Jax has been a
good friend of ours for quite a while now, so when she agreed to met
with us in London's West End she was naturaly more outrageous then
ever. Like most of our encounters Jax told us all about Blakes 7, her
new play and of course her sex life.
She used
to be Queen
Bitch of The Galaxy and made the knees tremble in more ways than
one. And
now as they say - ‘She’s back’. Quote: “I did get a letter from a man
who asked
whether I’d go around one night and chastise him, but would I not go
before 10pm, because his mother didn’t go to
bed until 9.30. But I went and she slept through it.”
“Aphrodite Blues is
about three women on an
island who are in search of love,” says Jacqueline about the new play
she’s appearing
in at the New End in Hampstead throughout March 2001.”Our heroine is
looking
for her husband, Harry, who deserted her a year ago. So she’s there
with her
girlfriend - played by a woman who has the most amazing pair of breasts
you’ve
ever seen in your life. She’s a great mate of hers and comes from
Balham - with
an accent to match. “I play Caroline and I think that I probably live
there or
have just knocked around the GreekIslands,
because I’ve got a little money left. Basically, Caroline is a woman of
a
certain age who can still pull. Harry does eventually show up and one
of them
gets the guy, but it isn’t Harry.. .”It’s written by Robert Hamilton
who I
believe has won two Sunday Times awards for best play-writing and it’s
directed
by Chrys Salt who I haven’t heard of before, but I think is magic. So
far we’ve
been rehearsing in Battersea which no doubt will prove quite different
to
actually doing it in Hampstead. “It also has John Pickard from 2.4
Children who
is absolutely wonderful. He’s playing our waiter.”
Jacqueline has also
been recently involved with
another play called Deceptions. “That’s proved quite good for me,
because I got
a new agent out of it. It was an interesting play because it had quite
a bit of
psychology involved. I based the way I handled the Psychiatrist aspects
on a
psychiatrist I’d been going to see. He said I played a psychiatrist
almost as
well as he did. I don’t go any more, it was a nice way of tying it up.
Apparently, I now treat him.”
It does have to be
asked though that with a
talent such as Jacqueline’s as the millions who saw her command scenes
in Blake’s
7 will testify to - why haven’t we been seeing her on the television of
late.
The likes of Eastenders should be crying out for Jacqueline to go in
there and
vamp, bitch, pout and shake it all up, but it’s yet to happen. “I guess
there’s
a number of reasons for that. Essentially I dropped out for quite some
time. I
went and lived in Cornwall - St
Ives, for seven years. It was magic and a big part of me is still there
- all I
did there was work as an artist’s model. I’d have to say that I have
two very
distinct sides to my nature:- One is extremely solitary which I
satisfied in
the extreme when I lived as a recluse. The other side clambers for
attention
and that’s where the acting comes in. So I have to feed both sides of
my
nature. “In a way though, even being a recluse in St Ives has proved
beneficial
for the acting as St Ives has a very Greek Island village feel, so it
was like
I was doing long-term research without knowing it. “But as far as what
you were
saying about me being in things. I can’t say that I see things and
think that
way. My friends do and say so. I think I’ve reached a point in my life
where I
feel I’ve lived the life I should have done in order to get to the
point I have
now as a human being rather than an ‘artiste’. The rest will take care
of
itself.” All of what Jacqueline’s been saying leads one to believe she
follows
the philosophy of you have to be happy within yourself over and beyond
anything
else.” I didn’t choose that life, it came my way by circumstances, but
yeah,
absolutely. It taught me a great deal and I can see the value of it.
It’s not
an intrinsic pat of my nature. You do have to be happy and content
within
yourself. If you’re depending on a man to be happy, you inadvertently
end up
being anything but. You don’t. You’re doomed.”
Jacqueline Pearce is
of course familiar to
millions around the world as Servalan, Empress Of The Federation in the
cult
sci-fi series, Blake’s 7. What was supposed to be a one-off appearance
soon
turned into a centre-point of the show. “I was working at the English
speaking
theatre in Vienna and I
was called in to originally do the one episode. So I flew in from Vienna and
went straight on in. Terry Nation (creator of Blake’s 7 and Doctor
Who’s
Daleks) told me once and I think this was why Servalan is probably so
interesting - when he was writing her, he was writing for a man.
