Dynasty’s Stephanie Beacham in joyously outspoken interview

Meeting Stephanie Beacham after her former co-star Joan Collins surprised onlookers along with her ageless look on the Emmys makes one surprise what they have been placing within the water on the Dynasty set within the Eighties.

Or, as one disbelieving fan put it after witnessing 90-year-old Collins’ purple carpet flip: ‘What sort of vampire weight-reduction plan is [she] on?’

One might equally ask the identical of 76-year-old Beacham, who in some way stays as ravishing as when she performed Sable Colby reverse Collins’ Alexis Carrington. So what did Stephanie make of Collins’ current look? ‘I like her. I mentioned to her as soon as: “You look fabulous, Joan” and whereas I’d have mentioned one thing like: “Thank you”, she replied: “I hope so. This make-up took an hour!”‘

In actual life, although, Stephanie is much extra circumspect in regards to the significance of youthfulness. She tells me she’s had Botox, whereas taking part in Elizabeth I on stage in 2002, ‘so the sleek bald cap matched my brow’.

It’s not an expertise she desires to repeat. ‘My eyes fell down so I used to be abruptly wanting by means of half-eyes and I want to maintain my eyes large open and wrinkle my forehead like a Shar Pei canine.’

As for making an attempt different beauty interventions resembling facelifts, she says: ‘I have a look at my fingers and except I wore gloves all the time, you’d see that there was an historical particular person whose face was making an attempt to be younger. Plus my neck is a shame! It’s acquired some form of map of the world written throughout it now.’ She provides, correctly: ‘But you realize what? That’s referred to as getting older and it is what we do if we’re very fortunate.’

Ageing has been on Stephanie’s thoughts of late. The actress, the onscreen love curiosity of everybody from Marlon Brando to Coronation Street‘s Ken Barlow (performed by William Roache), admits that when she was burgled in October 2022 — a really terrifying expertise the place a drug addict threatened her with a crowbar in her West London cottage — ‘I feared for my life. It was the very first time I felt outdated as a result of I knew there was completely nothing I might do.’

Any sufferer of crime will determine with the sentiments of vulnerability Stephanie suffered. Speaking for the primary time about that day, she says it turned her into ‘a snivelling, fearful heap’.

Little surprise. Sharing the chilling particulars of the assault, Stephanie recollects what occurred when burglar David Wilson — later described in court docket as a ‘routine profession burglar’ with long-term drug dependancy points — broke into her dwelling.

‘He held a crowbar over my head, saying: “Give me your money. Give me your jewellery. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me!” she says. ‘And then he mentioned: “I wish you weren’t here.” That was not too good as a result of once I heard that I believed: “Oh. In a minute, I’m going to die.”‘

She recounts how he ordered her into the toilet ‘and I could not run there quick sufficient,’ she says. ‘He was a bug-eyed fellow and his eyes weren’t dependable [because of the drugs].

‘A couple of minutes later he rattled the door and I believed to myself: “Come on, Stephanie. You’re being disgracefully snivelling. Now, what would Jodie Foster do?” I do not know why I considered Jodie Foster and what she does in that movie [Panic Room],’ she admits.

‘But have you learnt what I did? I picked up a sponge that was on the tip of a plastic stick and I used to be holding it like some form of weapon. I imply, what precisely was I going to do?’ she asks. ‘Wash his face?’

As Wilson stole gadgets together with her purse, cell phone and keys, she waited in there, in terror.

‘It was lucky my jewelry was stored elsewhere and I used to be very fortunate. I used to be about to do some gardening, so I did not have any rings on. I’ve had my jewelry burgled earlier than — all my grandmother’s valuable issues — and it is terrible as a result of they take your reminiscences with them.’

The police, she says, ‘have been superb. [Wilson] was on my CCTV swinging his crowbar and so they caught him. I mentioned to the CID man just a few weeks later once I was giving my assertion that I felt a bit unhealthy as a result of he solely broke open my conservatory and stole just a few bank cards and my keys — all the conventional garbage [burglars] do to make your life a distress. But he checked out me and mentioned: “No. I heard your 999 call. You thought you were going to die.” And that was true.’

