I could never visit my father without weeping

As she plays a grandmother with Alzheimer’s in a poignant new film, Stephanie Beacham on losing her parent to the same cruel disease, refusing to retire and what she REALLY thinks of her Dynasty co-star Joan Collins

- Alison James

IT'S 1985 and a seismic year for television... EastEnders makes its debut, Live Aid takes place, Roger Moore makes his final appearance as James Bond in View To A Kill and actress Stephanie Beacham makes her first appearance in Dynasty as Alexis Colby's sexy younger first-cousin Sable.

Alexis, of course, was played by the formidable Joan Collins. However, Stephanie more than held her own in the glamour and verbal stakes as she and Joan battled it out on screen in a warring family.

Speaking to Stephanie, now 78, it seems incredible that this was all 40 years ago.

She just looks so darned good and just as glam as she did four decades ago.

I tell her so, too. She brushes off the compliment with genuine modesty.

"Ah, I'm not like Joan," she says. "Joan was always a child of showbiz and brought up in that era of the studio system, where everything was controlled by the studios.

"They created stars. She personifies glamour and is very much the Grand Dame." At this point, Stephanie breaks into a wide smile.

"She's totally fabulous, of course. Last time I saw her I commented on how wonderful she looked and she replied that she hoped she did as her make-up had taken over an hour to do. She didn't pretend it was easy and it's not.

"We are friends, but we're very different and so are our respective lives. She wouldn't like mine and I wouldn't like hers. But Joan is always her authentic self. I think that's so important. Whoever you are, just be your real self and live an authentic life.

"Is Joan a role model for us older women? If you want 100% high octane glamour, then yes, definitely she is." On screen as Sable and Alexis, Stephanie and Joan, now 91, were always supremely bitchy towards each other. So I have to ask the question: Did this ever spill over into real life? Stephanie laughs. "We weren't like Sable and Alexis, if that's what you mean.