Stephanie Beacham - The glamorous actress tells why this wartime drama
helped her through a traumatic year.
 

 Anyone hearing that Stephanie Beacham had returned to England last summer might have imagined the Hollywood star doing the season - Wimbledon, Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot, Glyndebourne and so on - and perhaps fitting in a little work. But the reason Stephanie spent her first summer here in more than ten years, since her move to California and success in Dynasty and The Colbys, couldn’t have been more different.
 She came to Britain not because of the social calendar, nor to enjoy the fruits of her years of hard work. She came on account of her father’s failing health and her overwhelming desire to spend time with her parents.
 “I’ve always been very close to my parents,” Stephanie says. “I don’t do anything without discussing it with my mother first. We’re always on the phone. But I decided I wanted to communicate in the same time zone. It was also the realisation that they aren’t going to be around forever.
 “Daddy was starting to get a little wobbly in the early spring. He’s 88 and it was obvious that my mother, who’s 82, couldn’t cope any more. It was time for him to go into a home where he could be cared for properly. That had to be sorted out and I wanted to spend some time with him.
 “I’m sure people are convinced I had a grand old time, swanning around from one engagement to another, but in fact it was a nightmare summer for me. For the first time I’m discovering what middle age is about,” says Stephanie, 49. “My parents were always the rock in my life and I was the rock and roller. Now I’m having to be their rock as well as my children’s. The responsibility is energising, but it’s also quite overwhelming. It leaves very little time for yourself.”
 With family matters heavy on her mind and also saddened by the death of her dog Emily, a cavalier King Charles spaniel and her constant companion at home in Malibu, Stephanie then arrived at her daughter’s in Bristol to find bailiffs claiming Phoebe, a student at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, hadn’t paid her council tax.
 Having sold her London home a few years ago, Stephanie had always intended Phoebe’s home to be a sort of family meeting place. “But it had turned into a sort of student doss house,” Stephanie says with a laugh. “When I arrived I had to put 12 loads through the washing machine and get an industrial carpet cleaner in!”
 If there was one thing that saved Stephanie’s summer, it was work. Before leaving Los Angeles, she called her British agent and asked if there was anything. By chance, Alan Dosser, who’d directed Stephanie in Connie in the mid-Eighties, was making a new series and there would almost certainly be a part for her.
 It came in the form of a leading role in No Bananas, a major ten-part drama series set in Britain during the Second World War, due to be screened on BBC1 in May. Stephanie plays rich socialite Dorothea Grant, who is unable to come to terms with the changes imposed by war.
 “Having the series was an absolute godsend,” Stephanie says. “It helped keep me sane and gave me something to think about other than my problems. I’m always astonished by how life responds if you really need something. The key is knowing what you’re looking for - the rest is strategy.”
 She feels a deep sense of gratitude to the five people who designed her clothes and did her make-up. “They were my support team throughout the summer. I’m not sure I’d have made it without them. They didn’t just make me look good in front of the camera, they made me feel good too. I would arrive first thing in the morning, feeling so down, and they would listen to me, pick me up and steer me through.”
 At the same time Stephanie was making No Bananas, she was also appearing on stage in Strindberg’s The Father, which was due to go to the West End after a short tour but never made it. “I was disappointed at the time,” Stephanie admits, “but in retrospect it was just as well, because I was probably pushing myself too hard.
 “When Emily died I just cried and cried. I just couldn’t stop. Daddy was going from bad to worse, Mummy was going from poorly to bad, and I hadn’t really accepted that any of it was happening. I was organising and taking care of them, but I wasn’t facing up to things emotionally.”
 Stephanie has mixed feelings about having to return to Los Angeles. “It’s so empty not having Emily around,” she says. “I’m used to hearing the pitter-patter of her little paws across the wooden floors. When Phoebe and my younger daughter Chloe came out for Christmas, we took her favourite walk to the top of the hill near the house and scattered her ashes.”
 Nevertheless she is glad to be home: “If only because I’m getting back to my own life. For the whole summer I was there for everyone else. Life was a call sheet, doing what other people wanted. There’s been no room for me.
 “I’m not going to do any work for a while, I’m going to go missing. It’s important to recognise when you are burnt out - and I’m at that point. I need to relax and have a laugh.”
 She also plans to make some changes in her life. She wants to sell her Malibu home and just keep her apartment in Hollywood. She intends to buy a house in the South of France which will become her base, plus a London pied-à-terre.
 “I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do with large houses. I’ve had swimming pools and large gardens with automatic sprinkler systems, now I want to downscale and live in cupboards so I don’t need to earn so much money. That way I can choose the projects I want. It means my legacy will be a small trail of quality projects, too.
 “I have to be realistic and recognise that I’ve had a fantastic time in Hollywood, with six series - Dynasty, The Colbys, Sister Kate, seaQuest, Beverly Hills 90210 and Legend - in ten years. It’s an amazing run, but it’s time to move on. You have to remember that unlike most people in Hollywood, who starved to get there, I just fell on my feet. One minute I was playing Connie and the next I was in Dynasty working alongside people like Charlton Heston, Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Ross. Talk about luck!”
 Looking back, she has nothing but happy memories of that time, the last chance to experience what life was like as an actress signed to a big studio.
 “They were heady days and the star treatment was wonderful,” she recalls. “There was a strict code: no jeans in public, no appearance without make-up or your hair done. The studio took care of everything: lent you the most wonderful clothes, did your hair and make-up and sent a car to pick you up whenever you went to an event.”
 “She can remember her sister Di-Di’s horror when she saw Stephanie toss a pair of $10 tights she’d worn only once into the bin. “My sister gathered them up because she couldn’t bear such waste,” Stephanie laughs. “That was my check-in with reality.”
 Following Stephanie’s divorce from John McEnery nearly 20 years ago, she has been linked with a series of glamorous and often younger men. But an older and wiser Stephanie now says she wants to keep her private life exactly that for the moment.
 “I’ve had my fingers burnt too many times in the past and probably said too much. Now I’ve made a decision not to discuss a relationship until I feel really sure about it. When I do, Hello! readers will be the first to know!
 “I don’t see myself ever marrying again. But if I do, all my friends will know that it’s for all the right reasons. It’ll be because we’re wonderfully and truly in love rather than doing it on a whim or because it seems romantic. I won’t go through some empty charade.”

  Interview: Simon Kinnersley  Photos: Alan Olley

(Pictures available on Misc Pics page)