Bo looks back, not in anger

For Bo Derek, the death of Dudley Moore was doubly poignant. Although in recent years Derek had not seen a great deal of the British comedian, with whom she co-starred in the oddly seminal 1979 movie 10, she always counted him as a great friend.

"There was such a sincere dearness about him, a sweetness that went hand in hand with his biting humour," says Derek. She last saw the seriously ailing Moore, who could then barely speak, at last year's tribute to him at Carnegie Hall in New York.

"This can be a very tough business and it doesn't lend itself to many very good friendships," Derek adds, "but Dudley was a good friend to many people; you could tell by all the people who came to his tribute. I always felt that he was there for me, that I could rely on him."

For Derek, who is now 45, the death of Dudley Moore represents the last page closing on what may have been the most important chapter in her life, a life that she has now written about in an autobiography, Riding Lessons: Everything That Matters in Life I Learned from Horses. That chapter opened when Derek was catapulted to fame as the beyond-beautiful embodiment of every hot-blooded male fantasy in 10. She became the iconic 1980s sex symbol, jogging along the beach in breast-bouncing slo-mo in front of the sex-addled Moore, her hair in the cornrows that every young girl soon demanded.

That chapter had begun to close in May 1998 when John Derek, her husband of 24 years, died of a heart attack at the age of 71. After that, Dudley Moore was the last person she was close to from that time who could understand just what an extraordinary impact 10 had on her life.

"It was such a life-changing experience, which Dudley and I both went through together, becoming famous overnight in this country.

"It was really traumatic," she says. "Overnight, the paparazzi were camped outside my door. I wasn't equipped to manipulate it or fight it. And I found that every time I opened my mouth it made the situation worse."

The worst of it was the stress it put on her young marriage. John and Bo had, scandalously, become an item when Bo, then known as Mary Cathleen Collins, was just 17. John Derek, an actor and photographer who was then married to actress Linda Evans, was 47. John even had to hide out in Mexico for fear that he would be arrested in the US for corrupting a minor.

I ask Derek how she feels about their relationship, now that she is about the same age John was when they first started sleeping together.

'"It feels awful," she admits with a laugh. "I was too young. But when you're 17, you just feel so together and so mature. Now I look back and see pictures of myself, I think, Oh my God! No wonder people were so upset." What was hardest about their relationship in those early days? "My immaturity," she says without hesitation.