Picture
the scene. A smart restaurant in Beverly Hills. Two of the biggest
'bitches' in soap opera history are deep in conversation. Their
British accents stand out from the laid-back Californian drawl
emanating from the tables around them.
Both women are
the personification of all that is glamorous about Hollywood.
Dressed to kill, they command instant recognition. The glances
thrown in their direction are a mixture of envy and admiration.
In Hollywood,
Stephanie Beacham and Joan Collins are treated like royalty.
They are seen as perfect A-list celebrities - rich, successful
and still beautiful. Not for them the insecurity of the dole
queue or panic over how they are going to pay next month's
mortgage.
Well, at least
that's how it looks. But, back at her Malibu beach home,
lounging on the sun-deck in a white, two-piece bikini that hugs
her perfectly-honed, bronzed body, Stephanie is telling a very
different story.
She isn't exactly
having to fight off the bailiffs, but her days of earning £20,000
a week as rich bitch Sable in The Colbys, and then Dynasty,
seem a long way off. And if it wasn't for a leading role in
Steven Spielberg's television sci-fi series, seaQuest DSV,
Stephanie might have found herself in a similar position to
former co-star Kate O'Mara.
Kate has just
revealed that she is facing bankruptcy and her plight comes as
no surprise to Stephanie. She says: 'I hate the thought of
what's happened to Kate, but hers is not an isolated case. There
are a lot of people here who have lost their homes in the past
couple of years. I've had quite a few financial setbacks myself,
which is why this new television series is very welcome.
'Everybody is in
the same boat. Joan Collins was only just saying to me that the
money is not what it used to be. It's true. We were on £20,000
a week, but show me where that money is now. It got spent. Once
you take a lifestyle up to the hilt, you then have to keep it
up. But there isn't the money or the employment any more to
enable you to do that.
All the money I
earned has gone in school fees, bad transactions and appalling
investments. It is a very typical coming out of the Eighties
into the Nineties story. I still have my home, but that's only
because I've managed to keep working. A lot of people haven't.
Only eight per cent of working actresses in Hollywood - and Lord
knows, there are few enough of those - are over 40. So just to
be in a job is an achievement for me right now. Out here,
unemployment is the norm. I'd love to be doing a worthy film
with Scorsese but I can tell you that I'm jolly grateful to be
in a submarine with Steven Spielberg. I like knowing where I'm
going to park in the morning.'
The fact that
Stephanie Beacham is still a survivor at 45, and starring in a
television series that attracted 67 million viewers on the first
night it was screened in America, will come as no surprise to
those who know her. To her fans, she is the Hollywood dream come
true, but behind the glamorous poses and flamboyant lifestyle
she is, as she once described herself to me, 'a scruffy
workhorse who scrubs up well for the cameras'.
She is also a
fiercely protective mother who single-handedly has been
responsible for bringing up her two daughters, Phoebe and Chloe.
Her success in America has enabled her to take care of their
financial welfare, but it has also meant sacrifices. She has had
to stay in America, where her earning power is far greater than
in Britain, while they have been at boarding school in England.
Phoebe, who is
now 18, is already studying at university in Britain and
Stephanie had hoped that 16-year-old Chloe would spend the last
two years of her school career in California. 'I put her into
school here this term but after two weeks she said "No
thanks" and went back to boarding school in England. I was
terribly disappointed because I was so longing to have her with
me for the last couple of years before she is ready to leave
home, but I totally understood. She wanted to go back to the
life she knows and loves. 'Now I have this awful feeling that I
have to do the thing which is so hard for any parent - slowly
let go. I think it is going to be terribly difficult for me.
They have been
the major relationship in my life for the past 18 years,
but they are now getting to the age where I cannot answer for
them any more or say what they will or won't do. It is something
every mother has to learn. Everything you do in life, you do for
your children, and then there comes a time when you have to
stand back and simply be proud of who they are.'
Although she
speaks with a mother's pride, Stephanie does not delude herself
into thinking that the past 18 years have been easy for any of
them. She and her actor husband John McEnery separated after
seven years of marriage and in 1986, the actress came to America
to star in Dynasty.
'When I came to
America, part of the reason was that I was running away from my
marriage and needed to make a fresh start,' she says. 'I am very
proud of the fact that I have brought up my children
financially, but if I had realised what it was going to be like,
I wouldn't have taken it on. I wouldn't have dared. I definitely
think parenting is a job for two people.'
She admits that
she would like to adopt children while she is still young
enough, but wouldn't want to go through the trials of single
parenthood again. Her last relationship, with cameraman Steve
Silver, broke up acrimoniously two years ago. She refuses to say
if she is involved with anyone else. 'I got my fingers badly
burned over him, so I am not going to talk about my private life
any more,' she says, quite firmly. 'Adoption is definitely still
there as a possibility for the future, but I would only see
adoption as a celebration of being with someone whom I love.
'If I did adopt,
I would want lots of children. I think it's wrong to adopt just
one child as Michelle Pfeiffer has done. You can make one child
adapt to your schedule, whereas with more than one, you have to
adapt to theirs. And that's when you truly become a family.
Right now,
Stephanie's thoughts couldn't be further away from family
affairs. Paying the bills is the thought uppermost in her mind
and so it is back to work on the seaQuest set. The
series, which is now being screened on ITV on Sunday nights, is
due to run until next spring.
She adds: 'My
dream is that this will be the last television series I have
to do, and then hopefully I will be able to pick and choose.
Right now I just feel grateful for my continuing good fortune. I
am in a very happy phase of my life and I am in contact with a
lot of jolly, happy people and that thrills me.
'I'm having a lot
of fun and I feel there are many possibilities ahead of me. I
don't even know whether I have actually acknowledged middle age
yet. That's got nothing to do with a desperate search for youth.
It is just that I feel I am flourishing as a human being and I
hope to keep on expanding my range of possibilities. I've even
taken up roller blading...'
