Hello Magazine

The hunky British Soap Star invites us home to meet his Australian Actress/Writer wife Libby

When Clive Robertson met his future wife Libby Purvis on a one-year drama course on a one year drama course in London, she was already a TV soap veteran in her native Australia. Clive, on the other hand, had only opted for acting in his mid 20’s after a public school education at Marlborough, a business degree and successive jobs marketing smart cars and a well-known brand of butter.

Following the course at the Arts Educational Drama School, and as romance blossomed between the two erstwhile students, Clive turned his hand to fringe theatre work, a part opposite Nick Berry in a one-off television drama, a role in the short-lived London Bridge and a chewing gum advertisement. But it wasn’t until the couple went to LA on holiday together that Clive’s big break appeared in the guise of the hit soap Sunset Beach.

Now the 34-year-old actor and his wife - he and Libby married last year on Sir Richard Branson’s private Caribbean Island Necker - have set up base on the other side of the Atlantic, in a pretty house in the Hollywood Hills with an uninterrupted view of Coldwater Canyon.

After three years playing devilishly good-looking Ben Evans in Sunset Beach, which has now concluded, Clive is poised to move into films. There has even been talk - albeit speculative - that one day he might even become the next James Bond. We asked him about this rumour and other projects during a photo shoot at home with Libby.

Q. How did you land the part in Sunset Beach?

CR: "Libby had an appointment with an agent while we were in LA on holiday and had a showreel of my work with her. The agent mentioned that the Head of Daytime TV at NBC was looking for young talent for a new soap being cast. Libby gave him my tape."

Q. What happened next?

CR: "I got a call to attend an audition. I met Aaron Spelling, whose company was producing the soap, was given a screen test and then conditionally offered the part of Ben Evans. The only stumbling block was getting the Green Card necessary to be able to take up the job."

Q. Did that present a problem?

CR: "It was a nightmare - and something of a gamble. I returned to my Hammersmith flat immediately with a mountain to climb. I’d assured everyone concerned that a work permit was a mere formality. The truth was I had to invest thousands of pounds in air travel and lawyers’ fees to speed up a process that often takes many months. If I’d failed, I’d have lost the job and been left with virtually nothing."

Q. What have the three years on Sunset Beach been like?

CR: "Hard work, but huge fun. I’ve been shot, I’ve almost drowned and I’ve bedded more women since 1997 than most men manage in a lifetime!"

Q. Did you find that at all embarrassing?

CR: "Initially, I was a little awkward, yes. But I spent such a long time in bed over the three years that I got to be quite a dab hand at it. A lot of it was about being comfortable with the other person. It was more like painting by numbers than anything else. Everything was carefully choreographed. The one thing it wasn’t was sexy. Not in the slightest. In fact, it was sometimes downright hilarious. On two occasions, I dropped the actress I was carrying off to bed. Luckily, she was very understanding...."

Q. Did you socialise with the cast away from the set?

CR: "We all got on really well - and still do. In fact, one of the actors lives around the corner from us. I also made friends with Lesley Anne Down, who’s British like me and who was in the soap from the start, although we must have said no more than three words to each other on screen in three years. She lives out at Malibu, about 45 minutes away, but we bump into her and her husband at parties and functions."

Q. So, what’s next now that Sunset Beach has come to an end?

CR: "The first thing, after working non-stop for three years, is to enjoy a little leisure at home. As Libby will confirm, I’ve just learnt to use a washing machine! On the work front, I’m talking to a Hollywood studio about a British co-production involving two mini series.

I’m also negotiating roles in three independent movie projects. None of them are big studio films. But then I’m in the fortunate position, after so many months of continuous work, of being able to take on jobs that are creatively, if not necessarily financially, rewarding. The first of those looks like it may go into production in the summer."

Q. What about these rumours regarding you and James Bond?

CR: "It happened quite by chance and nor was it any of my doing although, of course, I was very flattered. The influential American listings magazine TV Guide suddenly declared one week: ‘If Pierce Brosnan ever decides to quit playing 007, Robertson could fill his shoes in a heartbeat.’ I’m not so sure about that. It probably has no more to do with anything other than that I’m tall and I’ve got dark hair."

Q. So what do you think you could bring to the role if it ever came your way?

CR: "To be honest, I think the character’s been allowed to get too far away from Ian Fleming’s conception of him although, after Sean Connery, Pierce is the best Bond ever. But in these politically correct days, he’s not even allowed to smoke whereas he was a three-packs-a-day man in the original books.

Pierce looks great and probably better on screen for having had to wait longer than he wanted before tackling the part. But I’m the right age. Bond was in his mid-30s. I’d also like to accentuate the slightly darker side of his character. A hero should be essentially good, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one or two flaws. An audience is much more likely to empathise with someone who’s less than perfect."

Q. Libby, what’s happening in your career?

L: "To be honest, I’ve stopped going up for acting jobs. The business is more competitive on a superficial level than it was in the UK. I started to find that a bit frustrating."

Q. What are you doing instead?

L: "Writing. I’ve been adapting children’s books for the screen. I’ve also been working on a idea for a drama series which I helped develop with another writer. We’ve written the first episode and done treatments for the remainder. The project is now with a number of production companies and I’m very hopeful that one of them will want to take it up."

Q. Might there be a part for Clive?

L: "If he plays his cards right - and that may well involve a little activity on the casting couch!"

Q. Tell us about getting married.

L: "It was originally going to happen in September ‘98, but the day before we were due to fly off, we got a call saying a hurricane was heading for the island and on no account should we come.

We’d read about Necker in a magazine. Very occasionally, it’s available to more than one tenant. The rest of the time, you have to rent the whole island which is beyond most people’s means. There were 12 other couples when we eventually went there the following May although we were the only ones getting married."

Q. What was the experience there like?

L: "Anything your heart desires. You might mention that you’d like to go shopping in St. Bart’s. And they’ll say, ‘We’ll prepare the helicopter straight away, Madam!"

CR: "Or you fancy water-skiing, ‘Certainly, sir,’ comes the reply. One of the benefits of the hurricane was that we were subsequently offered Richard Branson’s own penthouse master-suite. It was just divine, with an enormous balcony and plunge pool and a beautiful four-poster bed."

Q. And the ceremony, Libby?

L: "A celebrant, as she was called, was flown in from the island of Virgin Gorda, also part of the British Virgin Islands. We stood at somewhere called Sunset Point, on a stone balcony off the house overlooking the water just as the sun was setting. It was very romantic.

We’d decided we didn’t want any fuss so no one from our families were there. But there was a lovely crowd from San Francisco staying on the island and one of them decided he was going to be the adopted father of the bride and another appointed himself best man. Each of them gave funny speeches at dinner that evening."

Q. Will you ever see them again?

CR: "We’ve all agreed to go back to Necker in the same week in May 2001. When you share an experience like that, you become friends for life."