Stephanie
Beacham is slumming it. Instead of a shimmering evening gown and
knock-'em-dead stilettos, she's in battered jeans and trainers.
The make-up is much less vampish than you'd expect and her hair
falls into a neat bob rather than rising up in a souffle of glossy
brown waves. And diamonds? Well, they wouldn't be a Bad Girl's
best friend in prison, would they?
Back in the
Eighties, Stephanie was feted as one of the most beautiful women
in the world, swanning around the Hollywood sets of Dynasty
and spin-off series, The Colbys, in one jaw-dropping
outfit after another. With dazzling strings of jewels, sequins
and glitter she had more sparkle than a floodlit Christmas tree.
Having costume
designers, make-up artists and hairdressers to groom you into
such gorgeousness may sound like a dream but, says Stephanie, it
was more of a nightmare to be dolled up every day as Sable
Colby. The Bad Girls' old slapper look is so much less
effort.
'Oh, I've got no
fear of looking grotty,' she says. 'Glamour's boring to do.
Having to get yourself done up all the time is such a tiresome
responsibility because you can't sit around or you'll crease
things. From that point of view, prison's a great relief.'
She says, though,
that when she first stepped onto the Bad Girls set in
her role as conwoman Phyl, she did wonder for a moment just what
she had let herself in for.
'I was scared.
When the door clanked behind me, I, thought, "Oh, my Lord,
it must be so ghastly to be in prison." When you look at
the statistics you see that women don't fare too well in jail.'
But Phyl doesn't
appear to be doing too badly in Larkhall nick. With her partner
in crime, Bev, played by Amanda Barrie, Phyl has the cunning to
make the most of life behind bars by operating an assortment of
scams, including a distillery in the prison potting shed.
Filming the role
of a boozy troublemaker in a dreary corner of London's East End
must be about as far removed as you can get from the Dynasty
and Colbys glory days when Stephanie really did live the
Hollywood dream.
'Oh, it was an
enormously exciting time - the programmes were so popular that
in America it enabled you to meet anybody you wanted to and get
invited to all the parties. It was wonderful.'
As Sable, she was
part of the Dynasty shoulder-pad Brit pack that included
Joan Collins and Kate O'Mara - who appeared in Bad Girls
a couple of years ago. All the same, Stephanie's move to the
States was a brave one. Succeeding as an actress against such
intense competition is hard enough, but she's also had to
overcome complete deafness in one ear and reduced hearing in the
other.
Her Hollywood
gamble paid off and Sable brought her fame and the cash to
support her two daughters, Phoebe and Chloe, now both in their
20s, from her marriage to actor John McEnery. They were divorced
years ago and Stephanie has settled in the States.
Her time back in
England for Bad Girls provided the added bonus of seeing
London-based Chloe, but as filming wound up, she was itching to
be on a plane to get back home to California and her other
daughter, Phoebe, and her three-year-old grandson, Jude, who
calls her Glamma.
And she is indeed
the most glamorous of grandmothers: At 56, she is a slim and
pretty woman with striking, treacle-brown coloured eyes and a
feline sexuality that men find enchanting. There is no bloke in
her life at the moment, but it doesn't bother her.
'Now it's love
rather than lovers, which is rather good. I often think that
being in love is a bit like having 'flu,' she says.
'Romantic
involvement is low on my list now. I honestly think my hormones
are finally releasing me from this grotesque sex drive that
causes me to fall in love with people who I probably wouldn't
have even wanted to have tea with if I hadn't been attracted to
them.
'I've fallen in
love and then found out who it was that I'd fallen in love with.
The hormones haven't given up but they are slowly releasing me
from their utter grip.
'But I've had
maximum fun. It's been completely and utterly brilliant - I feel
blessed that I was young in the Sixties, when I had just the
best time.
'I think that
women of my age were really very lucky...'
