Strictly sexy: Why Pamela knows all the right moves
Readers of a nervous disposition should perhaps turn away now, for this interview has content of an adult nature.
Pamela Stephenson, undisputed star of Strictly Come Dancing, is running through her training stretches -- mostly involving her bending over, buttocks in the air, as she touches her toes.
"You don't mind me doing the interview like this, do you?" she says, head between her legs. No, no, don't mind me, I say.
Stephenson is 60 years old and sexy as hell. She has the body of a woman half her age, hair that is blonde but not brassy, and a face that is Botoxed but soft ("I started getting it when my kids thought I was frowning at them all the time").
Her voice is a hypnotic combination of all the places she has lived -- New Zealand, Australia and Los Angeles. The comedian Billy Connolly, her husband, is a lucky man; she has adapted her kissing technique for him so the bristles of his fabulous beard don't get up her button nose.
"And now his eyebrows have started to go wild too," she laughs (huskily, of course). No wonder the man gave up booze and cocaine for her.
When you Google her name, one of the first suggestions is 'Pamela Stephenson hot'. "No! You must have put in Pamela Anderson!"
But it's true -- there are lots of busty pictures of her when she starred on Not The 9 O'Clock News, and later on Saturday Night Live.
Stephenson is talking me through the knee guards she must wear during rehearsal for Strictly, and the blister treatment she bought -- not to mention the mouthwash, because "I can get pretty close to James (Jordan, her dance partner)" -- but even then, sexuality oozes from her dance-battered body.
And I know she is bruised, because she lifts up her top to show me the marks on her skin. I suppose this shouldn't come as a surprise.
Dr Pamela Connolly Stephenson, as she is professionally known, is a sex psychologist, the founder of the Los Angeles Sexuality Centre, a member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, and has lectured on the topic of "Psychopathology within Bondage/ Domination/Sado-Masochism Communities".
Plus, she writes a sex therapy column ("My husband wants me to imitate animals in the bedroom" was a recent query from a reader). Does she think she is sexy? "How the ---- am I supposed to answer that?" she laughs, bolting upright from one of her stretches. "OK, OK. I would say that sexiness is more a state of mind than about how you look."
I am disappointed by how cliched this is. Does she feel sexy? "Darling, I've spent the last year writing a book about sex -- I'm horny as hell." Her dressing room at BBC TV Centre erupts in laughter.
"Oh God, I'm going to get in so much trouble!" Billy is in Canada doing a tour. How does that work? "Well, I think unconsummated longing can be very attractive."
They have three daughters, and she is stepmother to the two children from Billy's first marriage (they both have previous marriages). What do they think of her doing Strictly? "They think it's ridiculous, but they have always thought I'm ridiculous, so it doesn't matter."
And what does Billy think? "He has mostly been worried about the costumes. He's quite the fashion maven, all Comme des Garçons. He likes women to be elegant, which is how they should be I suppose."
Well, to a point, I think -- he has married a sex therapist. "Sometimes he will say to me, 'Are you going out like that? Aren't those clothes too tight?' And I say, 'They weren't when I bought them'."
She has wowed the judges with her waltz, her salsa and her rumba. She did ballet as a child, and is not averse to a spot of Scottish dancing "when my belly is full of whisky -- that's been great training for balance".
Some critics have been aghast that a psychotherapist should choose to take part in such a show, but Stephenson is hardly a stranger to the limelight, and has done a series called Shrink Rap, in which she interviews celebrities such as Sarah, the Duchess of York (an old pal -- Pamela, Fergie and Di famously gatecrashed Prince Andrew's stag do).
Really, a show such as Strictly is a walk in the park for Stephenson, who took a year off to sail the South Seas solo. She tells me she "was just diving with great whites in south Australia. I came out of the cage, because I realised they weren't interested in me. It's quite hard to lure them". Crikey.
We turn to lighter issues, mainly whether Billy gets jealous of her dance partner. "I was hoping he would be, but he has really bonded with James. At first I thought, 'You want me to touch you where?' But I like it, because there is a very ageist attitude towards sexuality, and people think you have to hang up your pelvis at 40."
Do men ever proposition her? "Of course," she says. "Most people respect the relationship between Billy and me, but the odd one will have a twinkle in his eye and I'll think: 'Yup, I could have you.'"
She lets out a husky laugh to let me know she's joking, but actually, I bet she's not.
- Bryony Gordon
Irish Independent
