Suddenly Charlotte
TV Guide (by Michael Logan, TV Guide 5/2000)

"Execs at AMC were determined to land an actress of class to play Charlotte- mother of the mysterious Alexandra Devane (Finola Hughes)- and they found her in Academy Awad nominee Samantha Eggar. The 61 year-old actress, who joins the show May 24, was offered the part sans screen test and had to instantly relocate from Los Angeles, where she has lived for 30 years, to New York, where the soap is taped. 'I grabbed a suitcase and rans for the plane,' Eggar says. 'I am extremely excited but also in extreme shock.' The London-born star came to American prominence, along with Julie Christie and the Redgrave sisters, during the British invasion of the '60s. She won a best actress oscar nod as the art student kidnapped by Terence Stamp in The Collector (1965) and was handpicked by Cary Grant to be the leading lady in his farewell film, Walk, Don't Run (1966). Eggar went on to star in Doctor Dolittle (1967) and opposite Yul Brynner in the 1972 TV series Anna and the King. Recent roles have been rare. 'I am now a grandmother. I tend my garden. I have gone into areas of life that really fulfill me,' Eggar says. 'But when AMC called, all that peace and tranquility and grownupness went out the window.' She has no qualms about soap work. British actors, she reminds us, 'are trained to believe it's the job that's important, not the arena. There's no snobbery. Peter Sellers and Laurence Olivier did commercials! Strolling players, that's all we are. Please don't put us on any higher plane that that!'"

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