Golden girl Susan Anton is still glowing and going strong

She starred on BAYWATCH for two years in the early 1990s and was the host of THE GREAT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL SPECTACULAR at the then Flamingo Hilton in more than 5,000 performances through July 2000.

It’s not the fact that her smile is megawatt golden or that she stands 5’11.” It’s that the blonde beauty will be 66 next month and is as radiant and gorgeous as when she won Miss Yucaipa in the 1960s. Susan doesn’t hesitate to talk about her age.

I’ve known her since her film debut in GOLDEN GIRL in 1979 and even went running on a track with her for our first interview. Leslie Caron, James Coburn and Robert Culp co-starred. The movie won raves and landed Susan a position at NBC when TV titan Fred Silverman gambled that she could rescue the network.

After a relationship with actor Dudley Moore, Susan has lived in Las Vegas with filmmaker husband Jeff Lester since their marriage in 1992. Tonight and Saturday, she’s at Cabaret Jazz in The Smith Center for the Performing Arts with a new show, and once again fans will marvel at her secrets for looking young, fit and fabulous.

Highlights of our latest Q+A:

How different is this second visit to The Smith Center going to be? Does it have a theme this time around?

About half the material is new from the last show I did. A theme seems to be emerging. We live in a complicated world right now, and it’s kind of summed up. It’s not heavy because this show has a lot of lightness and celebration and the possibility to hope.

There’s this Dave Matthews song that I came across, “Mother, Father, please explain to me how this world has come to be a place of bitter still so sweet — so beautiful, and yet so full of sad.” I’m singing right on the eve of Sept. 11, which is 15 years on now.

So there is a slight commentary, but then also filled with the hope that we’ve seen these days before. We always come to them, and we always rise up. There’s some of that, and there’s just some really lovely moments that deal with the matters of the heart.

There’s a lot of celebration about those significant relationships that we have, then just some good ol’ fun with Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young, you know, love the one you’re with. It’s a mix. The theme is that we meet each other, that we survived this journey on this planet.

What is it, the power of song, the power of music, that lets one convey a message, yet still be entertaining?

I know that when I hear lyrics to a song and it touches a place in my soul, in my heart, and I can feel it throughout my body, then I know that it resonates, and it will most likely resonate for others. I want to share my personal experience with other people because then it’s the connection we all have to each other.

At this stage of my life, I want to dig deep. I prefer having a deep conversation, not that superficial one that I was more inclined to have when I was younger. You know, where it’s all safe and pretty and tied up with a bow. Now let’s dig in and really have a conversation.

Is that the virtue of getting older?

For me it is. I find that my authentic voice, the older I get the more I really understand that. I can see where in the past I can look back and have a deep appreciation and affection for the journey and that young girl finding her way to this woman that I am today who is bolder and freer and more at peace with who I am.

It makes you wiser at the same time?

I believe so, I really do. This October, I’ll be 66. I hope that I learned something along the way.

You’d never believe it! What’s the secret?

Well, you know, good Botox for one thing! But, no, I have a very rich spiritual life. I have a great relationship with the Lord. If we can just get ourselves out of the way, then that will add years to your life, and it does show on your face.

It shows if your spirit is light and you choose to be happy, then that shows on your face. I think that reflects on your body. Then I do the obvious things of trying to eat well and exercise, but I love my wine and I like my martini, so I don’t deny myself some of the things that I enjoy.

Marriage contributes to it, as well?

Jeff and I just celebrated 24 years, and having that partner in your life has been a profound blessing because there have been times, Robin, being in this crazy business where you don’t always know what you’re going to do or how you’re going to do it or even if you want to do it anymore.

And then to have the luxury of a partner who says, “Well, you know, you just need a little time off to clear your head and reconnect.” I think also that I feel more beautiful because I’m loved. I think that also radiates from within.

Wise words from the blonde?

I’m going to write a book about “The Wise Blonde.” Who said that blondes are dumb? We’re wise! But I’ll admit that blondes do have to grow up to become wise. I did. I was too malleable. I was too eager to try to please everybody, and I got knocked around a little bit here and there.

Was it an added burden being named the “Million Dollar Golden Girl” at the same time as being “the blonde beauty?”

I don’t know if hair color actually had anything to do with it. Unfortunately, we live in a world that has a lot of comparisons, so if there happens to be somebody else already up in the landscape, say, who looks a certain way, maybe, they’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, then everybody wants to assume they’re all like that.

That’s a terrible thing that we do as a culture. Put people in groups, and it gets us in a lot of trouble. But, at the same time, for me being on Time Magazine’s cover as NBC’s great blonde hope was a lot to rise up to. I can’t save the network. I wish that I could have.

The higher they set your perch, I guess the greater the fall can be. Or even if you achieve something that’s really fantastic and it doesn’t rise to whatever the box office is supposed to be, then it’s considered not a success. That was a challenge for me back in the day.

An enormous jump for a young girl from an apple farm in Yucaipa?

That’s for sure! I get it at this stage. If I look back at my journey, I could have never when I was Miss Yucaipa sat down and drawn out, “OK, this is what my life is going to be, and I’m going to be on television, I’m going to do films, and I’m going to have beautiful romances with famous men and travel the world and be able to make a wonderful living singing and acting.”

I could have never written this story. This is so much greater than anything I could have imagined from my Miss Yucaipa days.

You’ve always seemed to have your feet firmly planted on the ground, and I wonder where did that come from in the midst of the insanity of being NBC’s “Golden Girl” hope?

I think coming from Yucaipa, coming from a small town, I had a really solid home life. My mom and dad were very basic people. My mom grew up on an apple ranch. My dad was an only child and really had a keen value for family and being a good, healthy family. We had a simple life. We had a lot of privileges, a lot of love, which was a fantastic foundation.

Then, Dudley Moore, God bless him, he was a key figure in my life because Dudley introduced me to Evelyn Silver, who was a therapist at the time, and she really helped me to understand a lot of things about myself at a young age. I was maybe 28 or 29 when I had the benefit of being able to get into therapy with this wise woman and to really dig in to understand myself better.

Dudley always said, “I want you to have the opportunity of this gift of therapy,” which he believed in strongly, and he said, “You’ll get healthy and most likely will want to leave me because she’ll say I’m probably not the best guy for you.”

But, he said, “I want you to know how beautiful you are inside and out and that you are your own wonderful resource, and that you don’t need to compromise yourself in order to fit into other people’s needs. So, it was a real gift that sweet Dudley gave me.”

It sure has been an interesting journey from running around that racetrack?

Very interesting indeed, and it just continues to get more so. Actually, I call this the sweet spot. Jeff and I will say that to each other. We’ll be walking in the morning with our dog. We go every morning; we go for a long walk. We call it a bigger, smaller life, and it’s the sweet spot.

Like these days right now where you don’t have the worries of being young and growing up and learning how to deal with life. You still have a lot of good vitality, everything’s working great, you’re still curious about life and really interested and busy doing the things that you love. So this is really the sweet spot. Let’s just really savor it.