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sunsetbeachsoap · 6 years ago

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Interview: Life's a Sunset Beach

She was going to be the next Elizabeth Taylor. These days Lesley- Anne Down takes work where she finds it - right now, it's in the best daytime soap opera since `Crossroads'.

Deborah Ross @deborahross

Monday 30 November 1998 01:02

So, here she is, then, Lesley-Anne Down, once "Britain's Most Beautiful Teenager" and once, of course, the flighty, ravishing, utterly captivating Miss Georgina Worsley in Upstairs, Downstairs. I can still see her now, in her little sparkling bugle dress, with those big sparkling eyes, flirting outrageously with someone jolly handsome in the Eaton Place drawing room, while, downstairs, Mrs Bridges was bellowing: "RUBY! ROO- BEEEEE! YOU COME AND HELP ME WITH THIS MILK PUDDING NOW, MY GIRL!" The part quickly transformed her into the nation's, and the tabloids', absolute darling. She may even have been Elizabeth Hurley before there was any Elizabeth Hurley. The prototype, if you like. And very, very big things were predicted for her. "The next Elizabeth Taylor," declared the Daily Mail in 1973. But today? Today she is not a great big movie star. Instead, she is Olivia Richards in the American daytime soap Sunset Beach.

Now, let's see, how best to give you a little thumbnail-sketch of Olivia? OK. Here goes. Olivia used to have a drink problem, and also used to be married to Gregory Richards, played by a cracking actor who can do lines, and facial expressions, but singularly fails to ever tie the two in together. Olivia has a baby son, Tres, unbeknown to her grown-up daughter, Caitlin, who is a graduate (cum laude) of The American School of Dramatic Hair Tossing - they are all, actually, very good at tossing, but Caitlin's the best - and who thinks Tres came from a prostitute. Caitlin certainly doesn't think Tres could be her brother, or might even be her half-brother, because Olivia once had an affair with Cole, who suffers under the weight of a great deal of hair gel and thus looks permanently perplexed, and who is now married to Caitlin, while Gregory is now married to Annie, who has lips like dinghies and who drugged Olivia and stole Tres in the first place before Olivia found out and Gregory divorced her, because he thought Tres died as a result of her drinking. And that's about it. I think. Tragically, Sunset Beach is only on here at 10.20am on Channel 5 which means that, for a busy, professional, go-getting high-brow like me, I only ever get to see it daily.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: "Look what Lesley- Anne has come to!" And: "Where did it all go pear-shaped!"Well, if that's the case, and I suspect it is, then I can only say you are mad. Sunset Beach is, almost certainly, the best thing on telly at the moment. Indeed, for anyone who has had, say, a Crossroads-shaped hole in their lives ever since Crossroads was axed, then Sunset Beach is just the ticket, and possibly more so. The plots are ludicrous, the acting is appalling and, as for the dialogue! Well, take Olivia to her ex, Gregory, while they are stuck in a lift, and he's coming on to her, because he's unknowingly been doped with Viagra, and she finds herself succumbing: "LOVE [breath] ME [breath] GREGORY [long breath]. LOVE [breath] ME!" It's all you could ever hope for, frankly, and no Benny in his silly bobble hat, which has to be a plus.

I say all this to Lesley-Anne. She is not offended in the least. She has, she says, never considered herself an artiste in any way. Do you think you can act, even? "God, no. Absolutely not. But if someone pays me to do something, I will do it to the best of my ability, and on Mars if necessary." How would you describe what you do in Sunset Beach? "Technique. Just full-blown technique! Although it's very hard work, darling. We average four scenes an hour. We don't rehearse. It's brush your hair, then boom- boom-boom, you're doing it." So, in short, it's a matter of trying not to fall over the props, then waiting for the truck to come round with your wages? "It is certainly much better paid than Upstairs, Downstairs ever was!" She says she now takes her jobs where she can find them. She once did a season in Dallas as PR Stephanie Rogers. "Why? Because they offered me a quarter of a million dollars for seven days' work over 10 weeks. What do you think I am, darling? STUPID?" Still, she agrees that "Who shot JR?" might be up there with "Is Amy Turtle a Russian spy?" as one of the greatest soap storylines ever. "Was she a Russian spy?" she asks. I say she got off in the end, but frankly, I always had my doubts. There always looked like room for a kalashnikov under her pinny, to me. "I see," says Lesley-Anne. "Hmmm."

