Don't
call me Steph. Absolutely not. You can call me Stephie or
Stephanie but not Steph. "Steph's deaf!' That's what the
other children used to chant at school. Unbelievably cruel. Mummy
was ill with chickenpox just before I was born. But she had it on
the inside, not the outside. The result is that I was born with no
hearing whatever in my right ear; if I even had a tiny amount,
they could magnify it. And my left ear is only about 70 per cent
effective. When I was four, my perfectly healthy adenoids were
removed, but it didn't make the smallest difference. My mother did
everything she could to improve my hearing but, in the end, she
washed her hands of the problem. If she couldn't solve a problem,
her solution was to pretend it no longer existed.
I thought Mummy
was perfect. It took her death in 1997 for me to discover what a
manipulative old bat she was. I loved her; oh, dearly, but I've
come to realise how controlling she was. I always thought that
hers was unconditional love. I now know there were any number of
conditions attached.
And the miserable
thing is that I brought up my own two girts in exactly the same
way. I never stopped praising them, but then never bit back ways
in which they could improve upon whatever it was they'd just
done. "Darling, that's amazing;" I'd say. "Now,
how about..?" In my defence, I had to be both parents to
them, because my marriage broke up shortly after Chloe, the
younger of the two, was born. So I was fulfilling two roles. I
didn't have any choice, but that doesn't make it easy to stop
when it's no longer necessary. Chloe has a new habit 'Of holding
up her two index fingers in the shape of a cross if I start
trying to run her life for her. "That's enough, hag!"
she'll say. It's not polite, is it?
Daddy, who died a
year after Mummy, was the most gorgeous man, a gentle man. He
was a managing director for the Grosvenor Estate, specialising
in insurance. I remember once travelling on the Underground with
him and I found a five-pound note on the floor of the carriage.
At the next stop, he handed it to the guard. I said, "Daddy,
why did you do that? It wasn't in a wallet. The guard will only
keep it." He turned to me and said, "Well, Stephanie,
in that case that will be his problem." So, a truly moral
man and completely unmaterialistic.
There are four of
us. I'm the middle girl. I've got an older sister, DiDi, and a
younger one, Jenny. The eldest child is my brother Richard whom
I unapologetically adore. He's very clever and very handsome,
rather in the mould of Robert Redford.
When I first went
into acting, I remember my Aunty Peggy pinning me to a wall. She
was really snooty and I based my bitchier roles on her. She
said, "Don't let your gallivanting" - her word for my
chosen career - "ruin your brother's chances of a
knighthood, will you?"
As it happens,
Richard went on to be awarded an OBE for the work he did
involving palm oil in Papua New Guinea. I think Peggy would have
been much happier if I'd stayed with the Royal Shakespeare
Company and never risen above spear-carrier. But, luckily, I was
talent-spotted and was thrilled to be cast opposite Marlon
Brando in The Nightcomers.
When I rang Mummy
to tell her the news, she was delighted although, clearly, she
had no idea who I was talking about "Oh, darling," she
said, "Brandy Marlowe! I must tell Aunty Molly." Daddy
was also pleased I was doing well but he hated the fact the film
involved his daughter in a couple of nude scenes. I know they
have to advertise these things," he said, "but do they
have to do so where I live?"
Now that both my
parents have gone, Richard, quite naturally, has assumed the
mantle of head of the family. I think he finds it very
difficult. We three girls used to ring up Mummy periodically and
just vent. Since she died Richard's taken on that role and,
being a chap, I think he feels that some sort of action is
required. What he doesn't understand is that all that's needed
after a good vent is some sympathy.
John McEnery and
I had both been with the RSC and when we married in my late 20s,
I was impatient for motherhood. I must say, I was brilliant at
it from the off. To this day, you can give me a screaming baby
with colic and I will calm it in a second. I know this doesn't
accord with the public perception of me, but it is nonetheless
true.
By the time Chloe
arrived almost exactly two years after Phoebe, the marriage was
over. I found its disintegration very, very difficult, quite
ghastly. It seemed like the end of my life. I didn't understand
it and it shattered me utterly. I can honestly say that I hadn't
known a moment's real unhappiness until I was 29 and my marriage
began to unravel. In many ways, the love instilled in me
throughout my childhood saw me through this crisis. Daddy used
to say that, if you fell off a horse, you simply had to get on
it again. And I got on life again - with a vengeance but never
vengefully, I hope.
I've
never remarried. I could never bear the idea of the girls having
a stepfather. I know they're both really pleased they never had
to shuffle into a room and wonder what Mummy had been doing with
that strange man.
They've never had
to be second-best to anybody. I don't rule out the possibility
of there being someone special in my life at some point. But I'd
question whether I could ever completely answer to anybody
again. You do get used to your own company.
Anyway, there's
only one man in my life at the moment - Phoebe's two-year-old
son, Jude. This is the boy I never had. He's blond and he's
beautiful, but not yet civilised. I call him my little thug. He
and Phoebe live in the same apartment block as me in Los
Angeles, although I'm back and forth to the UK as work dictates.
I've just finished filming my first series of Bad Girls
in which Amanda Barrie and I play a couple of Costa Brava con
women who've been rumbled. Great fun.
Jude calls me
Glamma, a name I love, of course, and the irony of which is
completely lost on him. I am utterly devoted to him. Indeed, I'm
his unofficial nanny when I'm in California while his mother
goes off to work each day for Chanel in Beverly Hills.
When I've been in
love before, I've found myself wondering whether a particular
shirt in a particular shop would suit whoever he was. Well, I do
the same thing now - except that the shop is invariably Gap Kids
and the young man in question is Jude.
When I was
playing Sable in, first, Dynasty and then The Colbys
I led a very ritzy life with a beautiful house overlooking
the ocean at Malibu. But life - and your priorities - change,
don't they? I don't need to be enormously rich anymore because
my life is so fulfilling. I have my girls of whom I am
inordinately proud, the blond thug, and a career that is
sometimes fun, sometimes challenging.
I consider myself
very lucky, that's why I feel it's time to put something back.
When I was over in Britain in November, I took a day out to
visit the headquarters of a charity called Hearing Dogs for Deaf
People, in Oxfordshire. They're responsible for training dogs to
wake you up, for example, when your alarm goes off or let you
know that the washing machine has reached the end of its cycle.
They can transform a person's life.
Deafness can be
so isolating. And having a trained dog would provide such
companionship, quite apart from anything else. I want to do as
much for the charity as possible. It's my way of saying
thank-you for my extraordinary life.'