For whereas she is, one quickly gathers, not one to wallow in self-pity, the consequences from that day understandably linger. In her sufferer assertion learn in court docket final yr, she admitted experiencing panic assaults and difficulties studying traces for her position in Corrie.

There was an comprehensible change, too, in how she considered the house the place she had lived fortunately for 25 years. ‘I’d all the time considered this as my little secret cottage, however you expertise one thing like this and it impacts you,’ she says.

‘There’s no level in pretending it does not. When I got here again right down to London from [filming in] Manchester per week after it had occurred, a pal of mine had acquired the place prepared. But I might see a hologram, nearly, of [Wilson] nonetheless in my bed room and I believed to myself: “How dare he!” It’s nasty even speaking about it now.’ 

Wilson pleaded responsible to aggravated housebreaking and was jailed for ten years and 5 months. ‘I do assume: poor man. He was a drug addict needing cash for medication, I suppose, and even his face was lower from falling by means of the conservatory.

‘It’s fairly appropriate that he shouldn’t get away with what he did, but in addition, to be on medication as a result of your life is so unhealthy that you might want to conceal away from it, effectively,’ she says, ‘you’ll be able to see the wretchedness.’

Immediately after the housebreaking, Stephanie’s then 21-year-old grandson, Jude, provided to come back and keep along with her. ‘I imply, you have acquired different issues to do at 21 than care about your grandmother, however he acquired on his white charger for me.

‘So, actually,’ she continues, ‘how fortunate am I? When I get up within the morning, I nonetheless really feel like a baby as a result of I realise that today, too, I’ll be taught one thing new. It’s superb my life remains to be turning corners I did not assume I’d see.’

That’s additionally true of her profession. Last month noticed the discharge of the romantic sci-fi thriller, Forever Young, through which she stars with Diana Quick, whereas audiences will see a brand new aspect to her within the extremely transferring movie Grey Matter, out subsequent week, taking part in a grandmother with Alzheimer’s.

‘I went by means of that journey with my father who had it,’ she says. ‘It was a difficult and humbling expertise to play that wandering thoughts and examine that childlike panic. It tore our household to shreds seeing him go from this excellent, light man to nothing.’

Born in Barnet, considered one of 4 kids to Joan, a housewife, and Alec, an insurance coverage govt, by 17 Stephanie had already left college to check mime in Paris. Despite being born deaf in a single ear, it proved little barrier and by her early 20s she was starring reverse Marlon Brando within the Michael Winner movie, The Nightcomers.

She started relationship her celebrated co-star, ‘and he was a wild animal,’ she recollects fondly, ‘an awesome large bear… and an excellent pal. I wasn’t in love with him, however I beloved him and he cared for me.’

When Brando’s son, Christian, was despatched to jail in 1991 for a deadly taking pictures, Stephanie phoned her former beau. ‘And I feel I used to be the one one who did name him,’ she says. ‘I informed him: “I feel like a rabbit trying to help a bear because I don’t think there’s anything I can do, but I’m here for you.” I feel he appreciated it as he phoned me day-after-day after that for ages.’

Brando even acted as Stephanie’s unofficial intimacy co-ordinator — earlier than such issues even existed — by donning wellies and an enormous set of Y-Fronts himself throughout a love scene for The Nightcomers, ‘as a result of he did not belief Michael Winner to not shoot the entire of me bare,’ she says. ‘So you see my t**s flying in all places onscreen, however nothing under the waist and that is due to him.’

Other experiences have been sadly far worse. Eight years in the past she admitted she had been raped within the early Nineteen Seventies, ‘and that was probably the most awfully silly factor I’ve ever mentioned. It’s such a private factor, your personal expertise, and I had completely no intention of speaking about it, however I fell right into a headline throughout the entire #MeToo factor.’