Although she now lives in the very Hello! territory that is Malibu - "Jane Seymour lives round the corner. Her kids came trick or treating the other night" - she is over here for a few days, so we meet in her London hotel suite. We are joined, at various times, by Lesley-Anne's younger sister, Angela, Lesley-Anne's husband, Donnie, and her and Donnie's eight-month-old son, George, who seems to have black teeth ("We think the housekeeper is feeding him juice"), plus a succession of chambermaids who knock then come in to say: "Hiya, Olivia. I just wanted to say hiya, and maybe I could have a photo, Olivia?" "Maybe a little later, sweetie," says Lesley-Anne, who isn't even very good at acting friendly sometimes. Later, she complains: "This has been going on endlessly. In fact, when I first arrived here a few days ago, I went out in the evening. I was knackered, I looked awful, I wore a big hat - but still everyone in the street was shouting, `Ohhhh, Olivia'. And `Ohhh, Sunset Beach'. I don't understand it. It is such a silly little show."

Nonsense, I protest. It's a terrific show. In particular, I love the strange kind of time warp that goes on, so that a character knocks on a door, then 139 episodes later someone finally answers it. I like the fact that there are only ever two camera angles. I like the fact it makes Santa Barbara look slick. I like... "Oh, stop," pleads Lesley-Anne. Her sister Angela interrupts to say she thinks Lesley-Anne is a better actress than she thinks she is. "You were very good in Hanover Street with Harrison Ford," she insists.

"But that was such romantic drivel, darling!" Lesley-Anne cries.

"Trouble is, that film didn't know whether it wanted to be a war story or a love story," says Donnie.

"Ag-ga-ga-ga-goo," goes George, through his spooky, rotten teeth.

I say that, aside from anything else, she did do truly great cleavage in the American mini-series North and South. She can at least feel proud of that. She says: "That wasn't cleavage! That was my spare tyre being pushed up!" Lesley-Anne is possibly rather bonkers. But, still, she can be quite bright and funny at times.

She is now 44, but is still very fine looking, with the huge green, sparkling eyes, and great bones and everything, although she might be a bit over- made-up. You know, lots of black round the eyes and lashes so mascara- ed they look crunchy. She has so far resisted plastic surgery, "but only because Donnie won't let me". "Roy Orbison died on the table getting a face-lift," retorts Donnie. "It is a life-threatening operation."

Donnie, her third husband, is a cameraman whom she met on the set of North and South. Lesley-Anne seems to have spent much of her life going from one bloke to another, actually. First it was Bruce Robinson, the actor who turned writer (The Killing Fields) then writer-director (Withnail and I, How to Get Ahead in Advertising) and with whom she lived with for 10 years from the age of 15. Next it was an Argentine, Henrique Gabriel, an assistant director whom she met in Egypt on a film set, and whom she married on a whim, but left after 18 months for William Friedkin. She married Friedkin, the director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, and together they had a son, Jack. But when Jack was two, Lesley-Anne met Don, and upped it again. Lesley-Anne and Friedkin then fought a custody battle for Jack in a case which even her own lawyer, Marvin Mitchelson, described as "the nastiest, most vicious, custody case this town has ever seen". Friedkin said Lesley-Anne was an alcoholic, promiscuous coke fiend. She said he had threatened to kill her on more than one occasion, and had used a stun gun in front of Jack. After spending a million dollars each, they eventually agreed to a pre-trial settlement and joint custody, but only after Lesley-Anne had been vetted by a team of shrinks.

She says the shrinks ultimately declared her "a super-intelligent woman" which, she adds, "was very funny, because I lied to them every step of the way. They did these Rorschach tests on me. You know, the ink-blots. And they'd say, what does this one look like? I wasn't about to say it looks like two women having it off, was I? So I said, `Ohhh, it's a beautiful butterfly."' What did they conclude about you emotionally? "That I'm a complete hysteric!" And she might be, although perhaps not dangerously so. Certainly, she doesn't seem entirely whole somehow. I think she is intelligent, yes, but am not sure she's entirely all there.

