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Intervjusidan
NBC Live Studio Chat @ Talkcity 11/12/98: Sunset Beach's Sam Behrens (Gregory) and Kathleen Noone (Bette)
AskNBC: cielosolo says: Kathleen: I noticed they have drastically cut the amount of scenes with "Aunt Bette" and "Olivia" interacting Would you like to see the writers bring back some of that interaction? I know a lot of us out here do.. We miss the Comedy that You and Lesley-Anne Down generated
Kathleen Noone: Thank you so much for saying that, as sammy just said "here..here". Write the producers and let them know. Lesley and I agree !
Sam Behrens: We all agree!
AskNBC: cielosolo says: Who would you most like to work with in the future that you don't get to work with that often now?
Kathleen Noone: Lesley-Anne Down, Sarah Buxton, Sam the Man, Eddie Cibrian...
Sam Behrens: get it, get it, get it?
SOD Chat 8/20: Sunset Beach's Randy Spelling (Sean)
Lu82098: Hey Randy! You're a great actor and the show is kicking but. What's it like working with the fabulous Lesley-Anne Down?
RANDY: Thank you. She's incredible to work with, definitely one of my favorite people to work with. It's funny, the first day I was on the show, she came up to me and I was a little intimidated... cause she's Lesley Anne Down! And she told me three dirty jokes! In her English accent! She's so funny! And that broke the ice right there. She's really one of the most incredible women I've ever met.
SOD Chat Sunset Beach's Sam Behrens (Gregory) July 15, 1998
SB_Heat_98 asks: I heard that you play a lot of pranks on your castmates. Which one to this date was your favorite?
SAM: I can't say. 'Cause I did one on Lesley Anne, and she loved it, but I can't say... I'm surprised that I didn't get fired for it! She's got a great sense of humor.
Beachpie asks: Who is at the brunt of most of your pranks?
SAM: It's not so much pranks that I pull as just have a lot of fun on the set. Eddie Cibrian and I go at it a lot.. Lesley-Anne and I have a lot of fun. We'll pull something different that's not the lines... put some prop somewhere it's not to be. Eddie has a great sense of humor too, he's fun to play with.
STAR Chat October 18, 1997 Kathleen Noone (Bette)
Question: When you're on the set are there any times you can't stop laughing?
Kathleen: Yes with Lesley-Anne Down. Just a few days ago, we got the giggles so bad, we could't stop.
Entertainment Asylum and Soaps Asylum Wednesday, October 14th at 7:00pm ET/ 4:00pm PT.
Lisa G. Coles (Francesca)
Question: It must be incredible working with an actress like Lesley Anne Down. What is that experience like?
Lisa: She has so much experience, and she has such a great warmth and sense of humor. I learn so much from working with her. She's been a real source of education and support.
From soaps to Shakespeare and everything in between, British beauty Lesley-Anne Down has seen it all, done it all and, she freely admits, married some of it. Her days are spent sobbing on Sunset, but her real-life husband, Don Fauntleroy, and her family, including infant son George, are her first priorities. Jonathan Reiner
I assume George is a handful?
It's a constant reorganization thing. He's going to start crawling soon, so we're setting everything up.
Like baby-proofing?
Living off the ceiling, I call it. Let's just glue everything to the ceiling that would be safe and look absolutely hysterical!
It would certainly look interesting.
Well, I actually did that once! I stayed in a hotel in Amsterdam when I was doing a film years ago with Burt Reynolds called Rough Cut. And the hotel said a band called Deep Purple stayed in the suite before me, and they locked all the doors. Four days later when they came out of the suite, they had glued everything to the ceiling. It was mad.
Now, you do the online thing?
That's so interesting. I'm computer-illiterate and totally unproud of it.
What about Don is he computer-illiterate, too?
No, I don't think so. He sits there and does things, and the children do also, but I don't go anywhere near it.
Why don't you have an interest in it?
Because it's a sitting occupation, and I like to move around. When I'm actually sitting, which is very rare, I like to read even though I get very little time to do that. Maybe if I had a laptop, it would be more to my liking. I could use it in the car, but I don't have the time for it, I suppose. I watch Don on his computer doing his things, and then the computer would crash, or whatever they do.
