Maxwell Caulfield was asked to leave his British drama school and ended up making his name in US glossy drama series Dynasty. Now he's back as a doctor in top-rated BBC 1 drama series Casualty and feels his character is reigniting his love of acting.

Steve Pratt reports CASUALTY'S latest recruit Maxwell Caulfield was too much like the American rebel hero figures he admired and copied in his late teens and early twenties. His behaviour got him tossed out of The Drama Centre where he was studying.

"After suggesting I see the school psychologist, they showed me the door quite quickly because they thought I was a somewhat disruptive influence," he says. "They thought I wasn't mature enough for the kind of schooling they had in mind. I was too busy being a slouching punk."

His solution to gaining his all-important Equity card, to enable him to work as an actor, was an unusual one. He became a go-go dancer at the Raymond Revue Bar in London's Soho district, living above a topless bar in Great Windmill Street.

"I didn't fancy carrying a spear and making cups of tea in rep theatre for nine months, which is what you had to do to get an Equity card back then," he admits.

He only lasted ten weeks of dancing to Pink Floyd for German and Japanese tourists before getting embroiled in a brawl on stage.

"All of a sudden I could afford a Suzuki motorcycle. It was great fun while it lasted but I was glad as hell when it was over," he says.

Feeling stifled, Caulfield jetted off to America, where he's spent much of his adult life, and eventually became one of the stars of glossy Dynasty spin-off, The Colbys.

Now 43, he's back in Britain to play consultant paediatrician Jim Brodie in the new series of BBC1's Casualty, beginning this weekend. His character has, we're told, a roving eye for the ladies and an air of transatlantic glamour. No mention of his medical skills, though.

"I went to Hollywood sooner that I'd meant to," recalls Caulfield. "The move from being discovered on Broadway and being thrust into a three-picture deal with a major Hollywood studio all happened very quickly."

The move to the US led to him meeting his wife, actress Juliet Mills, whom he calls "the great steadying influence on my life". He was 21 and she was 39 when they appeared together in The Elephant Man.

He moved back with her to LA, where they still live with their daughter Melissa. His one regret about filming Casualty in Bristol is that he's living away from his wife, although he's close to her family as he's staying at the home of his father-in-law, Sir John Mills. Juliet remains back in LA working on the daytime soap, Passions, playing an eccentric New England witch.

"She has been very supportive and believes in what I'm doing - Casualty being a stalwart of British television," he says. "We never relish the prospect of long-term separation, but we recognise that it's part and parcel of the business and it's nice for once that we're both making money at the same time. Usually one of us is, and one of us isn't. That insecurity comes with the profession. There's always a price to pay and, in this case, it's the distance." Filming Casualty is very different to his early days in Hollywood, when he was chosen from thousands of hopefuls to star in Grease 2 opposite another unknown called Michelle Pfeiffer. They were hailed as "overnight sensations" and he was promised the movie would make him a star, only to see it flop at the box office.

He's glad the movie has found an afterlife through TV and video. "It shows up regularly and has a cult-like status, which I'm proud of," he says

. Then came Dynasty and The Colbys, in which Caulfield was cast as bad boy Miles Colby. When the series ended, he played on Broadway in Entertaining Mr Sloane and An Inspector Calls.

Returning here has, he says, reignited his love of acting - not to mention recalling the first aid training he received as a boy scout in West London as a child.

As someone who never made it past O-levels, he finds it amusing to be credited with enough intelligence to play a doctor. He's been reading up on the human anatomy to prepare for the role.

He's pleased with the character of Jim Brodie, who's "a bit of a live wire and a bit of a romantic". What's more, he adds, he gets to interact with a lot of "little shrunken actors", adding: "It's certainly never dull working with children."

Casualty returns to BBC1 with a special two-part episode at 8.15pm on Saturday and 8pm on Sunday