“Sometimes it’s difficult. I mean, you’re sitting with an interviewer, usually a man, and you’re saying, ‘Yes, this a lovely story about three generations of women …’ and he says, ‘Yeah, baby, but what about that wet T-shirt?’”

That’s Jacqueline Bisset, laughing heartily, and resigned to the famous image of herself from “The Deep,” drenched, braless and timelessly seductive. 

Jackie is in Manhattan talking up her charming Hallmark movie, “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving,” which airs tomorrow night. (And again on the November 27.) We meet at the enormous Asiate restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. I arrive early. The room is nothing but windows and it is a very sunny day. Nobody is paying me any mind but still I wonder how I look under the merciless daylight. Miss Bisset suddenly appears, in fitted jeans, jacket, simple blouse. The room stops. Two very young men at the next table gawk. Have they recognized her as the internationally famous movie star? Or are they simply reacting to a beautiful woman? Either way, their expressions are priceless.

The entire restaurant seems focused on us. “I’d just as soon done this in a dark bar,” I say. She replies, “Oh, me too. But the delightful people from Hallmark put me up here, so why not take advantage of it?” She adds, as if reading my mind, “And anyway, I’ve got the good light, the fill light,” and she turns her face upward, looking out on Columbus Circle and Central Park. “You’re backlit” she says, sympathetically.

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Bisset is a great romantic beauty in the dark-haired, blue-eyed tradition of Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor. She is less delicate than Leigh, and less over-indulged-looking than Taylor. There is something very straightforward in her gaze; no nonsense. And if she has at any time made adjustments to turn back the hands of time, it’s been done with care. She is not pickled in surgical desperation, like so many others.

Bisset has had a long career, which began in earnest back in 1967 with “Two for the Road” (“fat, fat!” she exclaims remembering this movie. “That sweater hid a lot,”) and the same year she was Miss Goodthighs in “Casino Royale.” She began to be taken seriously with Francois Truffaut’s “Day for Night” and then in “Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?” But in between those movies, she made “The Deep” and contributed iconic images as instantly recognizable as Marilyn on the subway grate, or Rita Hayworth putting the blame on Mame. She would make films as varied as a beautiful TV version of “Anna Karenina” and the controversial-in-its-day, “Rich and Famous” with Candice Bergen. She is never less than excellent, and has escaped typecasting, but her looks are still an issue, though she has frequently de-glamorized herself. After 85 movies, feature films and TV projects (including seven sensational episodes on “Nip/Tuck” several seasons back), she has not, in my opinion, received her due as an actress.

She is eager for my opinion about her Hallmark movie. “It’s based on a story by Louisa May Alcott, and I was afraid … it hasn’t turned out too sweet, too, you know ‘family values?’” I assure her the film — in which she plays a wealthy woman who disrupts the lives of her daughter and granddaughter — has power. The Hallmark stamp of misty sentimentality does not overwhelm. (In fact there is bitterness in this tale of family estrangement and reconciliation. Co-stars Helene Joy and Tatiana Maslany are also superb.)

Watch the trailer for "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving," which will premiere on the Hallmark Channel Saturday, November 22, at 9 PM, below:

We get to talking about the business, and Jackie says, “What has happened? Is it technology? Is it the Internet? I find everything very glamour-less now. Who is there? Well, Nicole Kidman. I’d say she has it for this era.” This leads to a discussion of women in general, women in power (we spoke before the election, so Hillary and Sarah Palin made their way in) and women having it all. Jackie said, “But what about weaker women? I don’t mean weak, really. But all I hear is ‘women can have it all — a career, a family, a relationship. I wonder …”

I tell her I certainly don’t have it all. She sighs, “Well, I’m glad to hear somebody say it. You know, with the expectations, I feel there have to be a lot of disappointed people out there.”

Bisset has never married. Her romantic adventures have been rich, however, and for the last seven or eight years she has had a relationship with martial arts expert Emin Boztepe. Later in our conversation she asks, “Do you believe in forgiveness?” I say yes I do, but it’s sometimes impossible to forget, so is there really such a thing as total forgiveness? “Hmmmm …” she says, peering over her wine glass.