At last, The Stud comes west

It must rank as one of the least likely comebacks in showbusiness. Most actors would be unlikely to recover from a reputation resting on a starring role in one of the worst films of all time. But it worked for Joan Collins and it has worked for Oliver Tobias, her co-star in the 1978 bad-taste classic The Stud.

At 53 he is still accosted by women attracted by that role as Collins's toyboy lover, he is poised to marry a glamorous woman half his age, and he returns to the West End stage tonight for the first time in 17 years as star of the musical La Cava.

While several new musicals have folded in recent weeks, La Cava has proved so successful that it is transferring from the Victoria Palace to the Piccadilly Theatre, and is already booking into next year.

"It's the hardest I've worked since I did The Pirates Of Penzance for a year at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1983," says Tobias. "The question for me when I took this role was: 'Can I hack it?' I was pleased to discover that I can."

Set in eighth-century Spain and Morocco, La Cava retells the legend of the Spanish King Roderic (Tobias) and his ill-fated love affair with Florinda (Julie-Alanah Brighten), the beautiful young daughter of his best friend, bringing about the downfall of an empire.

Tobias says: "The message is this: that if a woman is attractive and young and clever and wily she can manipulate many a man into situations that could bring about his downfall - that's as true now as it was then."

It's hard not to conclude that Tobias formed his views of the opposite sex during or after The Stud, in which he played a toyboy waiter "servicing" his boss's beautiful wife, played by Collins. "It has become a cult," he says of the film. Film critics, on the other hand, have described it variously as "idiotic softcore porn" and "an epiphany of late-Seventies excess and trash", but Tobias, who originally turned down the role ("because I thought the script was crap") sees it as an early feminist tract.

"It seems to be a liberating movie for ladies," he insists. "It is about the beginnings of Girl Power, a time when women could choose their own sexuality. It represented a time when women took things into their own hands."

The Stud made Tobias's name in movies - although he was already well-known to TV viewers from his earlier starring role in the 1972 series Arthur And The Britons - but it did not make his fortune. "Being young and having no responsibilities at the time I didn't bank a lot of the money," he says.

Romantically, Tobias has been involved with 26-year-old model Araballa Zamoyska for five years. The couple were recently reunited after she left him last year and now Tobias, who had two daughters, now teenagers, with his ex-wife, is thinking about marriage and starting a second family.