Stephanie Beacham, who appears in Sunday's Forget-Me-Not, was once a fully-fledged member of the Swinging London set: a self-confessed dolly bird whose interests centred on sports cars and nightclubs.

Today, the contrast is remarkable. Handing out apple juice in the garden of her London home, while 18-month-old daughter Phoebe takes a nap upstairs, the conversation is about potty training and do-it-yourself. Marriage, to actor John McEnery, and motherhood have domesticated Stephanie, although she is still very much the ambitious actress. And it's a mixture which makes for a hectic life.

Now, picking up her career after those first months with the baby, Stephanie, is appearing in On Approval at the Haymarket Theatre in London's West End.

Stephanie, who is 29, has been working steadily since she left the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1967. Television appearances include parts in Man at the Top, Special Branch, Jane Eyre, and a lead role, as a sensitive personnel officer, in Marked Personal.

She is determined to be an acting success no matter how inconvenient it is to her personal life. Stephanie took only five weeks off after Phoebe was born.

"I would do the 6.30 feed in the morning," she explained, "and then leave. John looked after Phoebe during the day, I came back for the 6.30 feed in the evening and then John went off to the theatre."

John (the younger brother of Peter Clayhanger McEnery) and Stephanie don't see much of each other these days, but at least Stephanie can be with Phoebe for most of the day. John has just finished BBC-2's Our Mutual Friend, and is now working on ITV's new series featuring the life of Shakespeare.

Stephanie wonders whether it's possible for her to be a proper mother. "You can't really do the full bit, can you?" she asks her friend Heather Chasen, who's come to lunch. Heather and she starred together in Marked Personal. Heather, who has a son at university, agrees.

But despite late nights at the theatre, Stephanie says: "I get the family rolling every morning, see Phoebe, see John off to work,. and then go back to sleep. To add to the chaos I think we'll have another baby reasonably soon. Since the nappy bucket is out now, it might as well stay out."

It's a long cry from her early career - when she stripped off nightly in Harold Pinter's play The Basement and then later in the film The Nightcomers opposite Marlon Brando. Stephanie was labelled a sex symbol. She feels she's cast off that image now and instead is typecast as a "high-class bitch in glamorous clothes" - like the rich proprietress of a glossy French magazine which she plays in Forget-Me-Not.

Her current West End role is somewhat of a character switch - "I'm all sweetness and light." She even has to wear chest bandages to make her generous bosom more fitting for the flapper dresses she wears. "I've never had so much freedom. I keep waving my arms around like windmills."

There's nothing prim and proper about Stephanie. She'll say and do anything - which is useful when it comes to bringing up a baby. For instance, how many mothers get as involved with potty training as Stephanie? "I started using the potty myself," she confesses. "I thought it was the best way." What did Phoebe think? "She thought it was very funny."