Many Lives (13 page)

Connie
was so fabulous. Ron Hutchinson's concept for
Connie
had been based around the political question of whether or not it was possible for a single businesswoman to make it in Thatcher's Britain and maintain her integrity, without ‘old money' or becoming involved in corruption. It was a very pertinent question and right on the mark at the time but, set in a knitting factory in the Midlands, I was concerned it wouldn't be glamorous enough to attract a large audience. I thought we might dress it up a bit.

‘What's the American programme that's on at the moment?' I asked Alan. ‘You know the one –
Dynasty
.' We glamorized
Connie
in a way that had never been intended. I was pulling
Dynasty
, like a set, towards me.

At one point in the series Connie admits herself to hospital. I'd already had the full training. The intravenous acting I was doing for
Connie
came straight out of the Royal Free. I had hobbling-with-an-IV acting down to a tee.

At the forefront of my mind was one over-arching question: why had I lived, why had I come back?

Once again I was aware that there was so much more to everything than the three dimensions our lives appear to take place in. On a physical level I knew
Connie
was going to be amazingly difficult – I'd been so ill – but it felt like a blessing, an opportunity I'd been handed on a plate. My agent Maureen's words, ‘It's what we've been waiting for,' echoed through my mind.

On the first day of filming we shot a scene where Connie hijacks a car. She arrives at the airport from Greece and has to get into town. She gets into a car with a chauffeur. We were waiting to do the next shot. I was in the back seat, when out of the blue – ‘I've got a couple of messages for you,' the chauffeur said, looking at me in the rear view mirror.

‘Oh?' I wondered what he was talking about.

‘You've been incredibly ill and have had two operations.'

‘Sorry?' I replied, stunned. I knew that he hadn't been told anything, because nobody we were working with knew I'd been ill. He turned around to face me.

Seeing the shock on my face, he apologized. ‘I'm sorry… my wife and I run the Psychic Society of Great Britain. A couple of messages came through for you last night.'

‘Oh really?' I said.

‘One is that you are to drop all hate and all thought of retribution for what happened to you, because it won't aid you in your mending.'

‘Oh, and by the way,' the chauffeur continued, ‘you needn't worry about money because you're never going to have to want for that. The other message I've got for you is that you can mend
your scars with spring green and spring yellow. Those are the healing colours you should meditate on.'

How would he know I had scars? There was no way he could have known. Meditating on spring green and spring yellow really did work – my scar is barely visible.

I always get three estimates for any work that needs doing. Just before and during rehearsals I'd gone to see three psychics, separately. I didn't tell any of them about what had happened. I didn't mention the fact that I'd been ill. I just went and asked for a reading. Each of them said the same thing – virtually word for word. They told me that I'd been through a major event and that the focus now would be to find my own spiritual truth. They said that during the first half of my life I had lived very physically, and that the second half would be lived spiritually. There were no vitamins to take, no exercises to do. I just took it on board, said ‘thank you,' and got on with what I was doing.

I had no idea what their readings meant. At the time it didn't really make sense. I laughed cynically when, not so long after, I got offered work in Hollywood, thinking, ‘Oh yes, not much physicality there.' Of course, I didn't know that Southern California is a feast of all spirituality.

From the point I nearly died, the universe opened up for me. God's divine munificence began to become very apparent.
Connie
was the first gift. What the chauffeur told me made total sense: drop the hate, drop the story, drop the pain, drop all that stuff and let the gold shine through.

Connie
was filmed in Nottingham during the miners' strike. It was a very harsh time. I always seem to find myself in the right place – witnessing events from the front seat. I felt it on the streets
of Nottingham. The pawn shops were overflowing: diamond rings, tea sets, right down to sheets and pillow cases people were forced to pawn. Those were hard, hard times.

Then, suddenly, I was there on the other side. I was present at a lunch for one of Thatcher's speech writers. Reagan's speech writer was there, too, along with other people from the world of politics.

Our host was raising a large slice of rare roast beef, impaled on a fork.

‘Are those miners being allowed to stop paying their mortgages while they're on strike?' he asked.

‘Yes, I think so,' somebody answered.

‘Right,' he said, blood and gravy spilling over his lips. ‘We've got them; we'll force them to pay.'

