Stephanie
Beacham puts her elegant foot down when the conversation gets
round to love and marriage. No, she won't talk about her love
affairs, not any more. And no, she won't be getting married again.
The last time the 45-year-old actress "went public," as
she puts it, concerned her romance with a cameraman who went on to
tell all about their break-up in print.
"It
was horrible," says Stephanie, bristling like her
acid-tongued TV character, Sable Colby, in the Dynasty
spin-off. "The jerk! Can you imagine anybody being that
cheap? There were TV advertisements. My parents were upset. The
children were upset. It taught me to keep my affairs private. I
don't talk about my amours any more."
The
children are Phoebe, 17, and Chloe, 15, from Stephanie's
marriage to actor John McEnery. Their divorce might have been
another bitter pill, but the couple remain pals. "He was a
rotten person to marry but a lovely friend," says
Stephanie. "We didn't divorce for so many years as
acknowledgment of what we produced, two lovely girls. I have no
bitterness about the failure of my marriage. I got two wonderful
kids out of it." Another ex-beau, actor Martyn Stanbridge,
also ended up airing his relationship with Stephanie in the
papers but there were no hard feelings. "Poor old Martyn,"
says Stephanie. "He got trapped by the Press. He didn't
sell his story. He thought he was being interviewed for himself.
He didn't realise how clever the Press was and how stupid he
was."
But
she can forgive Stanbridge everything. They met while working at
the National Theatre in 1983, and when Stephanie needed an
operation and nearly died, he became her nursemaid.
She
was unable to walk when she got home and the devoted Stanbridge
took care of her, even carrying her to the loo.
Stephanie
says she got something positive from her near-fatal experience
in hospital. "I saw the tunnel with the light at the end,"
she recalls... "cloaked figures... nobody I recognised. The
light was wonderful, nothing you could ever be frightened of."
It
was the image of daughter Chloe that brought her back, she says,
to living reality. "I saw every fleck in her eyes and I
realised it was not my time to go," she says. "It gave
me a very strong understanding of how to lead this life. I will
never fear death again. I don't fancy being ill, but death is no
problem. We go on, you know. That's the exciting thing."
Back in this world, 22-year-old Jason Priestley, who co-starred
with Stephanie in the short-lived American sitcom Sister
Kate, found Stephanie, who played a nun, pretty exciting.
The hunky star of Beverly Hills 90210 admits to fancying
her.
"It's
a mutual admiration society, but we never flirted because you
just don't flirt with nuns'" says Stephanie, who is set to
appear on our screens in Jackie Collins's Lucky Chances
next month and The Lilac Bus later in the summer.
Meanwhile,
at home on Malibu Beach, near Los Angeles, Stephanie has no
special man in her life. "I'll never marry again," she
says, but longs to meet "a friend who can rely on me - and
I'll rely on him.
"I
suppose that sounds like a sad old quote from someone who had a
sticky time from marriage.
"I
don't believe in co-dependency, but I do believe in being there
for someone."