Didn't you have any interest about going online when Sunset started? There was that big online romance between Meg and Ben, who met over the Internet.
No, I had no interest even then, I'm afraid. There is a gentleman who lives in England who has absolutely pursued me in such a darling way for years and years about a fan club, but I'm just not into all of that. Something has always come up, and I haven't called him back or something like that. Anyway, the years had gone by and a little while ago we got online, and suddenly my son showed me this web site, as you call it. And there I am. I have to say that it's tedious, because it goes on and on forever. Well, I love reading about myself, but it's like, "Darling, can you turn off the computer? Dinner is ready."
Are your fans surprised at how down-to-earth you are?
I can't honestly answer that question. You'd have to ask them, because I don't know what people expect to begin with. I'm told that I'm down-to-earth and not affected. But on the other hand, I don't know what they mean by affected. Do they mean these horrid people who talk about nothing but themselves? I don't know. That's what giving an interview is about, isn't it?
In a sense.
Which is why I don't enjoy doing them. I don't dislike them, either it's a part of my job, but I don't really enjoy it. I'd much rather talk about other things. OK. Well, why did you decide to settle in Hollywood, rather than stay in England? The usual a man. I was married to another man in England, who was Argentinean, and I met (film director) Billy Friedkin in England. And wham, bam, all kinds of things happened in a very brief two-month period, which culminated in me being pregnant and an engagement ring which was a little prickly because I was already married to the Argentinean. But, life being what life is, we sent lawyers off to Cairo who annulled the wedding, and I sort of waddled down Jerry Weintraub's grove, I suppose you'd call it, and the minister pronounced Billy and I man and wife. And that's how I ended up here.
Did you meet Don in America?
Yes, I was married to Billy and I was doing North and South back in 1984-'85 when I met Don. Again, within a couple of months the same routine, I'm really a repetitive person wham, bam etc. I'm flippant about it and I don't mean to be, because in this instance we both had children. Don had two little girls who were 3 and 5 at the time, and I had a little boy (Jack) who was 2. Don and I were married in 1986.
Let's talk a little about Sunset. When the show debuted, did you ever dream it would take such a wacky turn, and that Olivia would become this melodramatic, almost larger-than-life heroine?
I don't know what Olivia is. It's really hard for me to stand outside and look in. Is that how she's perceived, as melodramatic and larger than life?
Honestly?
Yes.
Is there no realism about her at all?
There probably was, at the very beginning, but there really isn't anymore. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. No, I understand. I'm just very interested in how it is. That's also a part of her appeal.
What about the other characters? Is there realism there, or are they all larger than life as well?
I think it depends on the characters.
I see. So it's what the characters have to do rather than how the actors are portraying what they have to do that you're talking about, to a degree. Obviously Annie is an over-the-top, larger-than-life character.
Olivia and Annie were hilarious during the earthquake.
OK, I see where you're coming from, as far as Olivia is concerned. Now, let's get back to the question: Am I aware that she's melodramatic? No.
Am I aware that the situations she's in are melodramatic? Absolutely. I don't know whether I succeed, but what I try to do is to take the situations that they give, which are, of course, unreal to an enormous degree, and bring some kind of realism to them. I have always tried to go for the truth. I have never in my career, in everything I've ever done, gone for the campery of it, the ultimate silliness of "let's have enormous fun with this." I honestly don't think that's what will make people want to watch you on a daily basis, because soap-opera plots become very frivolous to say the least.
In your opinion, how are the British soaps different from American soaps?
That's a very difficult question for me to answer, because I haven't watched British television for 20 years. I'm American as far as my viewing is concerned. I can tell you what Masterpiece Theatre is like, but so can any other American out there.
That's interesting. Were you familiar with American soaps before you took this role?
Yes, of course.
Did you know the workload that you were in for?
Absolutely not. I thought the reverse would be true. I thought the workload would be different. As I've said many times, especially to the people who scoff that you're doing a soap opera, I take my hat off and applaud every actor who has ever done them, because they're immensely hard work. You don't realize how mentally demanding they are. Not just on a level of learning 30 pages a day, but as a character going through these outrageous plots that they put you in the middle of. Those things do affect you. You are living two lives; you're living your life and the character's life. Some weeks the character's life takes up more hours of your waking moments than your real life does.
