Stephanie
Beacham is proudly showing off the ring that adorns her wedding
finger. It's a simple band made of elastic and decorated with
beads.
'Over
the weekend I was proposed to, by a seven-year-old,' she says.
The woman who once said, 'I've told my friends that, if I start
thinking about getting married they're to lock me away,' throws
back her mane of red hair and laughs. The notion that an elastic
band could start a wave of speculation about marriage to a toy
boy is a great wheeze.
Since
her divorce from actor John McEnery in 1980, her name's been
linked with a number of younger men. Her current boyfriend,
33-year-old American cameraman Steven Silver, is 10 years her
junior, but marriage to him isn't a priority.
'I
don't think the age gap between Stevie and myself makes any
difference, but it does affect my attitude to our relationship,'
she says. 'At the moment he doesn't feel he wants his own
children. But at 40 he may do and by that time I'll be 50. I
don't want that negative possibility ruining something that's
quite wonderful but I've seen it happen to other couples and I
do fear it.
'The
idea of breaking up now would be truly silly because we're just
too happy. We make a very good couple.'
The
beauty who made her name in America as the arch-villainess Sable
in The Colbys and Dynasty has been filming three
projects at once - the lead role in a mini-series of Jackie
Collins' Lucky in Los Angeles, a Channel 4 film of Maeve
Binchy's The Lilac Bus in Ireland, and a dramatisation
of Cluedo for Granada TV, which started last week.
Cluedo's
a six-part drama series based on the whodunnit board game of
that name. Stephanie plays Mrs. Peacock, with Robin Ellis as
Colonel Mustard and Tracy Ward as the young temptress Miss
Scarlet. The all-star cast also includes June Whitfield and
Simon Williams.
'Mrs.
Peacock's a character who's slightly past her bloom,' says
Stephanie. 'She's a wonderfully ridiculous figure, and great fun
to play.'
Stephanie
arrived in Hollywood during the soaps' boom five years ago, to
secure the future of her two daughters - Phoebe, 15, and Chloe,
13. What began as a brief foray turned into a long-term
residency, and now she commutes between her Malibu home and the
UK on film and TV assignments.
'When
I first went to America I was just going to try to make some
money, but I didn't feel quite so rich when I got there because
everything was much more expensive than I imagined.
'I
just feel lucky I can wake up to sunshine and look out at a
sparkling blue sea and palm trees. I feel so privileged I have
to pinch myself sometimes.'
Stephanie
says that living in America has improved her attitude to life.
'There's an American positivity which is rather wonderful.
Living in America's kept me my 24-inch waist - there's a degree
of physicality there that keeps you up to the mark. I pack much
more into my days now than I did in Britain.
'But
I do miss cups of tea, friends, natters, giggles, cosiness,
rainy afternoons and sewing. I've a tremendous nostalgia for
dreamy afternoons with the rain pouring down outside, curled up
with a good book.'
Stephanie's
daughters go to boarding school in Somerset, near the home of
her 80-year-old parents. 'I don't know whether I'd have had the
bravery to have the children if I'd realised what a rocky road
it was going to be, so I'm thrilled that I didn't know.
'I'm
glad I had my babies, because there are other actresses who've
had splendid careers at the cost of a family - and I wouldn't
swap my children for anything in the world.'
Her
parents are Roman Catholic and Stephanie was sent to a convent
school. 'My parents have a wonderful value system and hopefully
I've passed that on to my children. 'I don't wish the girls a
quiet existence because life's too exciting, but I hope they
have a steadier career than that of an actor - although I do
love it, so I'm not a very good deterrent!
Stephanie
says that ethically she's a Buddhist who can't quite shake off
her Catholic upbringing. 'When my faith. in God's at a low ebb,
I'm still left with Buddhism. It's a soft mattress when the God
of my childhood seems remote.'
She
also has firm views about fidelity - completely foreign to the
bed-hopping mores of trashy Hollywood novels. 'I can't
understand a marriage where the fidelity's been broken,' she
says. 'I couldn't compromise for the sake of security. I know
other people have managed to find a new plateau after an
infidelity has been discovered, but for me it would break the
very essence of a relationship. I suppose I'm quite pure in that
way - maybe it's a throwback to the convent.
'I
think to be a mum, and have a career, and then to have a lovely,
loyal friendship is about as much as I can fit into my hectic
schedule at the moment.'
'I
won't get married again until I'm old enough to settle. I don't
know why I'm so restless. I think it's to do with insecurity or
a low self-image. And, because life's so short, I'm like a kid
in a candy store - I think it's terrific and I want to see all
of it.'
She
remains a very beautiful woman but laughs off suggestions that
she's a sex symbol. 'Teenage daughters are so critical they'd
soon knock me off any pedestal like that,' she says. 'I think
I've got a couple of potential sex symbols coming up, and
they're already borrowing my clothes. But they do tease me. I'm
delighted to have any attributes that are attractive to other
people, but I certainly don't regard myself as a sex symbol. My
looks alter according to my happiness level.'
Stephanie
was born with only 40 per cent hearing, and someone once wrongly
predicted she'd be totally deaf by 21, so to act at all has been
a triumph. In America, she works for the Speech, Language and
Hearing Association and the National Council for Communicative
Disorders.
'In
the next five years,' she says, 'I'd like to have made a major
movie, and to have really stretched myself as an actress. But I
also want to consolidate my work for the deaf and try to make a
useful contribution in that area.
I'd
say I was happy. I'm not in a state of transcendental bliss, but
I don't think I've met many people who are.
'Nevertheless,
there are moments when joy just hits me and courses throughout
my veins. Usually it's with sunsets or sunrises, but also with
those great moments of humanity when people make unexpected and
wonderful gestures. That gives me such joy that I want to stand
up and be counted. I'm never going to be a mover and a shaker in
the world of power. But I'd love to feel I really do contribute
the maximum that I can.'