She was born in Wandsworth, south London. Her father, James, apparently a very dashing-looking man, was caretaker of the local Territorial Army Centre. Her mother, Isobel, stayed at home to bring up the two girls, although did a bit of cleaning on the side when things got tight. Lesley- Anne, however, craved a more colourful life. "I had these cousins in LA, who'd send us care packages of clothes they'd grown out of - the most amazingly beautiful dresses that were totally alien to, say, going to Clark's for another pair of lace-ups in black, black or black. So I always had this desire, and image of myself, leading this fantasy life."

She started modelling at 10, was drinking gin and orange and clubbing at 12, started appearing nude in films at 14, and was living with Bruce at 15. I ask her if she thinks her childhood finished too early. She says. "I don't think it ever started!" What do you mean? "I just never felt like a child. I always had this desire to be a grown-up. I never had friends. I never felt I belonged. I was always happiest on my own, inventing things, finding secret places. If I'd also mutilated small animals, I think I'd have the perfect psychological profile of a serial killer." Did you ever, for example, have birthday parties? "Perhaps once. Although, then again, I might just be jealously appropriating someone else's." Did you like school? "Hated it. In particular, I hated Miss Harden, the maths teacher, who had hairy armpits and never wore long sleeves."

The trouble with Lesley-Anne, perhaps, is that she focused for so long on achieving things outwardly, via her own admittedly fabulous looks, that something within her just shrivelled and died. When, later, I ask her what attracted her to Friedkin, she says: "Money, talent, power." And you find those things attractive? "I did then. I'd met men with one or other of those things but, until Bill, I'd never met a man with all three." And the combination was lethal? "Lethal is the right word. That man was MERCURY IN MY BLOOD!" She can seem quite hysterical at times, yes.

Her first modelling assignment was for school uniforms, then it was bonnets, then it was a commercial in Barbados for an American soap powder - "and I thought, this is the life". She hooked up with Bruce at a party thrown by Ava Gardner. "He walked into the room in a white coat. I was in love. I didn't have a comb, so I ran into the lavatory and used Ava's toothbrush on my hair and lashes." He assumed she was at least 18. He, nearly 30 then, wasn't best pleased to find out she was only 15. "He called up all his friends, and said: `What am I going to do?' He went though a difficult time. My parents called him all sorts of names. Bruce would pack my bags and send me back to mum and dad. `I want to be with you,' I would scream. "

He proposed to her just the once, when she was 16. "But I said no. I didn't believe in marriage then." He never proposed again, although they stayed together until she was 24. She doesn't see him now. "He's become such a hermit, hasn't he? He lives in place near Wales that begins with H." Hereford? "Yes, that's it. He has so much to play for, but just tucks himself away." Perhaps he just doesn't want the whole LA shebang? "Oh. yes. Perhaps."

She says she is happy now, with Donnie and George. She doesn't mind that she never really achieved anything after Upstairs, Downstairs apart from a number of lacklustre films culminating in Death Wish V with Charles Bronson. "I'm happy to have survived, to still be here," she says. She has, yes, had her run-ins with drink and drugs but never, she insists, excessively so, and certainly not now. She adds that it's now time for her afternoon nap. "I'm very tired, darling." Bye, Olivia, I say. And I hope you get out of that stuck elevator shortly. "Oh stop!" she pleads again.

#interview #Sunset Beach #lesley anne down #olivia

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bomberlandia · 4 years ago

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Part I: Ranking Every Bomber Since 2015

Welcome to Bomberlandia’s first ever look at every Essendon player that pulled on a jumper since 2015, featuring historian and lifelong Bombers diehard Dr. Dan Eddy. As far as I can tell, there’s never been an undertaking where someone has ranked every Essendon player for a period of time. In 2002 Simon Matthews wrote a book and ranked the 60 greatest Bombers players of all-time. I’m sure there have been other variations of that. But those books don’t include every player for a period of time. And some of those books need to be revised or revisited.