Halfway
through the first script he was hit by the idea that he should be a
she, so a change
of sex occurred within the script.” This is the way some of those most
memorable female icon roles come about. A similar story lies behind the
character of Ripley in the Alien franchise and Honor Blackman’s Cathy
Gale role
in The Avengers. With Servalan there was also a certain degree of
memorable
style and class. There was the short hair for one and the long flowing
white
dresses that belied her wicked Queen leanings. “Yes, a lot of white,
darling.
That was my idea. When I first went for my costume fitting, because she
was the
supreme commander, they’d designed a safari suit, jackboots and a
helmet look.
And see, you’re laughing already. So, I told them that if they do that
with the
haircut I had, that they may as well cast a man. I suggested that we
went for
the complete opposite and that she should be dressed in white, not
black. White
of course emphasiseselements
of virginity, which of course she wasn’t, but it meant it
made it more interesting. We did one episode where I went into black,
because she
was in mourning - some sort of psychic miscarriage or something and
black does
become me, so I managed to cough up some reason why I should stay in
black.”
Blake’s 7 has shown
its durability through the
years as one of the better science fiction series. Last year, season
one was
repeated on BBC 2 and the show has constant rotation as one of the main
elements to tune into UK Gold
on the weekend. “I think in a nut-shell, it was my performance,” jests
Jacqueline before letting out a laugh that a sophisticated hyena would
be proud
of. I guess it was a combination of the writing, the performances and
everyone
involved. It was noticeably dark. It perhaps didn’t remain as dark as
it should
have done. “Saying that it did end up in a most downbeat manner with
the entire
cast of freedom fighters against the federation (ie: ‘The seven’) being
gunned
down including Blake who had just returned. It was something I, as a
young ‘un
in front of the box was unprepared for. Jacqueline Pearce wasn’t
involved in
this episode which means Servalan is the only one still possibly alive
out there
causing trouble. “Nothing happened to me, I’m the one still floating
about.”
Playing such a character to whom many impressionable young males and
females
would have been impossibly drawn to must have proved interesting at
times to
say the least. Well think about it, it was a sci-fi that draws fans of
a
certain ilk, anyway (“Ain’t that
a fact...”) and Servalan’s outfits would have also kept the fetish
brigade
happy. “I did get a letter from a man who asked whether I’d go around
one night
and chastise him, but would I not go before 10pm,
because his mother didn’t go to bed until 9.30. (Another wicked laugh
is
emitted). But I went and she slept through it,” she reveals with more
than a
little tongue in cheek. Even Clive James has admitted that Servalan was
a major
lust object in his life for one of his TV examination shows last year.
“I knew
that from before, actually. He must have written about me when the show
was on.
Actually, he’s always given me wonderful reviews. When I arrived at the
studios
to record that show, all the researchers could say was how excited he
was that
I was there. We had a very interesting conversation and he invited me
out to
lunch, but I never heard from him again - I don’t think he could cope
.”
In fact discussions
about such fare meant
Jacqueline stole the I Love 1978
episode that recently screened with her admission that she’s been a
“masturbatory
fantasy for an entire generation of young men. And still am. Isn’t that
wonderful? I’m so proud of that. It’s all George’s fault, he dares me
to say it
at a convention once and I have been saying it in public ever since.
It’s a
lovely thing to think of yourself playing such a crucial part of a
young man’s
development. “But really, the whole thing has been extraordinary. I
still get
recognised every week, two or three times, by much younger people -
kids who
have just discovered it. That’s the thing with science fiction, there’s
always
going to be a market for it, so you’re constantly being rediscovered.
“It all
made for a turnaround from the period preceding getting the role when
she
journied to La-laLand. “I
went out to establish myself in a film career and I ended up working in
a strip
club called The Losers, the irony of which escaped me for many years.”
<>
JACQUELINE
PEARCE WAS INTERVIEWED BY GARETH GORMAN.
SHE
ALSO HAD UNPRINTABLE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT GEORGE MURPHY.
