Bo Derek says she's never been that ambitious when it comes to her acting career. "I wish I had made other movies," she says. "I turned down a lot more money than I ever made. But at the same time, would I be who I am now and happy? I have the best friends."
Not to mention her boyfriend of 13 years: actor John Corbett (Sex and the City).
It was 36 years ago when Derek became an overnight sensation in the hit comedy 10, playing Jenny, a beautiful young woman who becomes the obsession of a middle-aged composer (Dudley Moore). Women quickly copied Derek's cornrow hairstyle, and sales of Ravel's Bolero, which plays an important — and funny — part in the romantic comedy, went through the roof.
Derek, then married to writer-director-actor John Derek, 30 years her senior, wasn't prepared for the sudden fame. "It was overwhelming. I didn't have an agent. I didn't have PR people."
Derek, now 58, is back in front of the camera playing April's (Tara Reid) mother in the Syfy Channel's Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, which premieres on Wednesday. The third in the series of deliciously cheesy satirical disaster movies finds the East Coast being destroyed by those sharknado cells filled with hungry sharks.
Sharknado auteur Anthony C. Ferrante said Derek was at the top of the list to play April's mom. "She's an icon," he said.
Derek hadn't seen the first two Sharknado films but had noticed all the Twitter traffic when they aired in 2013 and 2014. "I remember tweeting, 'What is a sharknado?' ''
Bo Derek and John Derek had been married 22 years when he died in 1998 at age 71. John Derek, who had previously been married to actresses Ursula Andress and Linda Evans, was called her Svengali.
"It was a natural assumption," noted the actress, who was 17 when she fell in love with Derek. She recalled that John didn't want another wife in the film business, but offers just kept coming in. "People came into the office with briefcases full of cash. It was so confusing to me. I remember my husband said, 'Make sure you really want this.' "
She didn't.
Before 10 hit, Derek said, she was producing independent films her husband was directing. "I said I would rather go back to do what we were doing," she said.
For the past 34 years, she's lived in Santa Barbara. She has three dogs, an old donkey, and raises Andalusian horses.
"I got big into racing," said Derek. "I was on the racing commission for California for seven years. I was a special envoy at the State Department on wildlife trafficking. It's funny where life takes you."
Derek also is a photographer — she shot the cover and inside spread on Sharknado for TV Guide. Next month she's heading to Rome to appear in four episodes of an Italian TV series.
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Explore all your options"No complaints," she said about shooting in Rome for a month. "The business has been good to me."