Mary Steenburgen: Actress, and now songstress

(CBS News) Mary Steenburgen is an actress with a natural charm that lights up the screen, not to mention a newly-emerging ability that even she can't fully explain. With Lee Cowan we'll drop in for a visit:

It's tempting to think of Academy Award-winner Mary Steenburgen as Hollywood's Girl Next Door, whether she's batting her eyes back to the future -- or mothering a good-natured elf.

But the reality is, Mary Steenburgen actually relishes being bad.

"I love to play horrible, evil, mean people," she said.

"I can't see you being horrible or mean," Cowan said.

"I have, trust me, I have horrible in me. Trust me!"

She can be nasty (as in "30 Rock"), and sexy (as in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape").

But even in "Melvin and Howard," the role that won her an Oscar, Mary Steenburgen somehow made stripping seem sweet.

"I wish sometimes people wouldn't underestimate me," she said. "But it's a fleeting wish. It's not where I live."

At 60 years old, it's all served her pretty well. Her latest film, "Last Vegas" (a CBS Films production), brings HER Oscar together with four other Oscar-winners -- a cast most actresses only dream about: Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline.

"There's something very delicious -- a very kind of wise and beautiful dance that's done when you work with people at this point in your life that are that accomplished," she said.

A Southern girl at heart, Steenburgen was born in Newport, Ark. Her mother was a secretary; her father, a freight train conductor who was doting, but ill. He suffered several heart attacks, leaving Steenburgen fearing she might lose him at any moment.

"I actually believed if I behaved myself and if I made straight As and if I was good enough, I could save my dad's life," she said. "And every single time he had a heart attack, I knew what I had done that caused it."

It was, she admitted, "a lot of pressure."

Her only retreat: books. Obsessively so. "I lived in them. Why wouldn't I live in them? I could scream, I could yell," she said.

It opened a world that led her to New York, where, eventually, it was none other than Jack Nicholson who noticed her Southern charm and cast her in "Goin' South."

Henry (Nicholson): "In my time, I have put a gal or two in tune with nature."
Julia (Steenburgen): "I'm sure nature is very grateful."

She's been turning heads ever since, most notably the head of her husband, Ted Danson.

"It's just so rare that you meet somebody that you're endlessly fascinated by," she said. "And I am endlessly fascinated by him."

When they first met, Danson was showing off a new set of hair extensions he had done for a role.

"My first thought about him is, 'This is the most ridiculous creature I've ever met in my entire life,'" she said.

To which Danson added, "She was mine from that moment on!"

It wasn't only the hair she had overcome; it was his on-screen persona as the bartending ladies' man from "Cheers."

"I actually believed that he was sort of superficial and slick," Steenburgen said. "But as I said to somebody, slick guys don't say 'Gosh-a-rooney' after making love," she laughed.

"They will now," said Danson, " 'cause that's pretty, pretty cool!"

"Gosh-a-rooney" eventually led to "I do." They were married at their house in Martha's Vineyard in 1995. Overlooking the ocean sits the rock that served as the altar.

"Our bedroom is right over there," she told Cowan, "so if there is an argument, one of us inevitably goes, 'You stood right out there and you promised!' "

Being far from the bright lights of Hollywood is where Steenburgen feels the most comfortable. All the red carpets and award ceremonies so many stars crave have for years been her quiet nightmare.

"I love being in a room of 8-10 people," she said. "Once it starts to get much bigger than that, I've always gotten very frightened. I've never managed to -- just telling you about it, I have sweaty palms. First time I've ever talked about it, actually."

Even the night she won her Oscar she went home instead of dancing the night away.

Counseling has helped her fear of crowds -- on this night, we hardly noticed. But then again, this was a hometown crowd. She and Danson recently invested in a restaurant in Little Rock called South on Main, celebrating both Southern food and Southern literature.

"We were going to have nothing much to do with it," said Danson, "and then, here were are, co-owners. But that's the whirlwind of creativity that is Mary."

It's run by Steenburgen's niece, Amy, and her husband, Mat Bell. It was in this very space some three decades ago where Steenburgen struck up a friendship that endures to this day -- Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Through thick and thin, she's been by their side ever since.

"Did it ever get complicated, ending up being best friends with the President and First Lady?" asked Cowan.

"Of course! It's still complicated," she replied. "It's complicated because they're people I've walked through life with that I love, and so it was hard for me, from the get-go, to hear anybody be mean about them."

Their signatures are inscribed on the wall of her guest house in Martha's Vineyard, and they were among the first to learn of a new chapter in Steenburgen's life that she's only recently opened up about.

"I had a minor surgery on my arm, but it was enough that I went under general anesthetic, and the music started right after that," she said.

That's right: Music. Whether it was the anesthesia or not, she's not sure, but suddenly for the first time in her life, music was inexplicably everywhere.

"At one point I kind of looked in the mirror and said, you know, you're a mom, you're a wife, people count on you, you can't go off the deep end into this kind of crazy, musical swirl."

She began writing everything down, and with a little help from musicians in Nashville, her lyrics came to life. She's now written or co-written more than 40 songs -- and Universal Music recently signed her as a songwriter.

And yes, her instrument of choice is the accordion.

"So why the accordion? I'm not judging, I'm just asking why the accordion," said Cowan.

"Oh, you are, You're a hater, I can tell! I will tell you this, I'm obsessed by it. I love it beyond belief. There's something about it that just appeals to me, I don't know why."

Danson bought her her first accordion on Valentine's Day -- even though his wife's newfound obsession with music, he admits, freaked him out. "At first it was scary and threatening to our relationship. Is she humming to herself, or is she pissed off? I can't tell!" he laughed.

But what he could tell, more than anyone, is the difference it made in her life.

"When you write, you go to heaven, you really go to some other place that is really almost divine," he said.

The veteran actress -- and the newbie songwriter -- blend in her new film, singing a song that is all hers. A surprise twist, perhaps, in a life that has rarely followed a script.

And to Mary Steenburgen, that's pretty sweet.

"Hey, it's a miracle to have a career in Hollywood. But it doesn't begin to sum me up."

Q & A: Ted Danson
Complete movie coverage from CBSNews.com

For more info:

• "Last Vegas" (Official site)
• MSteenburgen on Twitter
• South on Main, Little Rock, Ark.

To watch a trailer from "Last Vegas," click on the video player below.