People
- November 1st, 1999
Former
Dynasty hunk John James gave it all up for life on the farm
With
his 7-year-old son, Phillip, perched in a trailer behind his
all-terrain vehicle and his dog Morgan, a Rhodesian Ridgeback,
loping alongside, John James steers through a forested swath of his
230-acre Cambridge, New York farm. Stopping atop a hill, he gestures
down at an enviable spread: a white Colonial built in 1815, a stable
housing his three Morgan show horses and two Shetland ponies, a
pool, and basketball and tennis courts. "This is why I left
Hollywood," says James. If I could have found this in LA, I
wouldn't have left. But where are you going to find this kind of
beauty in LA?"
Not
that James, 43, has too many complaints about his big-city days. As
sexy young oil scion Jeff Colby on Dynasty and spinoff The Colbys,
the blue-eyed brunet sparked his share of the '80s nighttime soaps'
signature catfights. Offscreen, he party-hopped alongside glamorous
costars such as Joan Collins. "It was really a fabulous time in
a lot of ways," he says.
But
when the decade of greed and its flagship drama folded, James bid
the glitz goodbye. During Dynasty's next-to-last season in 1988, he
met wife Denise, now 44, a former model and Miss Australia, at a
party. "I saw her and had visions of family, of kids, of living
on a farm somewhere," he says. After marrying in 1989, they
packed up for pastoral Cambridge, near New York's Vermont border.
Now, James says, his life revolves around children Laura, 8, and
Phillip, and he proudly shows off hands battered from
fence-building. His Dynasty loot foots the bills. Still, "I
miss that drug of being famous," says James, who appeared last
year on Touched by an Angel and Love Boat: The Next Wave and hopes
to land a regular series role now that his kids are school-age.
"You walk into a restaurant and people turn and whisper.
There's a great rush."
His
Dynasty days were heady indeed. The New Canaan, Connecticut-reared
actor (his father, Herb Oscar Anderson, was a disc jockey at New
York City pop station WABC-AM) studied at Manhattan's American
Academy of Dramatic Arts. James had spent nearly three years on the
soap Search for Tomorrow when, at 23, he was snapped up for ABC's
Dynasty. Premiering in 1981, the series soon ruled the Nielsens ~
and its stars lived nearly as lavishly as the show's fictional
Carringtons and Colbys. "Any party that anyone had, they
invited us," says James. "I got invited to this party in
Rome once. I asked the producers if I could have time off to go.
They wanted to know who it was for. I said, 'The Fendis.' They were
like, 'Do you know who the Fendis [Italian fashion magnates] are?' I
had no idea. I was just going. I lived like that for an entire
decade."
Still,
"John kept his head about him," says Dynasty patriarch
John Forsythe, praising James as "a perfect leading man."
Pal Joan Collins visited James last year to cohost a benefit for his
church's school. "I used to hang out over at her house,"
he says. "There was always something going on there. A few
times, Elton John would pop over and sit down at the piano. In 1985,
James departed for The Colbys, then returned to Dynasty when the
spinoff sputtered after two seasons.
After
Dynasty ended, James and his bride headed for the hills. Denise
initially had misgivings: "I don't like the cold, and here I
am, it's winter, I'm pregnant, I'm having morning sickness, and the
house wasn't renovated yet," she recalls. "But I adapted
... I don't think I would ever leave here now."
The
family has put down roots: James works with a local theater group
and hangs out with neighbor Kenny Lohr, a buffalo rancher.
"He's no stuffed shirt," says Lohr. "We go down to
the diner, shoot the breeze." Nevertheless, James itches for a
second shot at the spotlight. "Maybe it's good I went
away," he says. "Maybe now I'm so far out that I'm
in."
By
Samantha Miller
Source:
Jeffrey N. Truell |
