We
are sitting on the wooden stoop at the back of the house where
she's seeing out her remaining weeks on America's west coast.
Stephanie Beacham gazes long and hard at the lowering night sky. "I
must say," she says, bringing her thoughts back to earth, "the
idea of hitting hard pavements again is very appealing."
She
checks herself. "I feel rather unfaithful to my adopted
home but Malibu has lost some of its charm over the past year.
The love affair is on hold. There have been floods, fires,
landslides, riots and, of course, an earthquake. It's been a
little like something out of Sodom and Gomorrah. I think I'm
ready for new adventures."
Not
that she's saying goodbye to America forever. "I've still
got too much of it yet to cover and too many friends who'll be
in my life for the rest of my days. But I popped in and said
hello to Australia last year and I think that reactivated my
wanderlust."
Stephanie
Beacham arrived in Los Angeles 10 years ago to play Sable in
The Colbys, the successful spin-off series from Dynasty.
She stayed on to make all manner of mini-series and to
savour the high life in her fabulous house overlooking the
Pacific Ocean.
"I
wanted to live on the street where all the film stars lived. And
I have. But now it's a case of 'been there, done that'." So
she's renting out her home and acquiring a base in town near the
studios, where she will live when she needs to work in LA. "Malibu
is 90 minutes from anywhere. It's been like working in London
and living in Bristol. It's too much."
Stephanie's
ultimate goal is the South of France. "It's got the climate
and the culture." For the moment, though, "it's
lighten your overheads and have a little fun." And that
means no more mini-series. Her swansong was Legend, a TV
movie in which she played Vera Slaughter, cowgirl - "and I
was all bad."
The
turning point came earlier however, with seaQuest DSV, a
pretty dismal effort (despite Steven Spielberg's name on it is
executive producer) dubbed Voyage to the Bottom of the Ratings
by one Hollywood wag. "When filming moved to Florida,"
says Stephanie, "I declined to go with it. I'd already done
15 months, although it felt like 15 years.
"Oh,
it was such a disappointment. I thought it was going to be funny
and interesting. I thought I was going to play a role model for
the Nineties, a strong, self-achieving woman. I thought I was
going to be on the cutting edge." A hollow laugh. "Cutting
edge, my eye! Unless you consider conversing with a talking
dolphin being on the cutting edge... Pur-leeze. The whole thing
was plain daft."
So
where did Steven Spielberg come in? "He didn't. He was
totally absorbed making Schindler's List, and quite
rightly, too. But I'll never forget the first time he paid a
visit to the set. He looked around with what I can only describe
as blank amazement."
The
fault, says Stephanie, lay with the scripts. "Now, every
time I want to have a good laugh, I phone Florida and listen to
them all moaning." She was (and is) very fond of the cast. "They're
the reason I wasn't sent half-mad or into the depths of
depression." And she has an enormous respect and affection
for co-star Roy Scheider.
But,
when pressed, Stephanie Beacham doesn't duck the implications of
having her name associated with frankly inferior material. She's
a classically trained actress who went to Hollywood to make lots
of money ("I chased the dollar and I make no apology for
that") the better to raise her two daughters
single-handedly.
Phoebe
is now 20 and a student at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School;
Chloe is 18 and waiting for confirmation of a university place.
"So the girls are almost off my hands now, financially
speaking, and I keep thinking I'm going to turn my career into
something more rewarding in terms of being proud of it. But it
keeps failing to live up to my expectations."
Not
for much longer. Back in Britain, Stephanie is now rehearsing
her role in Strindberg's The Father opposite Edward Fox,
which starts a short provincial run in Bromley at the end of
August before visiting Richmond, Bath and Malvern; it is
currently planned that the production will arrive in the West
End in the last week of September.
And
then there's No Bananas, the BBC's 10-part drama series
about two families during the Second World War. Tom Bell is head
of the working class household; Stephanie is the lynchpin of the
posh lot, the haughty but naughty Dorothea who never goes
anywhere, she says, without a Pekinese under each arm. "She's
the past mistress of the perfect one-liner. Everything she says
is viciously good. Delicious!
So
the future looks bright indeed. But then, you won't get
Stephanie to regret the past. "Absolutely not. I want to
emphasise that I do not regard what happened to my career in the
Hollywood years as a sacrifice. And there will never come a day
when I turn round to either of those splendid young women and
say, "I gave up everything for you."
"I
gave up nothing for them but I did opt for big bucks
because I wanted us to live well. It's just that when Chloe
emerges, as I hope she will, with a good degree, that's when
I'll feel able again to follow my genuine gypsy soul." And
accept a season at Stratford perhaps? "That would be
lovely. But, truly, I have no regrets."
Along
the way, though, something has happened to Stephanie Beacham.
You don't bring up your children on your own (she was married to
the actor John McEnery); you don't command the sort of fees most
people can only dream of; you don't turn yourself into a woman
of independent means and not, by definition, become something of
an independent spirit, too.
There
have been love affairs along the way. There was an intense
relationship with cameraman Steve Silver. She has just emerged
from another three-year relationship about which she kept very
quiet. "We both knew it wasn't going to get anywhere, so I
decided to bring it to a close."
So
is she now so much her own woman she can't imagine being in a
permanent relationship? She shivers. "Oh, it's a scary
thought, that. But, yes, I suppose I'm finding it harder to
compromise. It would have to be somebody very special indeed,
somebody who required no compromising at all, for me to
relinquish my independence.
"I
like to be around other people but I couldn't answer to someone
else unless I really loved him. If I met someone special, I'd be
perfectly prepared not to work so much, to invest time in the
relationship." But she lets you feel it's less than likely.
"I'm very romantic but I've always fallen in love in a
really mindless way. I'd adore to fall in love with my best
friend. But that doesn't happen, does it?"
She's
not troubled by this realisation, though. "I don't feel I
have to be in a partnership to be able to live. But that's a
fairly new feeling. I was brought up in England in the Fifties,
when you were expected to put on a pinny and be a wife; and I
wouldn't have missed motherhood for anything. But look, I got
married and still had to bring my kids up by myself. So you
never know."
And
now? "I'm open to whatever may occur. But nor am I sitting
around pining, imagining my life to be incomplete without a
permanent partner. I have a great network of friends. I consider
myself lucky." The briefest pause. "Oh, of course I'd
like the one person with whom a shorthand is reached by a single
glance. It's just that it's no longer a quest for me - and how
could it be?
"It
happens, if it happens at all, out of left field when you're
least expecting it. But I can honestly say I don't have marriage
on my mind. I have a much stronger desire to make a really good
movie - and a European one at that - before my time is up.
"In
the meantime, I'm beginning to glimpse the time when I might be
able to put myself first. I find that prospect exciting, not
scary. I absolutely adore gambling because I love finding out
the odds. Well, I'm starting to feel that way about the rest of
my life. Soon it's going to be Steph's turn. Thrilling!"