Does that make it hard to leave Olivia at the studio?
No, I certainly don't bring her home. I've never been one of those people who, because I'm playing an ax murderer, I'll turn into an ax murderer. But the constant dialogue, constant acting and constant emotion, which is very deep and exhausting at times, can eat you up.
I'm sure! You've been front-and-center since the beginning. I have to say that the very first episode when Olivia killed the fly was classic.
It truly was a rather brilliant idea. But Olivia doesn't behave that way anymore. If you go back and look at those first episodes the characters were very different than how they are today. I don't honestly think that anybody knew... it's like giving birth. It's a slow process, and even though it was discussed, I don't think people knew what these characters were. Actually the scene, which was well written, wasn't very much like a soap opera. It was like something in a film it didn't have any relation to anything before or after. It was just there. There was nothing going on that was about any other characters. If I have a gripe about soap operas, it is that they do repeat information too much. I think that they're constantly giving the same information to their audience that they gave yesterday or last week. It's because they think new viewers have to know. But that's a part of Sunset's appeal the fact that everything is beaten into your head over and over in case you're not 100 percent sure what's going on! I got a fan letter from a very sweet girl in England and I memorized it immediately because it was such a sweet letter. She wrote how much she loved Sunset Beach and that I was her favorite. She said, "I think it's marvelous even though you all talk to yourselves all the time."
The funniest thing is that they spend more time talking to themselves than to each other.
I know! It's like they're all mad.
Are you pursuing other projects outside of Sunset?
My family. I pursue nothing else. I'm truly ready for the gold watch. I'm 44 and I started work when I was 10 that's 34 years I've been working.
What would you consider the top three highlights in your career?
Upstairs, Downstairs getting that series changed my life completely. And not doing The Thornbirds. I was pregnant with Jack so I couldn't do it. That changed my life completely because had I done The Thornbirds, I wouldn't have done North and South, therefore I wouldn't have met Don and I wouldn't have had my little Georgie. No. 3? I think probably doing Sunset Beach, because it has allowed me to be an 80 percent full-time mother and still get that injection of work and be paid for doing something. I know you wanted me to say "Oh, the thing that changed my life was working with Harrison Ford (in the 1979 film Hanover Street)."
Or you could have mentioned Hunchback.
Yes, I could have said The Hunchback. It was great! I did two jobs back to back with Anthony Hopkins, which were The Hunchback and Arch of Triumph. One of them was a Hallmark Hall of Fame, but I can never remember which one, and the other one was a television movie. It was a really great experience. He's such a cool guy and my type of actor.
You've had some career!
Yes I have. Sometimes Don and I talk about our past and what we did. and I'm like, "Oh, my, I did that! I met him!" I mean, I actually danced with Fred Astaire. Sometimes I gasp at some of the people I've met or some of the moments that I've had, because sometimes I can hardly believe that they were me.
You should write a book when the time comes.
Maybe I will! I always thought I would when my children were grown up, but now I have another child.
You can't keep having children just to put off writing it!
It sounds good to me. I like that.
Beauty Bar Advice From Daytime Stars And Experts
Changing diapers and learning lines are just a few of the things Lesley-Anne Down (Olivia, SUNSET BEACH) accomplishes in one day. So when does Down find time to keep her face so beautiful? "I wait until everybody has gone to bed," she laughs. Personal care is a must for this leading lady. "I love my masks," smiles Down. "There are two masks that I alternate. The Princess Borghese sea mud mask tightens up my skin, cleans it and draws out all those nasty things you get when you wear two tons of makeup everyday. You know when it's time for this mask to come off; it goes on black and becomes lighter. It tightens and cracks; it feels like the dead sea. I also use Rene Guinot cell revitalizing mask. I keep this mask on for as long as my nap lasts. Both masks wash off. I think those masks that you pull off are horrid!" Down says that she doesn't rely on conventional beauty rituals. "I don't use soap," she states. "I've never used a bar of soap in my life! Not even on my body." So then... what does she use? "I use salt," smiles Down. "I put it on my face cloth in the shower and just rub it on my face and body. It makes my skin so smooth. I also bathe with it." Brace yourself for another shocker: "I hate makeup so much. I wear nothing, zip, nada. However, the most essential piece of makeup a person could have is a lipstick. You can also put a dab on your eyelids. It makes you look so healthy!" At the set, Down puts on her own makeup. " use M.A.C's Base C5. Foe eye shadow, I use Estee Lauder's jewel compact, brown and gold. It varies with lipstick [I'm wearing]; I like the big, thick pencils by Prestige because they don't smudge off. I use Clarins duo shading kit for colour and contour. My mascara is Almay's hypoallergenic." But, insists Down, "Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is in the eye of the man who lights the film. That's why I married a lighting/cameraman."
