Donna mills: she got what she wanted on '80s TV with power, shoulder pads and makeup. Here, Camille Paglia revisits an unlikely feminist icon

Interview, Nov, 2002 by Camille Paglia

CP: Perfect! I've always thought of you as the American equivalent of one of my favorite actresses, Stephane Audran--director Claude Chabrol's wile and leading lady in the '60s and '70s. Audran prowled Parisian salons to find exactly the right handbag for a role. She'd say, "Until I have the clothing, I don't know who the character is." It's exactly opposite to the Actors Studio: a Method actor begins inside and works out. Your tradition is the Hollywood studio era: There was such a meshing of the actors with what they were wearing. It's partly why those films have lasted and lasted.

DM: Yes--even colors were important to me. If it was a somber scene, the colors were muted and dark. If it was a happy or seductive scene, the colors were brighter. I spent an enormous amount of time doing That. As a matter of fact, once I left Knots Landing, I didn't shop for years. I was so tired of shopping!

CP: This is why watching you was such an artistic pleasure--your work appealed to the eye. What about eye makeup, which you revolutionized in the '80s?

DM: Well, I did a video at the time, and now I have an eye-makeup kit out. I did the video because I got so many letters asking, "How do you do your eye makeup?" They would say, "I put the VCR on pause and tried to figure out how you did that!" The makeup grew with the character too, because I did my own makeup. Early on in my career, I'd go into the makeup trailer, and they'd spend an hour doing my makeup, and I would hate it. I'd go into the bathroom, wash it off and start over again, which took an enormous amount of time. So I just started doing it myself. On Knots, the makeup had to match the clothes. I had every color eye shadow you could possibly imagine, and I'd use a little spot of this and a little spot of that.

CP: It's really very painterly. It's almost like Impressionist painting.

DM: That's my favorite kind of painting. I love the Impressionists, especially Monet. I've been to Giverny three or four times. I feel a very strong attraction to it.

CP: In Monet, everything seems to be dissolving. Abby's eyes are so liquid--it's like Monet's paintings of water lilies. You use all these shaded pastels--it's so pictorial. Your sense of the camera is amazing.

DM: I feel more comfortable in front of a camera than anywhere else.

CP: Really? There's a stillness and intimacy. You're able to open to the camera and thus to the audience, which really bonded with you.

DM: Yes. A lot of actors just do whatever they do, and wherever the camera is, it is. They don't pay much attention, but I always did. I was always very close to the camera crew. They were my best buddies, no matter what movie or show I was doing. The focus puller, the [camera] operator, the DP [director of photography], the lighting guys--they become part of the world you create in front of a camera. I always wanted to know what lens they were on, how close they were. I didn't do it with a plan in mind, but I would instinctively gear what I was doing toward what lenses they were using.