Sybil

You get a spectacular view from Sybil Danning's living room, a panorama that stretches from the Hollywood sign on the hills to the anemic skyline of downtown Los Angeles and westward, on an exceptionally clear day, to the Pacific Ocean. It's a view worthy of the late Jean Harlow, who owned the house back when the L.A. skyline was even less interesting than it is today. There's something else you might have seen one recent (text continued on page 133) day from that living room--a fight. Not Ali--Frazier but enough of a scuffle to prove that Sybil is one woman who's not afraid of getting physical to achieve what she wants.

What she wanted was privacy. It was time for her to do an interview and her press agent/boyfriend planned on sticking around. Sybil suggested that he let her talk with the writer alone. He protested, reminding her of their (continued on page 152)Sybil(continued from page 133) close professional and personal relationships. When it was clear that he had no intention of leaving, he found himself being pushed toward the door by Sybil, while her uninterested German shepherd and a very interested writer looked on.

This was no friendly little shoving match. Sybil was angry--she's used to getting her way--and the press agent/boyfriend was slowly realizing that he was being dealt a triple whammy: He was getting dumped by his gorgeous girlfriend and risking his job, not to mention being kicked and scratched. A screaming match followed: He wanted to get his personal belongings from the upstairs bedroom and she wanted him out of the house immediately. Given the death grip they had on each other, neither wish was likely to be granted, and the fight moved to the front yard, giving the neighbors a loud and colorful free show.

For them, it was welcome to the world of Sybil Danning, the actress known around Hollywood as the female Clint Eastwood, whose roles as a Valkyrie warrior in Battle Beyond the Stars and as an Amazonian princess in Hercules seem ironically close to her action-packed real life.

"I just know you're going to start your story with that," she laughs later, having successfully banished the boyfriend from her property and piled his belongings beside the pool. "Most interviews start with the writer's saying, 'Well, I went to Lucy's house and she was lying on a pillow, stroking her cat and drinking a gin fizz.' Or, 'I went to Mary's house and she was sitting by the pool in her shorts, fresh from a tennis match.' But for this story: 'I went to Sybil Danning's house and there was a wrestling match going on.'"

In retrospect, the incident amuses her. "Those bones around my house aren't from my dog," she winks, playing with the zipper on her black-leather jump suit. "They're my ex-lovers'.

"I promise you one thing," she says. "That wasn't staged. I don't do that for visitors."

The fact that the fight wasn't staged made it all the more instructive, of course. It was a chance to watch Sybil in action.

"I'm a very independent woman," she says, stating the obvious. "I always have been. My past two relationships began because I wanted them to. I was the one who made the first move. I was the one who decided I wanted to go to bed with that person."

Such a forthright approach to courtship is sometimes misinterpreted. "Despite what a lot of people think, I'm not the kind of woman who likes one-night stands. It takes me a long time to decide that I want to be with someone intimately--I mean, go to bed with him. But once I've decided, I put myself totally into that person. My relationships have always been very intense and, obviously, they're with people who are just as intense. Unfortunately, there comes the point when the man feels he wants to move in and possess me, but I just can't feel owned or possessed. I know that's a problem, but that's the way I am and that's why I've chosen not to get married."

She's been equally independent in her career, unabashedly using her considerable sensuousness in a variety of films--25 in all--to build a name for herself, first in the lucrative European markets and now, she hopes, in America. Not all of her roles have been as seductresses--her personal movie favorite is Operation Thunderbolt, an Israeli docudrama about the raid on Entebbe. She played a German terrorist and the film was nominated for an Oscar as best foreign film. Most of her characters, however, are like her Valkyrie warrior in Battle Beyond the Stars, an uninhibited female swashbuckler whose motto is "Make love--then war" and who can do anything a man can do but looks a hell of a lot better doing it. Her warrior costume was so sexy that NBC had to turn some of her more revealing scenes into tight close-ups of her face before running the film on television.

Three of her latest films are equally rugged. In Chained Heat, she's an inmate at a women's prison, where she kicks, bites, scratches, punches and even shoves the warden (played by Playboy's Miss January 1960, Stella Stevens) into an industrial-strength washing machine. Seven Magnificent Gladiators, a second cousin to The Magnificent Seven, with Romans taking the place of cowboys, has her boozing, pillaging, slashing and killing right along with the men, including Lou Ferrigno. The ex-Incredible Hulk is also her co-star in Hercules, which gives both of them a chance to show off their ample physiques. In the movie, she and Ferrigno battle to the death. Behind the cameras, their relationship wasn't much better.

"Mr. Ferrigno just has a plain terrible insecurity," Sybil tattled to a writer for Action Films magazine. "When he finally got two lead roles, it went to his head. Here he is Hercules--and he says that ever since he was a boy, his big dream was to do Hercules--and he says to himself that he's more beautiful, he's better, he's bigger than he dreamed. When those things go to your head and you start stepping on people around you, that's the beginning of going down."

Comments such as those, plus some others she made about Ferrigno on a talk show, got her some bad reviews from her producer, Menahem Golan. "Menahem has said, 'Just try to say nice things.'" What are those nice things? "He's bigger than Steve Reeves," she offers. "He's at least as handsome." And then she falls strangely silent. "I want to make more films with Menahem," she explains with a smile.

Sybil doesn't make apologies for her candor, even if she's mended her outspoken ways a bit, and she's not bashful about the fact that most of her films have been low-budget exploitation flicks. Some people may think it's a shame to waste a great body and face on a drive-in movie screen, but Sybil isn't one of them.

"If I decide to do a film, afterward I'm not going to say it was a sleazy picture," she explains. "If I don't want to be associated with it, I don't do it. A lot of my pictures were exploitation, but I was aware of that before I did them. I've made a lot of bad films, but that puts you on the map and at least your name is known. I mean, you have to pay your bills, too."

Her next big project is exploitation deluxe. Called Black Diamond, it can best be described as James Bond with breasts--with Sybil as the sexy secret agent who uses all her talents to get the bad guys. She and her partner, Mike Frankovich, Jr., have already released a Black Diamond comic book, and Sybil claims it was successful enough to spawn a sequel and start the duo looking in earnest for funding. If they can raise the money, Black Diamond will also give Sybil a chance to be a producer.

"I'm not the type of actress who just reads her role," she says. "I care about who wrote it, who's producing, who's distributing, who's doing the music and how I can help with the publicity. I care from the beginning to the end. I really want to package, produce and star in my own films."

Of course, Clint Eastwood, Sybil's role model, produces and directs his own films, and she hardly needs to be reminded that he got his start in spaghetti Westerns that weren't much better than the films she makes. The comparisons, according to Sybil, don't stop there.

"I think it would be challenging someday to play a role like the one Meryl Streep played in Sophie's Choice, but I always find myself being up for and getting very strong roles. I don't see them hiring me as the woman who suffers. I'm always the strong one," she says. "Clint Eastwood has always been Clint Eastwood, because he plays himself. There is some kind of parallel between us. My life has been full of action and adventure, and I'm very independent. I guess people see that in me."

"This was no friendly little shoving match. Sybil's used to getting her way."