This is what got me curious about looking at the last five years of Essendon players and who sits where and who has made an impact. Also, apart from being something to read during the postseason I think these rankings will help explain Essendon’s story from 2015 until now by taking stock of who’s come and gone, who’s been able to stay the journey and which players failed to deliver.

I could never do these kind of rankings on my own. It’s an unreasonable task. For this I enlisted the help of prolific book writer Dan Eddy, someone who has analyzed Essendon through an historic lens and someone who really knows his AFL stuff.

The hope with this first initial crack is that it becomes an annual postseason tradition, where rookies and current players can improve their ranking or if things don’t work out, they can potentially fall. These rankings come at a time where the Bombers haven’t had a lot of success. But there’s a lot of players that have had opportunities to prove themselves since 2015. We’re now starting to see some of the kids step up like Andrew McGrath, Jordan Ridley, Kyle Langford, Darcy Parish, Sam Draper, Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, Irving Mosquito. These developments have been intriguing to observe.

Quite often with rankings they can get bogged down in statistics, and sometimes that’s the only way to separate one player from the next, but numbers sometimes don’t tell the whole story of what a player means to a football team. What we’re looking for are things like longevity and service to the team, elite skills, and sure, accolades. But we’re coating all of that with gut feels. And to be frank, this list is not perfect or definitive but it’s a start and most of all it will be fun to digest. We acknowledge there’s certainly some players too high and too low but we’re ok with that.

Here’s Part I of Ranking Every Essendon Player Since 2015.

Players ranked from 85 to 39

85. Nathan Grima 84. Tom Jok 83. Jonathan Giles 82. Jonathan Simpkin

JR: This quartet feels like the right way to kick off this list at the back end. Giles, Simpkin and Grima were top-ups for the 2016 season. Jok is the most interesting “what could have been” talent. Bombers picked him with their first pick in 2018 and called him an “exciting and raw prospect.” He played one game and was then delisted. What happened to Jok? I wish I had an answer.

DE: I realise Grima was taken at a time when we were desperate for players, but we should never have picked him up. Ranks with our worst ever selections, in my view.

81. Ned Cahill 80. Mitch Hibberd

JR: It’s early days for Ned but he shows promise. He could evolve and become a household name. Mitch Hibberd, with limited opportunity, looks more at home as a solid VFL contributor (saying that based on very small looks).

DE: I agree on both fronts. Wait and see with Ned. As for Mitch, nothing wrong with his size but not sure he will be capable of holding down a senior spot over the long-term.

79. Sam Michael 78. Alex Browne 77. Tom Cutler 76. Sam Grimley 75. James Polkinghorne 74. Andrew Phillips 73. James Gwilt

JR: Browne was one of the banned supplement saga players who only managed 11 games in five years and was entering his prime in 2015. Browne injured his ACL in the 2014 pre-season and never fully got back into the mix. Probably had the most promise and potential in this section of players.

DE: I had high hopes for Cutler when we recruited him from Brisbane, as I felt his size could be of advantage to our list. But his first season was a disappointment. Hopefully in year two he can have more impact. Gwilt was another, like Grima, who we should never have recruited.

72. Jake Long 71. Kobe Mutch 70. Brandon Zerk-Thatcher

JR: Long and Mutch failed to take the next step but BZT had a season of growth and should progress to be a Top 40 player.

DE: Tough gig for Jake Long, trying to emerge from his famous father Michael’s long shadow (pun intended). I’m glad he got to wear red and black, though, even if his time at the club was brief. If BZT keeps improving his fitness and builds on his strength, will be interesting to see how far he can go.