Face-off
Down gives the low-down on how to use a mask. "My biggest tip is, never leave the house with a mask on because you will be laughed at!"
1) Make sure you have time to enjoy it.
2) Cleanse your face with a warm face cloth.
3) Place the mask on in an upward motion. Don't put it near your eyes or under eye area because it's too sensitive.
4) Put some water on cotton balls and pop them on your eyes. Anything else? "If it's a question between happiness and a mask, then strive for the happiness. Or, put on a mask, lay there and think about how you're going to get happy!"
~Soap Opera Digest
When I met my husband back in 1985, he had a beautiful Harley motorcycle. We were riding it down Hollywood Boulevard, and everybody was staring. I remember thinking, "Gosh, I must look brilliant on this glorious bike!" Then I looked down at my T-shirt, one of those little cropped numbers, and I realised it was blowing up and I wasn't wearing a bra! I had been flashing the whole world!
She's neither a bad mother nor a head case, Lesley-Anne Down says of Olivia Richards the misunderstood woman she plays on Sunset Beach
"Olivia really is a terrific mother," insists Lesley-Anne Down, who's Sunset Beach character was recently names one of Soap's Worst Mother's by this magazine. Clearly, this charming British actress doesn't agree. "Olivia simply had children when she was too young," Down contends. "A lot of people have children too young."
Olivia may now get to prove what a good mother she can be. It appears that she's pregnant - and her daughter's boyfriend may be the father.
Born-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks Olivia did what she had to do to snag rich Gregory Richards back when she was an underpaid nurse. So when Del Douglas gave her $10,000 to steal Elain Stevens' baby, she complied. Olivia promptly spent the money to make herself over - "to turn myself into the kind of woman you wanted to marry," Down explains.
But the model wife slipped recently in a big way when she bedded Cole St. John, Elaine's long-lost son - and unbeknownst to her at the time, her daughter Caitlin's beau.
"By sleeping with Cole, she's absolutely done the worst possible thing a mother could do," Down admits. "When you do something that's just so terrible and such a bad mistake, you want to crawl under a rock and die. But you can't; life must go on. So you put on a brave smile."
But Down doesn't think that she's torn between she libido and her daughter. "She's not attracted to Cole anymore," the actress insists. "I'm not sure she ever was really attracted to him. He was bringing up all her old memories of Cole's father, A.J."
And now? "I don't think she's still attracted to to him - that would be sick. There are some sick females on Sunset Beach, but Olivia isn't one of them."
While the show established early on that olivia was close to her son Sean, it's only recently that she's bonded with Caitlin.
"It's hard for mothers and daughters," reflects Down, who has two stepdaughters with whome she's very close. "Sometimes their life with their biological mother isn't as great as it is with me because I'm not truly their mom; I'm their freind.
For mom's, a teenage daughter is just a trauma. You get pushed away from your kids, and when they finally do come back to you - Caitlin and Olivia are finding one another again - it's a marvelous thing. You realize they've always been close, but they were just growing up."
Furthermore, Sean's recent medical crisis - he needed brain surgery after suffering a concussion - helped reunite Gregory and Olivia, who'd grown apart.
"It could be her finest hour," Down says, pointing out that olivia's even given up her favorite crutch: alcohol. "She doesn't want to drink," Down adds emphatically.
