but reps for the 52-year-old actress are downplaying tabloid reports that it's serious. "She had a benign growth removed from her back seven months ago -- that's all," Shepherd's publicist, Heidi Schaeffer, tells the New York Post. The star, who burst onto the Hollywood scene in 1971's "The Last Picture Show," has been keeping careful watch and getting regular checkups to safeguard against further problems, her spokeswoman tells the newspaper. Meanwhile, Shepherd's mother, Patty Micci, is quoted in supermarket tabloid the Star confirming her daughter's cancer. "When Cybill was young, she went out in the sun a lot," Micci told the Star. "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." Today, Shepherd has changed her habits, Micci tells the tabloid. "Cybill makes sure she covers herself from head to toe whenever she goes out into the hot sun of the San Fernando Valley where she lives." Shepherd, who starred for five years on the '80s hit TV series "Moonlighting," has three children, Clementine, 23, and 14-year-old twins Ariel and Zach.