Still 10
Bo knows survival
By Tim Ryan
Star-BulletinBO Derek steers a personal watercraft into tight figure eights a quarter-mile offshore of Mahaiula Beach Park not far from the Big Island's Keahole Airport. When the star of "10" and "Tarzan the Ape Man" hits a chop head on, the heavy machine briefly goes air born before landing with a loud slap, sinking slightly.
"She's amazing," says Brian Keaulana, big wave rider and the water safety coordinator for "Wind on Water," NBC's new Hawaii-based drama series which premieres tomorrow night. "She could do all her stunts if we let her; she's one total girl."
Here's the scene in the fifth of 12 episodes, "Shock Waves": Derek is supposed to be monitoring a catamaran race and accelerates back to shore to give coach and photographer Charlie Flanagan, played by Matt George, an update on her team's progress.
George stands in waist deep water frantically motioning Derek to hurry up. Derek stands on the water craft as it speeds to shore. A dozen feet from George, Derek turns the speeding jet ski sharply to the left, cuts the engine, and slides the machine perfectly within a foot of the actor. Except that the wake drenches George and his mock 35mm camera.
"For Christ's sakes, why are (the catamaran team) so far behind?" George says sputtering water trying to say his lines.
"Don't worry Charlie they're doing fine," Derek says, smiling at her dripping co star.
"Cut, cut," the director yells. "Let's do it again, maybe this time without the tidal wave!"
"Sorry, Matt," Derek whispers, flashing a true "10" smile.
"And Matt," the director says over a loudspeaker, "you can't say 'For Christ's sakes' on television."
"How about Jesus Christ or Holy S---!" he answers.
An hour later, Derek, who is making her TV series debut in the show, has changed wardrobe from a one-piece swim suit to a clingy sky-blue silk dress, tawny cowboy boots and cowboy hat. In "Wind" she plays the newly widowed Ciel Connolly, who with her two teen-age sons is battling to keep her Big Island ranch.
Except for the children, the story line seems to mirror her personal life. Derek's husband, actor-producer-director-writer John Derek, died in May, and her Santa Barbara horse ranch is up for sale, reportedly because of financial problems.
(John Derek had starred in films like "Ten Commandments" and "All the King's Men." To the public, he may have been best known as the man who married a trio of look-alike blonde beauties: Ursula Andress, Linda Evans and Bo Derek.)
There is no way to ignore Bo Derek's extraordinary beauty: the bright blue eyes, high cheek bones, blonde hair, a figure that still looks good in a bikini, and skin practically untouched by years in the California sun. She's still Bo of the film "10," just a bit older. She will turn 42 next month.
Derek speaks softly and seems both fragile and confident but wary of news media, especially after her husband's death, which came days after the "Wind on Water" pilot was picked up by NBC.
"John didn't want me to take this role," Derek said, sitting on a bale of hay on the "Wind" set. "I felt really good about the role though. I was thinking about coming back to play television anyway. (Producer) Zalman King, his style and eye, were very appealing to me." (King said he had pursued Derek for 10 years to get her interested in a film project.)
John Derek didn't like the idea of Bo playing a mother.
"It was not his idea of the woman he was in love with," Bo Derek said. "He couldn't figure out that I'd grown up. But this was the right thing for me to do."
All connected with the show assured her that "Ciel" wouldn't be a stay-on-the-porch mom. Derek has patterned the character after some female friends who are moms and still athletic with athletic children.
But finding her own life after a 25 years of someone else directing remains a struggle, she said.
After Derek's death "it was a matter of either going back to work or jumping off a cliff," she said. "The series has been an absolute blessing for me. They tell me when to get up, where to go, what to say and do. That's important while I'm learning how to make decisions."
And part of those decisions has been to do much of her own stunt work. Derek also plans to do some of her own surfing for the show.
"Absolutely, even though I haven't surfed in 20 years," she said. "Brian (Keaulana) said it'll be easy to teach me again. I've always loved surfing."
Not surprising when you realize that Derek grew up on the beaches of Southern California and because of her father's job the family often visited Hawaii.
"My little-girl dream would have been to have the horse ranch on the water in Hawaii," she said. "Life took me somewhere else, but this would have been a dream for me."
Bo was Mary Kathleen Collins from Torrance, Calif., when John Derek first set eyes on her on the set of a film he was making in Greece. Her mother had come along as chaperone. John Derek called her "The Kid" because he said he didn't like her name.
Fame came in 1979 with the Blake Edwards comedy "10" when Derek played the ultimate fantasy woman who wore a trend-setting corn-row hairstyle. She said she never took her image seriously.
"(Director) Blake Edwards was responsible for it ... Even John got credit for it, or the blame, and he had nothing to do with it. But I also never made an effort to change the image."
The notoriety was "a blessing" because it made Derek's life "an absolute fairy tale," she said.
"After '10' I could pretty much do anything I wanted in the business. It was my fault if I didn't go to another level. I was responsible."
For now, only five months after her husband's death, "Wind on Water" is giving Derek a new family structure. "It's come at the right time and place for me."
Derek compares "Wind" to "The Big Valley" series of the 1960s starring Barbara Stanwyck. Like Stanwyck, Derek is a matriarch of a cattle ranch fighting over water rights with a neighbor who wants to take over her property.
In Saturday's opening episode, Ciel's husband dies of a heart attack. And like Derek's John, Ciel "tremendously relied on her husband for everything," she said.
"My personal situation is different because I'm all alone; no children," Derek said. "I was wondering how (John's death) would affect how I played the part, but it really hasn't influenced me at all. What I'm going through is so personal it just hasn't crossed over and I'm surprised.
"People think I'm being very strong, you know, taking it one day at a time but, believe me, I'm not being strong. Life is very strange for me now because the person who made all my decisions is gone; it's... really scary.
Derek admits to bouts of homesickness.
"It feels good to have a place to long for; and it feels good to be here, to be doing this, to be starting all over again. I don't know how I would deal with this if I didn't know what my next few months would be like."
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