The charismatic actress dips into her favourite bookshop

When Stephanie Beacham arrives at her local bookshop in Malibu, her saucer-eyed spaniel Emily in tow ("We go everywhere together"), she's bursting with unexpected news. She has just landed the plum starring role as a marine biologist in Steven Spielberg's much-awaited TV series Sea Quest, opposite Roy Scheider. Anticipating watery work in a diving suit, Stephanie breathes a sigh of relief as she gleefully savours a thought. "Imagine - no glamorous gowns, no glittering jewellery. Marvellous!"

She jests about the glamorous image that has stuck since she played Sable Colby in the Dynasty spin-off, The Colbys. It did, after all, bring her to America seven years ago. But the real Stephanie is a much more relaxed soul and today there's not even a bracelet in evidence, nor colour on her fingernails (which are, nevertheless, exquisitely French-polished). It's sinfully hot on this Californian morning but she looks appealingly cool in jeans and T-shirt.

Ever since moving here, Stephanie has been a regular visitor to Malibu Books and Company. "This is a great shop," she beams. "I find real gems and British authors you can't get elsewhere."

No ordinary bookshop, this; it's full of quaint nooks and crannies and back stairs and false walls, crammed from floor to ceiling with colourful tomes. It's more like a library in a country cottage, and the armchairs and loveseats allow one to indulge at leisure in the pleasure of the printed word.

Owner Valerie Gable opened this haven in 1982 and although a comparison was not intentional, she's flattered when people remark on the resemblance between her shop and Shakespeare and Company, the American bookstore and renowned gathering place in Paris for literati from Hemingway to Sartre.

Stephanie is a voracious reader, always popping in to buy new books. "I've usually got three going at once," she says. "A reference book of some kind because I'm always learning, some sort of spiritual stuff and a novel for before I go to sleep.

"Television doesn't do it, films don't do it, nothing gets in there like books. I love the immersion you have when you're reading a great novel.

"It takes you to another world. I was about seven when Enid Blyton's Five Go To Kieron Island taught me that sandwiches taste better in the open air! I loved them all - Enid Blyton, Winnie the Pooh."

She gives a yelp of pleasure as she locates a book on dolphins - they are on her research list for the new series.

The sun is delightful and we sit on a bench outside the bookshop sipping cappuccinos. Stephanie stretches luxuriously. She's always loved Malibu. "How can you call this anything but being on holiday?" she marvels.

Early next month, she will be seen back in glamorous action in the steamy £3 million mini-series Riders, from Jilly Cooper's sizzling best-seller. As Molly Carter, she plays the rich mother of one of the main characters.

"It was wonderful. Riders is a great script and I love Jilly Cooper. It's not a huge part but Molly was such a wonderful person to play. She's a county snoop. Up to no good whatsoever." The Beacham smile takes over, half-cheeky, half saccharin. "Actually... she's a manipulating bitch. Just fabulous'"

Last seen in Britain in The Lilac Bus, she has just won acclaim in America for Foreign Affairs, a TV movie she made with Joanne Woodward and Brian Dennehy, in which she has an affair with a younger man - "probably my last toy-boy affair onscreen!"

She has two daughters, Chloe, 15, and Phoebe, 17, from her marriage to actor John McEnery. They separated when Chloe was a baby, but Stephanie is proud to have raised her daughters singlehandedly. The girls (at boarding school in England but they spend holidays with their mother) are about to return to the US. Stephanie is potty with excitement.

She is tight-lipped about her current romance, but is happy to discuss other loves: painting - "which I adore, but I'm hopeless"; a sickly turtle "being nursed by neighbours"; and homeless children. They are her greatest passion and she often works behind the scenes with the children.

These kids have never encountered glamour but they know sincerity when they find it. So it's no surprise that they recognise Stephanie Beacham only in jeans and T-shirts. And a smile that's bigger than a crescent moon.

Malibu Books and Company, 23410 Civic Centre Way, Malibu, California 90265 (tel: 310 456 1375) Open Mon to Sat, 10am-6pm; Sunday, 11am-5pm. "Riders" will be shown on 2 and 3 May on ITV at 9pm.