I worked with some fabulous people on
Connie
, including the wonderful Pam Ferris. She's a real roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-on-with-the-job type of person – a great joy to work with. Pam played Connie's step-sister Nester. I remember being in the make-up room watching her on the monitor: ‘Whoa, she's like a tank, she is so strong.' I was still recovering and nowhere near back up to weight. I suddenly saw Pam as a rhinoceros. If she was a rhinoceros, I wondered what I should be. I wondered what animal could beat a rhinoceros. It dawned on me: I'd be a fox.

I thought of Renaud the Fox standing up on his hind legs, laughing and taunting that rhinoceros so badly that it charges full force and then, at the very last moment, stepping out of the way and letting the rhinoceros impale its horn and get stuck. That's how you beat a rhinoceros. I'd worked out how Connie was going to beat Nester. I was so thin and tiny and Pam was
big and angry and strong. I kept that image of the rhinoceros and the fox in my mind, because Nester was one of Connie's primary adversaries.

When I was working on
The Colbys
I was very conscious that Sable was a panther. It's hard to run faster than a panther, and they know how to laze extremely gracefully, with claws in or out. Sable was a panther. Connie was a fox. I use animal imagery a lot.

Peter Straker was one of my other co-stars on
Connie
. I called him ‘the Minister of Entertainments'. I'd known Peter since the days of
Hair
, back in the Sixties. He's an enchanting, lovely man and a dear friend. It was through Peter that I met one of the
most entrancing people who ever was – Freddie Mercury. When we met, Freddie and I had an immediate bond. He came to see me a few years after
Connie
had finished, when I was in
The Rover
in 1988. Afterwards, Freddie took me to Steph's Restaurant on Dean Street for supper. I think we both recognized in each other that the private person and public person are very different. I treasure having known Freddie, even though it was for a sadly short time.

Peter Straker and me

T
he girls and I had gone to stay in Somerset. It was summer, 1985.
Connie
was in the can.

I was mended. We'd gone down to the sea the same day we'd arrived at my parents' house. I was standing on the deck in front of the beach hut. Suddenly, a vision – I could see red-tiled roofs and a palm tree. And the thought – ‘God's going to send me to California, how extraordinary.' Just like that: the vision and the thought, together. I didn't connect it to anything. It didn't relate to anything I was aware of. I didn't think about it beyond its own simple and self-contained scene.

My next door neighbour in London was looking after the house while we were away, watering the plants and feeding the fish. She'd locked herself out. The fish were getting hungry and the plants were thirsty. The phone rang. I thought it was her again. It was Maureen.

‘Something's come up – you may be interested. Can you be back in London the day after tomorrow?' she asked.

The producers of
Dynasty
were auditioning for a role in another series they were producing. Funny – I'd used the programme as inspiration to inject a bit of glamour into
Connie
. I really wasn't that keen; I thought they were probably after some
American star. Still, it was an opportunity to get into our house, save the fish from starving and re-hydrate the plants.

‘OK, I'll come,' I told Maureen. ‘Just for the afternoon – I am on holiday, you know.' Maureen couriered the audition piece to me and I took it to the beach. Before I'd had the chance to have a proper look, the wind grabbed it. It landed in the sea. I laughed. I wasn't particularly bothered, but I went up to London. When I arrived at the studio where they were taping the auditions, I noticed a sharp tang of adrenaline and perspiration hanging in the air. People had been nervous. This was a big deal; people wanted this desperately. I picked up a script someone had left behind. ‘I'm going for this,' I thought. A couple of days later, back in Somerset, the phone rang. It was Maureen. The producers wanted to see me in Los Angeles. I was going to Hollywood.

Getting the part of Sable Colby depended on an interview with Aaron Spelling, the executive producer of
Dynasty
. He'd produced all the most popular TV shows since the 1970s, and
Dynasty
was no exception. Since it had first aired in 1981 it had been a huge hit. Audiences dressed up and had
Dynasty
-watching parties.

I was shown into his office. It was very large and there was an ocean of thick shag carpet I had to wade through – very difficult to accomplish elegantly – before reaching an enormous desk behind which was a small, slim, suntanned Texan with white hair and a sweet smile.

‘You're younger than I thought you'd be,' he said.

‘But much more experienced,' I countered. I wanted this. You can't pay school fees for two daughters on the wages from the National Theatre.