69. Jason Ashby 68. Ariel Steinberg 67. Elliott Kavanagh 66. Josh Begley 65. Mark Jamar 64. Brayden Ham 63. Nick O’Brien 62. Ben McNeice 61. Craig Bird 60. Tayte Pears

JR: I really thought Josh “Fridge” Begley was going to be something at Essendon. I watched a pre-season game against the Suns in his rookie year and he was clobbering blokes, laying tackles and kicking goals. He kicked the sealer against the Crows during a comeback win at Etihad in Round One that same year. His departure was perhaps more about list balance or not developing as quickly as the Bombers hoped. Tayte Pears was a very solid player. Unfortunately he was decimated by injuries which prevented his development. He could never get to that next level he needed to be at to cement his spot in the team. Ultimately his ailments curbed his progression

DE: Lots of players here who had impacts, but unfortunately were unable to sustain levels of consistency. I liked Pears, so was disappointed that injury cruelled him as he was entering his prime. Wasn't quick, but gave his all. I agree with your summation of Begley. When I first saw him, I was super excited about the possibilities. But, for whatever reason, didn't come on as hoped.

59. Mathew Stokes 58. Shaun Edwards 57. Nick Kommer 56. Irving Mosquito 55. Matt Leunberger 54. Will Hams 53. Jacob Townsend 52. Ryan Crowley 51. Jackson Merrett 50. Michael Hartley

JR: Like Chapman, the Cats got the best out of Mathew Stokes. In 2016 he came in as a top-up player for a “one-time only” season. He kicked 6.5 which was better than his previous year at Geelong. If we’re nickel and dime’ing here, Townsend’s 9.5 in his first year with Essendon nets him a higher ranking. I can see his position improve with a retooled forward line that will include a fit Stringer, Stewart and Peter Wright.

DE: Wasn’t a Crowley fan before he came to Essendon as one of those famous ‘top-up’ players. But have great admiration for him for what he did for our club during its time of need. Same with Stokes. Townsend has been disappointing in terms of his output, but too much was probably expected of him in our ineffective, underperforming forward line this year. Mozzie promises plenty, so hopefully he keeps improving year on year.

49. Dylan Clarke 48. Josh Green 47. Jayden Laverde 46. Will Snelling

JR: A former Essendon coach once told me that Laverde should be a lot better than he is but the Bombers haven’t done enough to develop him. This makes me curious then: what’s Laverde’s ceiling? Of all the Bombers’ peripheral players, Laverde stands out with his contested work. Inconsistent? Sure. And he’s not a no.1 key forward. But there’s something there. I think he has more to offer than McKernan. He could be a Mihocek.

DE: Great to see Snelling receive another contract, as he was one of few shining lights during the car crash that was the 2020 season. Laverde has plenty of potential, just needs to become more consistent. That we haven't had a stable forward structure for some time probably hasn't helped him, but I see good upside if we keep a full list on the park.

45. Matt Dea 44. James Stewart 43. Aaron Francis 42. Matt Guelfi 41. Paul Chapman 40. Jason Winderlich

JR: Chapman was thrown a life-line and bagged 30 goals in two seasons. That’s pretty special. It’s not Michael Long’s run down the wing and goal in the ‘93 Grand Final special, but that’s a solid output from a then 34-year old when the club needed it. Winderlich was plagued by constant injuries – back, ACL, and more back troubles. His leg speed was phenomenal when fit.

DE: Thought Dea was terrific for us, and Chappy provided important leadership during dark times. Francis has such potential, but lacks consistency and impact. Wish Stewart got more of the ball, as that would help us up forward where we desperately need a couple of dominant key pillars.

39. Jake Carlisle

JR: So, we end Part I of this journey with an anti-climatic Jake Carlisle. A guy who could take contested marks with ease, yet, could make you loathe him in an instant with his off-field “theatrics” My final memory of Carlisle was when he shouted “this club is f – ‘ed” in a match against the Giants in 2015 and that’s not a good memory to have of any player. I’m glad he no longer plays for the Bombers.

DE: Carlisle could have been an all-time great defender at Essendon, but his final season was a major let-down and I was really disappointed in how he departed. In the end, I was glad to see him go. Like you JR, I lost total respect for him after that comment, and wasn't surprised with what happened a few weeks later at St Kilda.

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Historian Dr Dan Eddy is the author of 12 books, including “King Richard” and “Always Striving.” A life-long Bomber supporter, you can follow him on Twitter @DanEddyBooks35 and read his sports books at www.daneddybooks.com.

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