Of the motion itself, she says: ‘It’s essential girls not assume that it is all their fault and that males perceive they’ve the accountability to behave as human beings and do not need the proper to be predatorial.

‘On the opposite hand, there’s additionally a primary dance between women and men that should additionally not go lacking. It’s a posh image.’

Throughout her profession, Stephanie has had her personal brushes with unsavoury males. ‘There was plenty of predatory behaviour,’ she says of the Nineteen Seventies. ‘I used to be fortunate as a result of I realised that if I used to be quick on my ft and quick in my thoughts, I might keep away from the traps. I even had a £5 observe sewn inside the liner of my coat to pay for a cab if I ever acquired into an ungainly scenario.’

Her canniness, nevertheless, could not forestall her from being blacklisted from Hollywood.

When producer Joseph E. Levine promised her an Oscar nomination for her position in The Nightcomers if she stripped for Playboy, Stephanie refused and Levine promptly pronounced her ‘lifeless on this enterprise’. It was 15 years earlier than she labored in Hollywood once more.

When she did return, with Dynasty, it was with a bang. Though she had been working continuous in theatre, it was nonetheless onerous elevating her daughters — Phoebe, now 49, and Chloe, 47 — as a single mom after her divorce from actor John McEnery in 1979.

Did she and Joan Collins have some enjoyable nights out collectively on the top of their fame? ‘We by no means went in town collectively. She by no means understood — after which she acquired it — that I used to be by no means going to be competitors to her socially.

‘She favored the very best desk at [famous LA restaurant] Chasen’s and I did not want that. Just depart me to my surfer dudes and put me on the seashore with these rolling waves and I’m in heaven.’

The surfer dudes are actually a factor of the previous. After relationships with males together with Eric Clapton and Imran Khan, in addition to a well-publicised fondness for youthful males (‘I took them in as boys of 27 and despatched them off as males of 32,’ she as soon as joked), she has been fortunately ensconced with physician Bernie Greenwood, 84, for 16 years.

He proposed in 2013, ‘however we will by no means agree on the identical form of marriage ceremony! He would similar to to be married, I feel, and I really feel: if it ain’t broke, why repair it? I feel he is given up now.’

Looking again on her life, Stephanie is grateful for the foundations her mother and father laid down and magnanimous in regards to the occasions issues have not gone to plan.

‘I had the benefit of loving mother and father, a superb schooling and a stunning dwelling, so I simply really feel so blessed,’ she says, including: ‘But then anyone who has jumped at life and swallowed it entire as I’ve has made some corking errors. That’s simply the best way it goes.’

One shocking miscalculation was collaborating in Strictly Come Dancing in 2007. The invariably upbeat Stephanie is unusually damaging about her expertise: ‘Hated each minute of it, darling.’

Why? ‘A pal of mine had simply dedicated suicide and I mentioned: “I really can’t do this now” and so they mentioned, “You must do it, it’ll be fun.”‘

‘But you’ll be able to’t do Strictly for enjoyable. You actually need to have the intention to win or to drop some weight or to do all these different issues, so I loathed it. It was the fallacious time and it simply wasn’t a match for me.’

It was lately reported that actress Amanda Abbington had been identified with PTSD after her Strictly look and had requested BBC bosses handy over footage of her rehearsals with associate, Giovanni Pernice. (The BBC insists Strictly ‘has all the time taken responsibility of care extremely severely’).

‘The factor is, most of us do not perceive fairly how onerous dancers work,’ says Stephanie, ‘and also you abruptly should get a dancer’s ethic… it’s fairly alarming and it’s enormously horrifying and I’d say, when you’re not used to being frightened, do not do one thing like Strictly.’

And in that delightfully forthright method of hers, she provides: ‘After all, it is only a wretched present!’

• Grey Matter is out in chosen cinemas from Monday; go to w4films.co.uk to see listings. Forever Young is accessible to stream now on digital platforms.