Stephanie Beacham has made a career out of being a bitch. The roles she is best known for - the lead in 80s fashion drama Connie, Phyl in the new series of Bad Girls, and, of course, Sable Colby in The Colbys and Dynasty - are very strong, fearless, often devious, women.

But far from worrying about being typecast, Stephanie revels in her TV speciality.

"I've just taken utter advantage of a perception that has given me a great many fabulous roles," she says. "I just think, `I've been offered strong women to play, how fabulous.' And the baddies are the people that lead the stories onwards.

"To be a victim, either in life or on screen, I think is a very tiresome thing to be."

But these days there's a new role that Stephanie is enjoying - the real-life role of a loving grandmother to her grandson Jude.

She currently splits her time between living in London, where her younger daughter Chloe, 27, lives, and her luxurious home in Malibu, Los Angeles.

Jude and his mum, Stephanie's older daughter Phoebe, 29, are based in California and Stephanie feels "lucky to have one of my daughters wherever I am".

"I've got a house on a cliff in LA and when I'm doing the washing up I'm looking out at the sea," she says. "It's where I go to relax, at least as much as you can relax with a four-year-old. But I'm not complaining.

"I totally and utterly love being a grandma, he's a very special little boy."

But she's not about to put her feet up and sink into full-time domesticity. In fact she is busier than ever.

Fresh from filming the latest series of Bad Girls, which begins on Wednesday, she's heading back to LA for Jude's birthday, then she'll be back in the UK in a nationwide run of the play Dinner this summer.

"That will be such a joy to stretch those muscles after doing Bad Girls," says Stephanie.

"I like to have the balance of doing just a little bit of a story, as you do when filming scenes, then gathering a whole story up, as you do in a play, and doing it every evening."

Stephanie got into acting so she "could be 5ft 9ins". But the 5ft 5ins actress, who has lived with a hearing impairment since birth, initially intended to become a teacher of deaf children, teaching them dance.

She headed out to Paris to learn mime and took a job as an au pair. She didn't stay long, however, as she was soon fired.

"I was an appalling au pair," says Stephanie. "He was a whiney little boy called Leono, and if he woke up at night I'd just stick a sweet in his mouth. He could've choked, the poor lad. Hopefully he'll have grown up well and hearty.

"I didn't mistreat him in a nasty sense. Although I must say I would take him to the Punch and Judy show in the park, stick him in front of it and go off and have coffee with my friends.

"It was a safer era then but when I think that someone might do that to Jude, I find it quite appalling."

Stephanie headed to Liverpool where her boyfriend was working at the Liverpool Everyman theatre. She became fascinated with theatre life and was soon working for the company, eventually heading off to London to study at RADA.

A successful career soon followed but it was Dynasty spin-off The Colbys that eventually took her to Hollywood.

She's watching with interest after recent news of a planned TV movie about the behind-the-scenes rise and fall of Dynasty. After meeting Joan Collins recently, the actresses discussed the film, in which Joanne Whalley is playing Joan.

"I don't know if I'm in it because I was more Colbys," says Stephanie. "But Joan and I came to the conclusion that we're both in good enough shape to play ourselves.

"We're sharpening our pencils to sue," she adds, possibly not joking.

These days Stephanie is happy acting in another trashy cult hit - Bad Girls. The new series sees her character, Phyl, attempting to take over as top dog at Larkhall, while her relationship with fellow Costa Con Bev deteriorates when Bev develops a drug habit.

After feeling like the new girl while filming the last series, Stephanie is now settled in and looking forward to more prison wing action.

"Why grab hold of a character and just begin to inhabit it without carrying on and seeing where they get to?" she demands. "I don't think I've finished with Phyl yet."