Shuman ended up working a $5-an-hour job at an eyeglass store in Encino. She made friends with a prop master working on a film starring Shirley MacLaine. MacLaine’s character wore glasses, and Shuman offered to go to the set to do measurements for the frames and lenses. “In Appalachia, everyone made house calls,” she said. “It was as normal as breathing for me.” Shuman turned that chance encounter into a million-dollar business, Starry Eyes Optical Services, which provided eyewear for movies and TV shows like “Malcolm X,” “Terminator 2,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Murphy Brown,” “Cheers” and many other productions. She also did a turn on the QVC shopping network as the Optician to the Stars, demonstrating her natural affinity for both cross- and self-promotion. “I was the only one doing this, and people were really captivated by my story,” Shuman said. “The coupon queen, the car crash, a single parent living in her car. I was an urban legend.”

In 1995, Shuman’s already cinematic story line veered to the bizarre, in the person of Steven Seagal, whom she had fitted for glasses on several films. The tabloids learned that Shuman had sued Seagal, the pony-tailed martial-arts expert and action-film star, for sexual harassment and breach of contract after an alleged sexual liaison. Shuman further accused him of hiring thugs to threaten her life, in retaliation for bringing the suit, which was ultimately dismissed. (At the time, Seagal’s lawyer called Shuman’s claims “frivolous and without merit.”)

Shuman’s eyewear business collapsed after the scandal. She says she spent several years in semihiding, worried that Seagal was out to get her. Shuman was reluctant to tell me much about her time underground, describing it only as “a strange nomad space where I lost everything.” She broke into tears on the phone when I asked where her children were. (Shuman has another daughter from her second marriage, which also ended in divorce.) “I didn’t see my kids for a couple of years,” she finally said. “It still breaks my heart.”

In 2006, Shuman found out she had ovarian cancer. She underwent a radical hysterectomy, but the cancer spread to her colon and bladder, and she believed her condition was terminal. “I’d clipped a coupon from Pennysaver for my own cremation,” she said. Shuman had been using marijuana since 1996, when she started the Beverly Hills Cannabis Club to help alleviate the stress from the Seagal debacle. Now, though, she began treating herself with high-doses of marijuana oil, which at first she had to smuggle into the hospital. “I was bedridden, catheterized, totally dependent,” she said. “Then, in 30 days, I was off my IV morphine pump and all the pharmaceuticals I was being given. I was able to bathe myself and walk. At 60 days, I was able to drive. At 90 days I was back to work full time.”

Many people expressed doubt about Shuman’s illness. Some even suggested that she had invented her diagnosis and recovery as a means of self-promotion. (The American Cancer Society warns of “serious health consequences” for those who rely on marijuana for treatment.) Shuman laughs off her doubters: “Yes, I made up having cancer to get a reality show seven years later.”

Dinner began just past sunset with a beet salad and a tutorial from Shuman on how to operate the FlowerMate Vapormax V, a hand-held vaporizer designed to resemble an iPod Mini. She unscrewed the white silicone mouthpiece from the top and sprinkled a pinkie-size amount of Juicy Fruit — her suggested accompaniment for the salad course — into the exposed heating chamber below. A Vapormax awaited each of Shuman’s 13 guests, positioned on their place settings next to the wineglasses.