Stephanie
Beacham is a gorgeous giggle of a girl. She laughs and laughs and
laughs... It's amazing where she gets the breath, the way she
flits from one zesty scene to another.
We
went to Yorkshire, where she was filming, only to find she had
just returned to London. In London we learnt that she had left
for the Midlands a couple of minutes before. In Nottingham she
was packing for Tunisia and laughed: "My taxi's waiting -
you were lucky to catch me..."
She
laughed with such genuine pleasure that we knew it was going to
be good talking to her - even if we had to swim back from
Tunisia.
Stephanie,
25, who stars in Wednesday's Special Branch, was born in
Casablanca and is an actress who is very much in demand.
Marlon
Brando chose her to co-star in the film The Nightcomers.
She vied with Ava Gardner for Ian McShane's love in Tam Lin,
and she has done horror films, too, as well as a lot of TV and
stage roles in between.
Of
her family she says: "They are just ordinary
professional-class people, and they think the film and stage
life is a waste of time."
But
her parents can't be as ordinary as she makes out. She was only
12 when she asked her mother how much it cost to keep her for a
month. It was £28, her mother told her.
"So
I asked her to give me the money and let me hitch-hike down to
the South of France for a month with some friends," said
Stephanie. "My parents trusted me so they let me go - but I
think they believed I wouldn't even get across the Channel. In
fact, it was three months before I eventually returned home."
She
has done quite a bit of travelling. On one visit to Eastern
Europe she was marched away at gunpoint with her hands in the
air by soldiers after being caught wandering around the hangars
at a Rumanian airport.
"The
corniest thing, that was," she says. "I acted just
like in a western. The Rumanians were worried about hi-jackers
at the time.
"I
love travelling to other countries just to look around on my
own. Making a film abroad doesn't compare with that.
"You
miss out on so much when you're working. The film people seem to
enclose you in a colony."
She
breaks off the travelogue with an urgent giggle to say: "The
day before yesterday I had the most marvellous experience."
She
was filming a horse-riding sequence and rode side-saddle. She
says: "It was so exciting. I do a lot of riding anyway, but
never before have I tried side-saddle. Now my great ambition is
to go side-saddle on the hunting field.
"Only
for the thrill of the chase, you know," she added
seriously. "I can't stand that business of being in at the
kill. Horrible."
Then...
"I
haven't reached my acting peak yet," she says. "In the
meantime I want to be as good as I possibly can be at everything
I attempt."
Brando
and the critics thought she was very good indeed in The
Nightcomers. And Stephanie, seeing the great Brando in bare
chest-to-breast close-up in the making of that film, completely
revised her preconceived opinion of him as a person.
"He
was so witty and so kind - not a bit the smouldering toughie I'd
been led to expect," she said, "and so easy to work
with.
"Mine
was a serious dramatic role, despite the fact that at one point
I had to take my clothes off and make love on the set with Mr.
Brando.
"I
think we were flirting all the time while rehearsing that scene.
But that's all there was to it - a mild flirtation... no affair.
"I'm
old-fashioned that way. I have a boyfriend and I believe in
staying faithful to him."
But
she didn't want to talk about her special boy friend. I asked
about her other friends.
"They
are very nice," she said. "All outside the profession
- painters and teachers, people who are happy to stay at home at
night and share some good conversation, just as I am when I'm
not on the move."
Home
is a flat in Hampstead, London, furnished in what she calls "eccentric
pastels" - blues, purples and greens.
And
home is shared by three very regal companions - King Charles
spaniels.
"They
dominate my life," said Stephanie happily, and with a
giggle, she was off to Tunisia.
