Among their theater friends in New York, they were deeply admired. “She and Bill are such caring people, intelligent people,” said Bradley White, an actor who knew them here. Huffman, he said, was “someone with a strong spine, and a heart of gold.” She was also known for being unafraid to be forthright, sometimes to the point of harshness, a trait of which she was evidently aware. One friend recalled visiting the couple’s home in the Outpost Estates neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills and spotting a largish sign in Huffman’s office.“Be nice,” it read.

By the time Sophia was born, in 2000, Macy had hits like “Fargo,” Boogie Nights” and “Air Force One,” behind him, and Huffman had starred in Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed television show “Sports Night.” Her star continued to rise after their second daughter, Georgia, was born in 2002.

Huffman landed a starring role in “Desperate Housewives” and received an Oscar nomination for her lead role in the 2005 film “Transamerica.” In 2012, when “Desperate Housewives” ended and a year after Macy’s show “Shameless” began, she started her blog, and named it “What the Flicka.”

It was pulled offline a few days after her arrest. But before it vanished, it was a gold mine for anyone seeking inconsistencies between the actions Huffman is charged with and the version of parenting she espoused on the blog, where she touted the importance of honesty, confronting fears and reading books like “The Blessing of a B Minus,” which cautions against micromanaging the lives of children.

Huffman used the blog to deploy you-go-girl affirmations and confessionals. “If our kids are alive and decent citizens at 18, we all deserve a medal,” she wrote at one point, punctuating the thought with an expletive before “medal.” In another post, she wrote, “I have made so many mistakes as a parent it actually makes me nauseous to think about it.”