People

By Guy D. Garcia

She was a Victorian cameo of exquisite youth, a headstrong girl trembling on the threshold of womanhood in last year's Oscar-winning A Room with a View. Now Helena Bonham Carter, 21, is blushing again, this time as the heroine of A Hazard of Hearts, an upcoming CBS-TV movie based on the 1949 gothic romance by Barbara Cartland, 85. Author met actress during the filming at a 19th century mansion in Lincolnshire. Jokes Bonham Carter: "She immediately told me how to emanate innocence from my solar plexus. I had a disadvantage because I'm a brunet." Cartland admits that "at first I was a little worried because all my heroines are blond." Her fears were soon banished by Bonham Carter's breathless portrayal of Serena, the young beauty who is whisked away by the evil Marquis of Vulcan, played by Marcus Gilbert. Bonham Carter has meatier roles in mind but knows she may have to age a little to get them: "I'm always surprised when I look in a mirror at how callow I look. But I'm not going to stay like this forever."

With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York