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Lesley-Anne Down believes she’s already used up three of her nine lives.
The actress, who takes on the Iron Lady opposite Dennis Quaid in “Reagan,” has shown plenty of steel off-screen, recalling “three times in my life when I should have been killed by other people.”
For Down, known for her roles in “North and South” and “Upstairs, Downstairs,” the unsettling experiences began when she was just 10 years old.
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“I remember there was a little girl, one of a number of children who were murdered and buried on the moors in England,” the British star told Fox News Digital. “There was a little girl who had dark hair and blue eyes and was my age, 10. Her name was Leslie Ann Downey. My mother got phone calls when this little girl’s identity was announced.”
“It wasn’t me, of course,” said Down. “But it certainly freaked her out. Leslie Ann Downey was about six months younger than me. It turned out there were two people, a man and a woman. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. They were the killers.”
Brady and Hindley murdered five children between 1963 and 1965, with several of their victims buried on Saddleworth Moor in northern England, according to The Associated Press. The case became known as the Moors murders.
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Hindley and Brady were arrested in 1965 and later convicted of murders connected to the case. The five victims were Downey, Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett and Edward Evans, who ranged in age from 10 to 17. Bennett’s body has never been found.
According to accounts of the case, Downey was abducted after Hindley asked her to help carry packages to a car.
Hindley died in 2002 while serving a life sentence. Brady died in a psychiatric hospital in 2017.
The case frightened Down’s family. But it wouldn’t be the last time danger came close to home.
“A year later, my mother and I were coming back from the launderette with the washing,” Down said. “I ran ahead. I left the washing, I left my mother and just ran ahead. I ran uphill and then over a footbridge. As I ran over the footbridge, a man came from the other side. He’s walking towards me. He stops in the middle of the footbridge and says, ‘Hello.’ He then was going to put me in his car.”
“He told me he needed a babysitter, and he would call my parents when we got to his house,” Down said. “I remember having one foot in the car. Seeing my mother broke the spell. Then he was gone. But I still remember that horrible feeling swooping in before my mother came.”
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Years later, when Down was 18, she ordered a taxi. But when a car pulled up in the countryside, she climbed in and quickly noticed something was wrong.
“As soon as he’s driving away, I’m already feeling that horrible feeling,” Down said. “I looked around and there were no radios or anything, like a taxi is supposed to have. So I said, ‘Could you pull over, please?’ He said, ‘Oh no, we don’t need to pull over. We’ll be there soon.'”
Down said she decided to jump from the moving car.
“I opened the door and threw myself out of the 25-mile an hour car,” she said. “I fell onto the curb in a puddle. I was covered in blood. There was nobody around. What did he do? He pulled the car door shut and drove off at top speed. I didn’t freeze up because I couldn’t. That feeling was familiar to me. I’ve been through it.”
Down, now 72, earned a Golden Globe nomination for her role opposite Patrick Swayze in “North and South.” She also starred opposite Peter Sellers in “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” and Harrison Ford in “Hanover Street.” She later appeared on the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful.”
When asked what advice she would give to women pursuing a career in Hollywood, Down had a warning: “Never go anywhere alone.”
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“Always have your agent or your publicist with you at all times,” she said. “Even if they have to be on the phone a lot and out in the lobby, just always have somebody with you at all times as you chase your dreams.”
“I made a decision many, many years ago, actually about 2012, that I wanted out,” Down said. “I was in a position where I didn’t have to. Things were very good. And I was fortunate to have all my eggs in a basket and make a choice.”
Down has since moved from California to Georgia. She also said she has no regrets about turning down two opportunities to play a Bond girl.
“I guess my thought process was maybe a little old-fashioned, but being a Bond girl didn’t really resonate with me,” she explained. “Being a Bond girl was skimpy clothing, pretty face, not much dialogue, no acting involved, kissing James at the end in a spacecraft or whatever. I thought if I became a Bond girl, then I’d be a Bond girl for life. I didn’t want that for myself.”
The opportunity to play Thatcher came “out of the blue,” Down said. She accepted the role and said she was grateful for the experience.
“She loved and believed in England and the English people,” Down said. “Her counterpart, Mr. Reagan, also believed and loved the American people.”
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Down said leaders should “encompass what Thatcher and Reagan both believed,” including doing “anything and everything they can for the longevity and success of the nation.”
For Down, taking on the role of Thatcher became another unexpected chapter in a life that has repeatedly taken surprising turns. But these days, the actress is content with where those turns have taken her.
“My choice was to live the life I’m living now,” she said.
“Reagan” is available to rent or buy on digital platforms.
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