"... two of the most revealing scenes I've ever done,"

Stephanie Beacham is a provocative girl when completely covered (chin to ankle variety) in voluminous coats. Imagine therefore the impact on executive-crowded Elstree Studios restaurant when Miss Beacham kept our lunch date in between scenes for Dracula Today, dressed in a sheer, figure-hugging white gown designed to expose much of her very extravagant cleavage. It was enough to promote a healthy crop of ulcers, or at least severe indigestion. Stephanie tossed off her full length sheepskin-lined white suede coat and sat down.

Hardened as film studio inhabitants are, Miss Beacham is still spectacular enough to warrant extra attention.

She pipped practically every actress under 40 and secured the female lead everyone else wanted - opposite Marlon Brando in Michael Winner's The Nightcomers.

Winner gave her a small part in a previous film of his, The Games, and it was this debut performance he remembered when choosing a leading lady for Brando. In between she made the yet-to-be-seen Ballad Of Tam-Lin which wasn't an altogether happy experience for her. "Let's just say I wasn't ready for such a big part. Everyone else had a great time, thoroughly enjoyed themselves. But nobody told me that I didn't have to be ready at nine in the morning - so there I was made up, ready and waiting. By lunchtime I was exhausted." Did she get on with Ava Gardner who has the reputation of being a tough lady? "She was charming, very helpful and very nice," said Stephanie.

Which brings us to Brando. It's a name which inspires invitations to gossip; what's he like... is he strange... is he jolly? Along with a declining number of big stars Brando is an actor whose every breath is newsworthy. To the lasting chagrin of British journalists, when he came to England to make The Nightcomers he avoided the Press with his usual dexterity. The chance of asking about this enigma from someone who worked closely with him was too good to miss, and Miss Beacham did not mind discussing Brando at all. In fact she seemed delighted. "Michael Winner rang me up one night and asked 'How would you like to star opposite Marlon Brando?' I didn't believe him for a moment and said 'if the money's right."

"When I realised it wasn't a joke I was amazed. I had to think about it for a while after I'd studied the script." There were love scenes in the script which worried her.

"Although it only involved two love scenes, they were the most revealing I'd ever considered."

Did she try to persuade Michael not to include them? "No, because they are absolutely essential to the story. What I did insist upon though was that I met Marlon before shooting began. I mean it would be awful to arrive on the set, say 'how do you do', strip off and get into bed!"

The Nightcomers is a prelude to Henry James' famous ghost story, "The Turn Of The Screw", and ends where that story began. Brando plays Peter Quint, the Irish manservant and gardener at the sinister Bly House; Stephanie is Miss Jessel, the governess of the two young children of the house, Miles and Flora.

Quint and Miss Jessel are lovers, but it is a peculiar kind of love, mingling pain with secrecy. When Miss Jessel tries to leave Bly House, the children are determined to keep her and Quint together. They take the only action which their distorted logic can understand. The film was lavishly praised at the 1971 Venice Film Festival where critics claimed it as the best film Michael Winner has ever made and Brando's best performance in years.

After Michael Winner assured Stephanie that a pre-shooting meeting with Brando could be arranged she decided to be totally natural - no make-up, no elaborate hair-do, simple clothes. "After all Marlon's seen it all and if you're going to be in contact with someone they might as well see you as you are." It didn't go quite as planned - Stephanie couldn't find a taxi and arrived 45 minutes late. "It's all right to be looking plain, but you should be prompt!"

She recalls her first sight of Brando. "I noticed this pig-tailed man out of the corner of my eye, sitting next to me, but I couldn't look at him. I just couldn't." The dinner proved something of a disaster, but at one point, when Stephanie was acutely embarrassed, a hand suddenly reached out and held hers. "He had understood how embarrassed I was and reacted to that."

From that moment on she and Marlon achieved an enviable rapport; clearly she thought him marvellous, both as an actor and as a person. "One day I arrived on the set and Marlon took one look at me and said 'You've got cold feet'. I had but I hadn't told anyone. He took my feet in his hands and massaged them until they were warm."

Since finishing The Nightcomers Stephanie has been involved in Dracula Today at Elstree Studios.

Another of Hammer's horror offerings, it is set in modern day London where a group of youngsters dabble in black magic and conjure up Dracula's evil spirit from beyond the grave. Starring horror stalwarts Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing it is produced by Josephine Douglas and directed by Alan Gibson.

Self-sufficient

During the course of our interview I had discovered that Stephanie is deaf in her right ear. "We won't get anywhere if you sit on my right because I'm deaf in my right ear," she had told me as we sat down to eat. She went on, "There is every likelihood that I'll eventually be completely deaf. I've been slightly deaf since I was born and my parents discovered it when I was about four. When I was at school I had to sit at the front of the class because otherwise I couldn't hear. The troublemakers at the back were the ones I identified with, but they all thought I was a goody goody." Stephanie's great ambition had been to be a teacher in a school for deaf children. "I don't know what happened or how I became an actress, I still don't know why."

She is very matter-of-fact about her deafness: it is not an attention-getter. In fact had I not sat on the wrong side of her I doubt if she would have mentioned it.

She must have been quite a tough little girl: at 12, she told me, she asked her mother how much it cost to look after her for a month. £28 was the answer. Stephanie asked her mother to give her the £28 and said she was going with friends to France.

"I don't think I'd ever let a daughter of mine do it. They had such trust, and they must have been crazy with worry about me. I was gone for three months."

Stephanie acquired her aura of self-sufficiency early in her life. Couple that with an assurance of herself as a person, confidence in her ability (you'd be confident if you'd starred with Marlon Brando) and you understand something of what makes Stephanie Beacham tick.

She was the girl who left RADA after two years. "All that nonsense about 'who's going to win the movement prize'. Ugh. There didn't seem any point in staying. But I don't regret going there; it was like that in the beginning." She's utterly straightforward and says she adores television. "All the silly snobbery about television is ridiculous. I love television."

She spent several seasons with the Bristol Old Vic and the Oxford Playhouse, but says she gained her greatest theatrical experience with the Liverpool Everyman Theatre. In the West End she was acclaimed by the critics for her performances in Pinter's The Tea Party and The Basement.

It is uncertain what Stephanie will be doing next; she refuses to make long term plans and is basically an impulsive lady. She's not even sure whether she is ambitious for success.

Although there might be some who'd say that after Brando everything else would seem an anti-climax, I think Stephanie Beacham has the guts and determination which makes for a lasting career.