Playing Olivia has been a challenge for Down, who's had a suscessful career in film and TV for 20 years. "I think she's hard to play," concedes the actress. "She goes from one trauma to another. There's no letup - no relief, no humor in her life. To try to find the truth of the character is difficult when she's a bombardment of trauma. But it's stretching me as an actress.
"Soap opera's are wierd," she adds you have to suspend reality."
Down points out that the intensity a character encounters in one day on Sunset Beach would be hard to imagine happening in real life - "unless you've got an earthquake, floods and fire, all at the same time!"
So she approaches the material light heartedly. "I think you have to give the audience the ability to smile," she says. "But when you actually put your nose down and do it, you commit to it."
"Olivia never has bad hair days - she's got hairdressers!" exclaims Lesley-anne Down about her SUNSET BEACH character. But the actress has enough of her own hair-raising tales to fill a book. For starters, there was the time her hair was permed during the filming of the 1976 comedy The Pink Panther Strikes Again. "I don't know what went wring. It was like I'd been electrocuted! It was worse than electrocution," chuckles the actress. "I was so angry at what they'd done to me, that every night after I took a shower, I made the producer come up to my room and sit there as we blow-dried my hair. Can you imagine that - the producer of a film? He felt so dreadful. I'm sure they thought I'd sue or something." put, says Down, that fry job looked far more attractive than two unfortunate dye jobs. "I did a film called Sphinx with Frank Langella. I had very short, red hair. On the set, I was called 'Sid Viscous.' It was a viscous mistake," deadpans the actress. Down made another mistake when she decided to go blonde on a whim. After 10 hours in the salon, she emerged with an, um, interesting new look. "It was sort of orange-y," sighs Down. "They couldn't get my hair blonde!" When the actress's husband awoke in the middle of the night and got a gander at her hair, his reaction was less than comforting. "He took one look and leaped out of bed (crying): 'Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Who are you?'" own's most painful hair tale came in the 80's. "I had hair extensions done at some rather smart place in Beverly Hills. It took forever. When I came out, people kept asking behind my back to my husband, Don, 'has Lesley-Anne had plastic surgery?' The extensions were so tight, I had a headache for a week. I looked as if I had had plastic surgery," recalls Down. "My hair looked great, but my face was really weird." Lesley-Anne Down proves the adage that if you want something done right, do it yourself. Her all-time favorite haircut is the one she gave herself while filming the mini-series "North and South". "I did it- after two glasses of wine- with nail scissors," boast the actress. "I gave myself this rather sprightly haircut. Very Elizabeth Taylor, circa 1980. Very layered and big. I went out that night and everybody commented on it. 'Oh, your hair looks really great!' Nail scissors... they're the ticket!"
Soaps prettiest faces reveal how they stay ready for their close-ups Don't hate them because they're beautiful. Although these seven actresses are indeed lovely to look at - and when they walk into a room, guys do look at them - just like the rest of us, they work hard at it. Read on, and find out how they stay in shape, what cosmetics they can't live without, and which bad for them foods they love to eat.
Lesley-Anne Down (Olivia, SUNSET BEACH)
What is "beautiful" to you?
The human spirit.
What beauty product can you not live without?
Water.
What product is always in your make-up bag?
I don't have [a make-up bag].
What is your favourite junk food?
Pizza.
If you could look like anyone, who would it be?
Lesley-Anne Down, of course, because if I swapped with somebody, then she'd have to look like me, and I wouldn't inflict that on anyone.
Animal lover Lesley-Anne Down (Olivia) is a big believer in pet adoption. Not only did she rescue two of her current pooches, Debbie and Blossom, but she was a true savior for her recently departed Pomeranian mix, Pooh.
"We got her when she was 12. Don [Fauntleroy, her husband] had spotted her in an outside run at the pound, and was intrigued," says Down who currently owns five pets.
"I called about her, and they said she was due to be euthanized the next morning. I rushed over there immediately and got her."
Although Pooh was completely bald on her back, arthritis-ridden and deaf, and "riddled with sadness," says Down, the couple nursed her back to health and enjoyed her for three years until Pooh's ailments became too much for her. "She let me know she wanted to go, and I was with her at the end," Down says. "We loved her dearly and miss her."
