“10” Star Bo Derek Recalls Rocketing to Fame at 22: ‘You Never Know in a Few Years What Life Will Do’ (Exclusive)
“10” Star Bo Derek Recalls Rocketing to Fame at 22: ‘You Never Know in a Few Years What Life Will Do’ (Exclusive)
Eric Andersson, Mark GrayThu, November 5, 2026 at 3:21 PM UTC
4
Bo Derek in 2025 (left) and in the 1979 movie ‘10’ (right)Credit: Kerry Perez, Shutterstock -
Bo Derek, who turns 70 on Friday, Nov. 20, opens up to PEOPLE ahead of her milestone birthday
The actress looks back on memorable moments from her life, including making the Blake Edwards movie 10, which launched her to fame in 1979
She recalls filming her iconic beach scene, using costar Julie Andrews’s dressing room and getting starstruck
Bo Derek was just 22 when 10 made her the fascination of millions.
The romantic comedy hit theaters in the summer of 1979, with Dudley Moore and Julie Andrews as the top-billed stars. But it was Derek — appearing on screen for around 10 minutes as the object of a middle-aged man’s fantasies — who stole the show with a memorable beach scene.
As PEOPLE noted in a profile of Derek at the time, the California native, “gave America its first ‘80s sex symbol.” Not to mention an image to put on countless posters.
Prior to that, Derek’s résumé wasn’t extensive. Born Mary Cathleen Collins, she left high school to pursue acting, started a relationship with actor-director John Derek, and married him when she was 19.
“It’s funny. I had a bit part in Orca,” Derek says now of the 1977 killer whale thriller, “and then all of a sudden I did 10, which took me in another place. You never know in a few years what life will do.”
Speaking with PEOPLE on the eve of her milestone birthday — she turns 70 on Friday, Nov. 20 — Derek looks back on several moments from her life, including the movie that made her a star.
Before she set foot on set, the movie’s star kept changing. “George Segal was the leading man. Then all of a sudden Blake called and he said, ‘George Segal isn’t your leading man. We have a new one. So I’d get calls every day, ‘Oh, it’s Sean Connery.’ ‘Oh, it’s Walter Matthau.’ ‘Oh, it’s Michael Caine.’”
Dudley Moore and Bo Derek in ‘10’Credit: Shutterstock
“And then all of a sudden Blake called and he said, ‘It’s unorthodox. It’s not what you would normally think the way the part is written, but it’s Dudley Moore,” Edwards said of the British comedian, who was known for his raunchy sense of humor.
Edwards told her to go see the Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn comedy Foul Play, featuring Moore in a supporting role. “Well, in it, he plays a music conductor, kind of pervert,” recalls Derek. “We went to go see it and my husband said, ‘Okay, it’s obvious. It’s Sean Connery [as your leading man]. This is a practical joke.”
But it wasn’t.
Advertisement
Derek remembers seeing Moore from afar a few days later before filming began. “I’m pushing my grocery cart through the grocery store and there’s Dudley Moore in the flesh,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh s--t, he’s my leading man.’ But I thought, ‘Oh, s--t’ was all over my face. So I turned and went the other direction because I thought he could see the shock all over me.”
Bo Derek in ‘10’Credit: Shutterstock
When the movie kicked off, Derek says she and Moore clicked as colleagues: “Whenever we were together, he was just lovely and sweet and fantastic.”
As was Andrews. “She was so kind to me, God, she was great. It’s so easy for someone like her to just sort of be polite, but move on. She was really sweet, extra sweet,” recalls Derek, who even got to use the Mary Poppins star’s grand dressing room when she wasn’t there.
Less enjoyable was filming her iconic scene, in which she runs on the beach. “I hate to run. That was the big joke on the set. And Blake was famous for reshooting and reshooting and reshooting,” she says. “ I had to go back and do it again, do it again, and Blake was having fun with it because he knew how much I hated it.”
But there were no hard feelings. Derek and her husband John (who remained married until his death in 1998) even scored an invitation to dinner at the Malibu home of Andrews and Edwards. Oscar-winning composer Henry Mancini, who wrote the song “Moon River” for Edwards’s film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was also a guest at the dinner.
“I was young, and I just couldn’t believe all these legendary, glamorous people, too. And they’re bigger than life. Henry Mancini was so elegant and then talking to me. It was really weird.”
John Corbett and Bo Derek in Los Angeles on May 10, 2026Credit: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images
Derek has spent the decades since surrounded by more legendary, glamorous people — including family friends like Ann-Margret, actors like Rob Lowe (with whom she starred in the 1995 comedy Tommy Boy) and her husband John Corbett, whom she wed in 2000 after 18 years together.
The pair live on a 110-acre ranch in Santa Barbara with two German Shepherds and her horse, Enzo. “Things are grand,” says Derek. “I have an embarrassment of riches, honestly.”
PEOPLE VIPs can read our full conversation with Bo Derek in this week’s issue, available right now in the app
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
