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over (until my sister Charlie wanted to kill me).
    Like so many teenagers at that time, I had a picture of John over my bed (next to Tab Hunter) and I spent many hours staring into his beautiful eyes. I remember being heartsick when I read in a movie magazine that he was married with two children.
    The first time I met John was years later, when he had become a filmmaker/photographer. He’d seen the pilot for
The Big Valley
and called the producers to ask if he could photograph me. Of course I said yes. He had a reputation of being an exceptional photographer. By this time he had divorced his first wife and was now married to Ursula Andress.
    I was delighted to discover that he was as handsome and charming as I’d imagined. He was also incredibly romantic, referring to Ursula as his bride after nine years of marriage. His home looked like it was right out of
Hajji Baba
. He’d handmade much of the furniture, which was covered in silks and furs, and there were candles everywhere. He even created a huge waterfall that cascaded down his Encino hillside, which could be seen through huge walls of glass in all the rooms.
    We spent the whole day shooting pictures. I didn’t think about it again until many months later, when he called and asked if I’d like to see the pictures and maybe even take a few more.
    This time when I got to his house, I learned that Ursula had left John, staying in France with her costar, Jean-Paul Belmondo. That was the beginning of our wondrously romantic relationship. I was so in love that when John suggested that I try to get out of doing
The Big Valley
, I wholeheartedly agreed. However, the producers thought it was a really bad idea. We compromised and I did a few less episodes a season, which is why Audra was often “off in Stockton shopping.”
    Many nights after I’d been filming
The Big Valley
, I’d come home to find a house totally dark except for a roaring fire and candles twinkling from every corner. I was amazed how much thought John put into making me feel loved, as if I was the most important person in the world. Some nights as I was walking in, he’d hand me a huge antique silver goblet filled with sparkling wine and fresh strawberries.

    A rare night out.
    Other nights he’d hand-dip grapes in egg white and dust them with powdered sugar, then feed them to me one by one in front of the fire.
    Years later, when I was “married” to my “other John”—John Forsythe
—
on
Dynasty
, I told him about those romantic nights and he mentioned it to the producers, who decided to incorporate it into the show. Every time Blake and Krystle did one of those scenes, John Forsythe would teasingly ask me if it was as romantic as it was with “my first John.”
    John and I never planned to get married. He had told me over and over that he never wanted to get married again, and I was happy just being with him. It was something that really happened on the spur of the moment. We literally woke up one morning, and he turned to me and said we should get married. That day. So off we drove to Mexico, with John’s daughter Sean in tow as a witness. He wore off-white jeans and I wore white ones.
    My Favorite Mexican Recipes
    John and I got married in Mexico. Everything happened so fast, we barely had time to eat, which was really a shame because we both loved Mexican food. Here are some of my favorite recipes collected through the years. The first three were taught to me when I was married to John by my first cooking teacher, Diana Welanetz Wentworth, who has several wonderful cookbooks that I still use. And the last one, the Fish Tacos, is from my good friend Linda McCallum. To this day, the chicken and cheese enchiladas are my all time favorite. Sometimes I make them with just cheese.

CHICKEN AND CHEESE ENCHILADAS
MAKES 12 ENCHILADAS
    BASIC ENCHILADA SAUCE
    4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
    ½ cup all-purpose flour
    2 (19-ounce) cans mild red chile enchilada sauce (I like Las Palmas)
    3 cups