He's
blond, he's beautiful and he's a little thug,' says eternally
glamorous actress Stephanie Beacham, unable to keep the smile off
her face.
His name is Jude
and he's her first grandchild, the two-year-old son of her elder
daughter, Phoebe, 28, who lives in the same Los Angeles
apartment block as her mother, a hop and a skip from the famous
Sunset Boulevard. 'He's the son I never had,' she says.
When in LA,
Stephanie is Jude's unofficial nanny. 'I'll collect him from
school and then it's either straight into the swimming pool or
up to the canyon for a walk with the dogs and then back for his
tea. He calls me Glamma, a name I love, of course.' And what
makes it more charming is that obviously her toddler grandson is
quite unaware of its double meaning.
Clearly, Jude can
do no wrong. 'Not quite true,' says his doting grandmother.
'He's not civilised yet. I've never tipped so heavily as I do
when I take that young man into a restaurant. It's my way of
saying sorry for whatever he's done.'
It's all a far
cry from the years when Stephanie found herself raising her two
daughters single-handedly. In 1973, she married fellow Royal
Shakespeare Company actor John McEnery, but the couple separated
after five years. Their younger daughter, Chloe, now 26, was
little more than a babe in arms at the time. Stephanie was
shattered by the failure of her marriage, but she refused to go
under. 'As it happens, I took to motherhood from the word go,'
she says.
But not, it
seems, at the cost of her career. She was a key member of the
cast of the popular TV series Tenko and played the title
role in Connie, the story of a go-getting businesswoman
building up a fashion empire. But it wasn't until the mid-1980s
that her life changed forever. Summoned to Los Angeles by
powerful producer Aaron Spelling, she was cast as Sable, first
in The Colbys and then in Dynasty. 'I chased the
dollar,' she admits, without apology. 'Aaron made me a
millionairess. But then I've never thought it more saintly to
scrub floors. Being a single parent with diamonds struck me as a
much cleverer move.'
She
won't easily forget the moment she was whisked back to her
swanky hotel by limousine after that career-defining first
meeting with Spelling. 'I danced round my room in my underwear.
This was Hollywood! I had a script with "Paramount Studios"
printed on the front page. I was Judy Garland! Oh, it doesn't
get much better than that.'
Nor has that work
shown any signs of drying up. In her latest venture, as a member
of the cast of ITV1's Bad Girls, Stephanie and ex-Coronation
Street star Amanda Barrie play a couple of Costa Brava con
women, Phyl and Bev, who've been rumbled selling shares in
non-existent golf courses. 'I'm the brains and Bev's the one who
puts them into practice,' says Stephanie.
So how does she
divide her time between the UK and America? 'Simple - I'm in
Britain when I work and in California whenever I can be.' She's
now in her mid-fifties. Can she ever imagine retiring? 'Not
necessarily,' she says. 'But if it ain't joyful, I ain't doing
it.'
And these days,
she's certainly not in it for the money. 'I don't feel I need to
be enormously rich any more because my life is so rich as it is.
Anyway, been there, done that, and having lived that sort of
life, my conclusion is that yachts are for other people. I'm
quite content just to hop aboard for a ride every now and then.'
Stephanie's life
may be rich but does she ever contemplate sharing it with
someone else? There have been boyfriends over the years, but
she's never remarried.
'My two best male
friends are a gay couple,' she says, 'although I'm also very
close to my best friend at the beach, Colin, who looks after my
dogs, Bruno and Kelsey, a rescued golden retriever.'
She's not
complaining. 'I feel so completely blessed by the fullness of my
life. I have so much love in my life - from my girls, of whom I
am extraordinarily proud, from my friends, and from the little
blond thug.'
Recently
Stephanie took an important decision. She was born with no nerve
endings - and, therefore, no hearing - in her right ear, the
result of chicken pox, which her mother contracted during the
last days of her pregnancy. 'If there had been even five per
cent hearing, at least it could have been magnified,' she says,
Her left ear was less badly affected, although it has only 70
per cent of its full capacity.
Last November,
Stephanie saw for herself the invaluable work done by the
charity Hearing Dogs For Deaf People during a visit to their
headquarters in Oxfordshire.
'They train
animals to recognise the phone ringing or an alarm clock going
off or a washing machine coming to the end of its cycle, and
then they alert their owner, it's really quite remarkable. Those
dogs also provide uncomplicated companionship to people who can
become isolated from the rest of the world by their condition.'
Now her mind is
made up, 'It's my intention to do as much for this charity as I
can, in terms of speaking up for them and publicising their
work.
'In no way have I
been inhibited by my deafness. I've had an extraordinary career
and a wonderful life,' she says, 'Now it's time to put something
back.'
