An Interview with Linda Evans

She starred in America's No. 1 drama of 1985, Dynasty. She also filmed the Las Vegas crash that put Evel Knievel in a monthlong coma. She won the British cooking reality show Hell's Kitchen in 2009, and she was Oprah's guest last September.

Linda Evans has lived a separate television life outside her real life.

Now retired to the calm woods of Rainier, WA, the girl who grew up in Hollywood has had time to reflect on an acting career that spanned four decades.

And she's putting it all into her new book, a combination memoir/cookbook full of reflections and recipes. It's called Recipes for Life, and it includes recipes like John Wayne's Crab Dip Omelet and Tony Curtis' Lemon Souffle.

Evans chose Mission Viejo's Readers' Festival to debut the book, which won't be out in stores until early October.

Evans says she loved her time in the center of the spotlight during the mid-'80s, when the hit series Dynasty had her traveling across the world for interviews and promotional junkets.

"I was busy every minute and loving every minute," she said.

Still, for a woman whose life was spent on camera (and in tabloid headlines), Evans says she's happy to have retired to a peaceful community away from Southern California.

"I love it!" she said. "I stay up late and go to movies, I eat what I want and I get to be myself."

Although fame comes with many benefits, she said, it also leaves a person with little time for oneself.

Evans touched on one of the memorable events of her life—the stunt jump at Caesars Palace that nearly killed Evel Knievel.

"At dinner the night before, he told us he didn't think he was going to make it," she said.

Evans' husband at the time, John Derek, agreed to shoot the video, which ABC's Wide World of Sports promised to pick up if the jump was as spectacular as Knievel promised.

Spectacular wasn't quite the word when upon landing, the motorcycle wobbled badly out of control, tossing the driver onto the pavement.

"It was terrible," Evans recalled. She was the one who shot the crash landing at her husband's request.

The Readers’ Festival is Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Oso Viejo Community Park and the Norman P. Murray Community and Senior Center, 24932 Veterans Way.

Free shuttle service is being offered from the at 200 Civic Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Along with the festival grounds, free parking is available at , the Civic Center and Thomas R. Potocki Conference Center.