The conversation went back and forth for a few more rounds, Aaron's voice a soft Texan twang, and then he lifted a large white telephone and said, ‘I'm sending her to wardrobe.' It was straight out of the movies. Within minutes I was being measured by the great designer Nolan Miller and Sable was being brought to life.

I was back in Hollywood after a 15-year gap.

While we were both working on the Hammer film
Dracula AD 1972
, I became friends with Marsha Hunt. It was Marsha's afro on the poster for the musical
Hair
.

The year after we did the film together we went to the States, taking Karis, the daughter she'd had with Mick Jagger, to visit all her family. I was the ‘honky rep', Marsha said, to prove to her middle-class family that not all white people were dishonest and lazy. We started on the West Coast and then went to the East Coast. I then went on to New York and stayed in the penthouse of the Sherry Netherland Hotel at the invitation of the owner, who'd had to leave town but said I could stay ‘until Tuesday week, when Jacqueline Kennedy will be staying. Please don't eat the ice cream in the freezer, it's her favourite.'

While I was there I bumped into one of producers who had worked on
The Nightcomers.
He'd just sold the film to the legendary producer Joseph E. Levine, and invited me to meet him. When we met, Joseph E. suggested I do some publicity for the film, since I was in the States. He said he could get me on
The Johnny Carson Show
the following day. The idea terrified me. I was taken by surprise – suddenly caught on the back foot. I didn't think I had the right clothes with me to do publicity, and my hair would need styling. I felt flustered and totally unprepared.

‘How about
Playboy
?' he asked. ‘If you agree to
Playboy
I can absolutely guarantee you an Oscar nomination.'

‘I couldn't do that!' I exclaimed.

‘Why not? You were naked in the film!'

‘That was different. I was in character then.'

‘I don't understand why you won't co-operate?'

‘I just can't agree to any of this,' I said.

The irritation was rising in his voice. ‘This is how it works here and, believe me, if you leave this room with that attitude, you are dead in this business!'

I got up and started to leave.

‘Ever seen a skeleton dance?' I said as I walked through the door.

Big mistake – he was true to his word. I was blacklisted
in Hollywood. A few months later Sam Pekinpah told me he'd wanted to test me for
Straw Dogs
but the studio wouldn't let him. I was young, naïve, fearful and feeling insecure, but I'd come over as arrogant and cocky. I could have told him I needed an outfit and a hairdresser. He would have been only too delighted to have sorted out those details for me. I didn't know how to ask for things like that back then. I didn't know how it all worked.

I also didn't have the confidence to be able to appear as ‘me', rather than as a character. I used to find publicity impossibly embarrassing. I didn't realize the value of it; that it had to be done. I was quite shy. I found it very hard to face the public as Stephanie Beacham. I didn't understand the system. I believed in ‘Art'. I distrusted anyone who wore a suit and I didn't realize that producers are the most important people in any business – without them there wouldn't be any work.

It was fear that stopped me. I was frightened. I was uncooperative out of fear. When I was younger, because of my deafness, I'd always taken the arrogant road to cover up the fact that I couldn't hear very well. I'd pretend I was bored – it was a pose, a front. I used it now and it was my undoing. It's much better just to be truthful.

The crazy thing is I actually did pose for
Playboy
the following year. I did it out of wickedness or stupidity, or both. It cost me $1,000,000. I was in Jamaica on holiday and
Playboy
phoned up – don't know how they found me. I simply said, ‘I will if you can get Litchfield or Snowdon here by tomorrow,' and put the phone down. And they did. Patrick fell off the plane the next morning. But they kept the pictures back and didn't use them. Then, just when I'd made a splash in
The Colbys,
and was
being portrayed as this elegant creature, to the embarrassment of my children the pictures hit the stands. They lost me the $1,000,000 cosmetics contract I'd had lined up. It did give me the opportunity to tell my girls that they could do whatever they wanted in their lives, but that there were always repercussions. Expensive lesson.

In the early 1980s I'd gone to stay with Marsha in California. I was broke at the time. It was while I was struggling as a single mum. I felt a pull from the place. I remember thinking, ‘This is what I want. I'm going to come and live here.'

I returned to England with two fabulous pink party dresses with layers of pink net petticoats; one for Phoebe and one for Chloe. They were an enormous hit. Since then we've always said that living in California is ‘living in the pink'. It's bubble gum. It's candy floss. Now I live in a pink cottage in Malibu.

