Back for good

Charlotte Rampling is talking about life cycles, sitting on a cream sofa, her arms moving in wide sweeping circles. Her long legs, bent at the knees and wrapped in wide black trousers, snap open and shut like sails in the wind. It's an extraordinary sight, like a majestic galleon heading out to sea, her exquisite face the arresting figurehead.

"I think as human beings we are cyclical. We roll on the crest of a wave," she gesticulates more wildly, "and then go down to reflect and digest and come up with new things."

For much of the Nineties, this unconventional English actress, famous for her whip-brandishing scene in the sado-masochistic 1974 film The Night Porter, was more down than up. Twice during that period she was forced to check herself into hospital for depression, as repressed grief from her elder sister Sarah's tragic death bubbled to the surface.

Work was also sporadic and confined to low-budget, art-house films in France, where she has lived since 1976. To top it all off, her beloved husband of 20 years, the eccentric musician Jean-Michel Jarre, betrayed their marriage with a 31-year-old civil servant.

That is all in the past, however. Today, chic in white T-shirt, Chloe shades and with cheekbones plastic surgeons can only dream of, Rampling is back on top and looking to the future.

"There has been a surge upwards - I feel great and I'm planning to do a lot of everything," she says energetiby Emily Sheffield

cally. The 58-year-old has made two new British films, the forthcoming Swimming Pool and the alreadyreleased Summer Things, and has another five in development. In September she opens in a play in Paris, her first stage work since she was 18.

More importantly, she is enjoying being grandmother to the child of her 30-year-old son Barnaby, and has finally discovered security and love with her boyfriend of six years, French businessman Jean-Noel Tassez - having finally agreed the details of her divorce from Jarre.

Rampling smiles shyly, as if surprised at her good fortune. She appears at once fragile, but also excited and happy, and has the quiet confidence of one who has seen it all and survived.

"My life is much more comfortable," she admits, "more agreeable, more fun. I feel I've paid a lot of dues. It takes a long time going down, and a long time coming up," she continues, "but along the way you learn so many things, and emerge immensely stronger and more in control."

Although Paris is her home, she joins Barnaby in their Chelsea cottage once a month. Sometimes her voice is languorous and slow, littered with French phrases, then all of a sudden it's clipped and very British. I imagine her schizophrenic life suits her character. "Yes, in France you are not judged on your background, your upbringing and education. There is more mystery to me in Continental countries."

You sense her whole life has been spent fleeing her straight-laced upbringing, though she was always going to be too sexy and exotic for these shores. Rampling was born in Essex in 1945 to Colonel Godfrey and Anne Rampling.