A megastar with not a (grey) hair out of place; PETER YORK ON ADS

No 140: CLAIROL LOVING CARE

Jane Seymour is a remarkable person. Not only does she have her burgeoning thesp career as queen of the mini-series, but she's also found the time to make new twins and she's got a philosophy of life to share with other more ordinary women. Her wisdom concerns the priorities a busy yet serene mother and megastar should observe, and it's on display in the current Clairol "Loving Care" ad.

You shouldn't fret about a few grey hairs, says Miss Seymour, when there are other more important things to worry about, like getting your waist back after having twins - and especially not when there's something as gentle as Loving Care around to give you "your own beautiful colour back".

Try my prodigious life for size, she says - itemising her "six kids, two dogs and three agents" - letting slip the scale of the success, domestic and professional, that she wears so lightly. In the face of such fecundity, colourant anxiety does seem marginal. "It's just a little box of hair colour."

Jane Seymour's gorgeous life is played out against a backdrop of Malibu Art Director's Modern Classic: a beachhouse with crisp white square columns under a brilliant blue sky, filled with smart rattan furniture. It's just the setting for a major Seymour vehicle, like the one about the brilliantly successful divorced doctor who falls for a suave psychopath. It's the look of the beachside scene in American Gigolo (1980). It's the aesthetic of better-end American cosmetic advertising.

Miss Seymour herself is a study in russet shades of make-up and hair colourant. The camera lingers on her tawny hair for some time while she continues with the detailed account of her life. And the point is that she's clearly in charge of it, as Americans like to say: pulling her own strings. She's a woman of our times, juggling career, family and an inner life. Strange then to recall how recently she starred as the other-worldly romantic English heroine in the Max Factor Le Jardin scent commercial.