I brought the dresses home as symbols of what I was going to give them someday, somehow. I'd no idea how, though. And then I dropped it. It was like putting a message in a box, or a wish or a prayer, and then burying it.

In the television series
The Colbys
my character was married to Charlton Heston's, had Barbara Stanwyck for a sister-in-law and a sister played by Katharine Ross.

First day on the set I wasn't nervous until I thought, ‘That's Barbara Stanwyck and
this
is Hollywood.' Later that day I had a scene with Linda Evans. I'm completely deaf in my right ear. The shot had been blocked with Linda standing on my right. I
couldn't hear my cue. I swapped sides. Linda was very gracious about it. I had to take a glass of champagne from a tray a waiter was carrying with my left hand. I was really nervous. My hand was trembling so I thought it seemed wiser to take the glass with my right. I had to re-orchestrate the whole scene. I thought, ‘Don't start justifying this, Stephanie, just do what you have to do to survive, and be your best.'

California came as an amazing gift. England felt arid. It was monochrome. It had become devoid of all colour. It was time to move. I knew how the pioneers must have felt.

Phoebe and Chloe came over and spent the rest of the summer holidays with me. They were already in a sweet little boarding school near my parents. It was like St Trinian's with horses. They loved it. They'd started going there when I was doing
Connie
. We'd tried nannies but it hadn't worked. I'd sold the big house in West Hampstead and down-sized to more practical accommodation. I had no idea what was around the corner. No idea that I was putting everything in place so California could happen. When it came to meet me, there was nothing in my way.

I'd been blacklisted from making movies and now the people in power were different and I'd come back via television. I knew how to do publicity now. I'd learned, and anything I didn't know I was going to ask. I have no problem with asking now. I am perfectly happy to say, ‘I don't understand, will you tell me?' and that's a very important thing for all of us to be able to do. It's fine not to know; it's not fine not to ask, and it's not fine not to
remember once you've been told. We're too proud to ask, so we often don't.

In California my whole world turned Technicolor. I'd always end up going to the beach. I couldn't actually believe that I could live under blue sunny skies by the sea and go to work and earn a fortune. It was amazing. All the time I was feeling ‘my cup runneth over' – for the children, too. I was walking up hills, seeing the most beautiful views. The atmosphere was so relaxed, so casual. One day I'd just come back from the studio, make-up on, hair perfect. I was in the supermarket. The girl on the till gave me a pitying look.

‘Oh dear, been in town?' she asked. It wasn't – ‘Oh, you look nice.' No, it was: ‘Been in town? – Poor you.' That's Malibu.

People used to say, ‘How can you live in America?' and I'd say, ‘Well, I'm only ten years ahead of what's happening in England.' It caught up eventually. California living was new and thrilling. Now, in the UK, gyms abound. People know about healthy living and right eating, and there's a big network of alternative healing available. Forgive me for being so thrilled with being in America 25 years ago, but England was a lot different then from how it is now. We'd had the miners' strike and there was a woman in Number 10 who seemed to me to be a man in drag, God bless her.

Los Angeles was fabulous. I was amused: I'm supposed to be leading the second half of my life totally spiritually and here I am on a more commercial path than I ever thought I'd be. Sorry, God, I don't think I'm quite doing what was intended.

I was settling in but the kids weren't with me. I was really missing them but I felt the boarding school routine would give
them stability. And then I realized I was missing something else. When you're at the centre of it all, suddenly on the front cover of
TV Guide
, and getting invitations from everybody, it's all pretty heady stuff. But these are fair-weather friends; they're not long term – treating you as if they've known you for a long time but they've only known you for a week and they don't know you anyway, they only know Sable Colby. It was hard to be
really
seen. It was hard to have a centre.

My rather loose way of prayer suddenly didn't have foundation enough. I needed to find a church and start going to it. I was already rather Buddhist in leaning, so I joined a Nichiren Daishonin temple and got my Gohonzon. Barbara Ronci, my hairdresser, had introduced me to this. I'd told her that I felt I was being pushed into a gilded cage and she'd suggested I go and chant with her. I was getting in and out of limos, being pampered and treated in the most extraordinary way, but I needed to keep my feet on the ground and keep in contact with the higher power. I really needed that. It's still very important to me.