Q: You also hit it big early on Broadway.Ī: I was told that I could never do theater in America, even though I’d already done it in England on all the classics. There were a lot of things I did early on because I knew I needed to work consistently for a year. In other words, he meant “Goodbye and forget about it.” I took him literally, however, and accepted every job I was offered. They said I would have to work consistently for a year and be nominated for at least one major acting award in order to qualify. I was trying to get a green card, and went to a lawyer. Knowing what you were capable of as an actress, did you feel the need to be especially careful with the choices you made after that?Ī: It was quite the opposite for me at that time. You were almost certainly offered a lot of exploitative roles around that time. Q: You become a sex symbol early on when you appeared as Solitaire in the James Bond movie “Live and Let Die” and posed for Playboy, both in 1973. Jane Seymour with Roger Moore in “Live and Let Die.” And in that role, I was nominated (for an Emmy) for Best Actress. When I came to America I was living on fumes as well, but I got my first lead film role (in 1976’s “Captains and the Kings”) on the actual day I had to leave due to my immigration. Q: So the tipping point for your approach to life, was necessity.Ī: Absolutely. Working on my speech enabled me to do pretty much any accent, in any language, when I became an actress. It allowed me to point my toes enough that I would eventually become part of one of the greatest ballet companies of all time. Meanwhile, I kept working on the flat feet and speech impediment at school before anyone else showed up. I would have my own company making clothes while I was still a teenager. But I knew how to knit and embroider and all of the above, so I designed and made clothes, took them to some stores in London and sold them, and used the money to buy the ballet shoes. And when I auditioned for and managed to dance with the Kirov Ballet, we couldn’t afford the ballet shoes. I received a partial scholarship, but my parents just couldn’t afford it. I wasn’t accepted into the Royal Ballet, but I did get into another ballet school where you could also act in theater. When I was 13, all I wanted was to become a professional ballerina, but I was born with flat feet and a speech impediment. But I’m productive.Ī: Well, an example is that I became an actress by default. Q: Do you owe your ambition more to nature, or nurture?Ī: I mean, I know I’m labeled for that. Can you imagine that someone recently had the audacity to ask, “What are you going to do with the next 10 years?” I mean, all I get is 10 years? So I’ll be 81 and done? No. I’m already so busy that I don’t have time to think about it. Q: Okay, so now that we summed up the first half of your life … what do you have planned for the second?Ī: Oh my God. Oh, and I believe there is an orchid named after me somewhere. That barely scratches the surface, but did I miss anything glaring?Ī: Well, I’m very proud to have received the Horatio Alger award, and I have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Q: And along the way you have been a philanthropist, a wildly successful entrepreneur and, as we’ll discuss today, a painter. Q: You’ve starred in film and on Broadway and have inhabited one of the most iconic television roles of all time. Q: You are an officer of the British Empire. And they are both their godparents as well. Q: You named your twin boys after two of your close friends, who happened to be Johnny Cash and Christopher Reeve.Ī: Correct. Although I actually have three if you include the one I received for producing the documentary “I’ll Be Me,” about Glen Campbell. Q: You are a two-time Golden Globe winner.Ī: Yes. I have one Emmy win, and received other nominations. Q: You were both a young Bond girl, and the oldest woman to ever appear in Playboy.Ī: Yes.
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