Lesley-Anne Down Put A Painful Child Custody Fight Behind Her and Now laughs at Life
Gimme a break? "My husband band is always saying I don't know how to relax." The Write Stuff: "I've had an interesting life, but I would never wirte a book while my kids are young."
Is this what "NO-Brainer" Means? " I loved when [TV Son] Sean was in the hospital, and five episodes later, he was hanging out at The Deep. I said, 'But Darling, you just had major brain surgery."
Best Friend: "My husband, of course."
Looking at her elegant and flawless beauty, one would never guess that lurking no-too- deep under the skin of British-born actress Lesley-Anne Down is a crack-up who doesn't take herself so seriously. Spend any amount of time with her,a nd you get the sense that she loves making fun of just about anything. Especially herself. Down has a raucous sense of humor, in fact -- not that she has ever gotten credit for it, despite having a cache of comedies on her resume.
So one would imagine she must tire of always being referred to in the media as "the lovely Lesley-Anne Down," right? They rarely say she is funny, or a good actress. It's always ...about her looks.
"Are you kidding me?" she says, cracking herself up. "Do I mind being called lovely? I read the trades when they first announced SUNSET BEACH and they called me the veteran. And I ran to the producers 'What is this? The veteran Lesley-Anne Down? Excuse me.' That makes me sound so ancient. David Niven was a veteran, Myrna Loy was a veteran. I am not a veteran!" She is funny. And lovely. Sorry, Les, we couldn't resist.
Ever since she began modeling in her home country -- at the age of 10, no less -- people have remarked about her looks. Down was heard, ad nauseum, how beautiful she is. Ditto how much she reminds people of Joan Collins, which she still hears. "I've been compared to many people in my life. Joan is one of them. I've also gotten Liz Taylor, when I was younger. And Vivien Leigh. All the english actresses, really. It's heaven to be compared to anyone, especially if they're successful."
Success is something Down knows about, having been in such filmes as The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Brannigan and The Great Train Robert, not to mention ther most well-known TV credit, the MASTERPIECE THEATER classic UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS (Herrskap & Tjδnstefolk).
Well, Down might take umbrage at being called a veteran, but she has been working for several decades. So why a soap? She'd gotten tired, she says, of chasing the "one TV movie a year you're lucky to be offered." She likes to work. "Being an actress can be frustrating enough." (She is also writing screenplays using a male pseudonym.)
Nor did Down have a desire to be in a one-hour prime-time series. "Those people have no life," she says flatly. "I work three days a week and love that. It's very rare that I don't get to take my children to school or pick them up. A soap schedule also alows time for doing to the market, taking the dogs for a walk and going to the beach with my husband."
Not that she totally understands the soap genre yet. Although she loves playing Olivia ("I see her running the gamut from Mother Teresa to Jeffrey Dahmer"), Down doesn't always understand standard soap conventions. "All these people rush around talking to themselves," she laughs. "Its really quite weird, don't you think? Really weird. I beg them, 'Can't you put a dog in the scene with me, or a vision of Jesus?' Anything. It's so odd."
Welcome to soap opera, Les. One of Down's first major love scenes was a steamy romantic encounter with Ashley Hamilton, who created the role of Cole. "Its bad enough that Ashley looks like this baby," she says with a laugh, "but I've known him since he was with a little boy. I know his mother. And right before we're supposed to jump in bed, he says, "Oh, mom sends her love.' "
Her first love scene with Cole No. 2 (Eddie Cibrian) was also fraught equally uncomfortable with Eddie, at first," says Down. "Right before we're about to tape, I say, "Um, by the way, how old are you?' And he says, 'Twenty-two.' And I screamed, 'What?' I was gagging at this point. I"m old enough to be his mother!
It was Down's maternal insticts that led o her tabloid-worthy child custody fight with her ex-husband, Directory William Friedkin (of The Exorcist fame) a decade ago. They're now friends ("Time heals everything"), but so much mud was flung during their two-year battle over their son, Jack, that it took years for both parents to recover. She still can't quite believe the press brouhaha, especially in Britain.
