'Downton brought it all back to me' Lesley-Anne Down on how playing Lady  Georgina in Upstairs Downstairs made her the toast of Hollywood

  By Lina Das

PUBLISHED:21:00 GMT, 12  October 2012| UPDATED:21:00 GMT, 12 October 2012

Lesley-Anne Down knows all there is to know  about period drama.

Long before Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary  Crawley, she was the original imperious rose – the captivating beauty Lady  Georgina Worsley whose flawless complexion lit up the drawing rooms of Edwardian  Britain in the original Upstairs Downstairs, 40 years ago.

The role, she admits, ‘changed my life’, and  launched a career that took her from a subsidised flat in west London – where  she had to take her turn scrubbing stairs with other tenants – to a luxurious  home in Malibu, California, where we meet today.

Lesley-Anne Down knows all there is to know about period  drama

Her husband, Don, is pottering around and  her younger sister Angela is visiting from the UK.

With a third series of Julian Fellowes’ award-winning Downton Abbey underway, Lesley is comparing its popularity with  Upstairs Downstairs. ‘Downton is a big hit in America,’ she says.

‘It’s very nice to look at, and everybody’s  doing a fine job with the characters they’re portraying. But the girls in the  show all think they’re lovely because they’re doing this,’ she says, turning her  head to the side and tilting her face upwards.

Downton’s success inevitably led to  unfavourable comparisons with Upstairs Downstairs Mark II – the BBC revival of  the original drama that aired on Boxing Day 2010 and was axed earlier this year  after just two seasons.

‘I thoroughly enjoyed the new version,’ says  Lesley. ‘Perhaps one of the reasons it didn’t do so well was down to bad timing.  If they’d got their revival in before Downton, things might have been different.

'As it was, I didn’t feel the new version had  the depth of character of the original and it might just be me, but I thought  all the women in it, like Lady Agnes and Lady Persie [Keeley Hawes and Claire  Foy], looked kind of identical. I kept thinking to myself, “Who am I looking at  here?” There also just seemed to be the man of the house, Sir Hallam [Ed  Stoppard], and no other men. The cast seemed strangely small, which definitely  isn’t the case with Downton.’

Downton's success inevitably led to unfavourable  comparisons with Upstairs Downstairs Mark II - the BBC revival of the original  drama that aired on Boxing Day 2010 and was axed earlier this year after just  two seasons

Seeing Matthew and Mary’s wedding brought  back memories of Lesley’s own nuptials on the original Upstairs, when her  character Georgina’s on-off relationship with Lord Stockbridge (played by  Anthony Andrews) provided a climax to the show’s four-year run. ‘It was probably  the aristocratic wedding of the year,’ says Lesley.

‘We had real champagne while filming the  reception, then Anthony and I rode off in this beautiful vintage Rolls-Royce. It  was a very sad episode to film, though, because it was the very last one of the  series.’ Though thankfully not as sad as Lady Edith’s jilting a couple of weeks  ago.

‘Upstairs Downstairs was just huge [around a  billion viewers watched it every week in 70 countries around the world] and the  producer asked Anthony and me to come back for a spin-off series. But I didn’t  think it would be the same without people like Angela Baddeley [who played the  cook, Mrs Bridges, and who died just a couple of months after the run  ended].’

With her Downton wedding having been shrouded  in secrecy, Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary recently admitted she ‘felt a bit like  Kate Middleton with all the security’, even adding, ‘you get those wedding day  nerves’.

For Lesley though, there were no such  jitters. ‘I’m probably not enough of a method actress to have felt nervous,’ she  laughs, ‘although I remember my wedding dress from the show and it was actually  a Twenties version of what Kate Middleton wore for her wedding.

'Because they were absolute sticklers for  detail, everything on the show was made by hand, so I felt as though I spent my  whole life being fitted for clothes.’

‘It’s funny there was so much secrecy  surrounding the Downton wedding because there wasn’t any at all surrounding ours – I don’t think anyone even knew we were getting married! If it happened now,  the publicity machine would go into overdrive.

'But Upstairs succeeded on its merits – I  remember being in New York and hearing that people were rushing home to watch  it. And it was a lovely cast too. There were no egos, and we loved going out for  a drink afterwards.’ Despite the terrible pay – the 18-year-old Lesley earned £300 an episode compared to the £300,000 she later made for six weeks’ work on  Dallas – Upstairs Downstairs gave Lesley a calling card to the States.

She soon found herself starring opposite  stars such as Harrison Ford in war drama Hanover Street and Sean Connery in  Victorian heist movie The First Great Train Robbery. With her sensual looks – which are still ravishing (‘I had my eyelids done recently. Do they look good?’) – she attracted an awful lot of male attention.

She went through a divorce – from William  Friedkin, director of The French Connection and The Exorcist – described by her  lawyer as ‘the most vicious custody case this town has ever seen’ – and fought  off the advances of legendary Tinseltown womanisers including Jack Nicholson and  Warren Beatty.

‘I was at Jack’s hotel, reading for a part I  was utterly unsuitable for, and when I asked him why I was there. He said, “I  just wanted to meet you – you’re hot.” We did kiss – he was a lovely kisser – but he wanted to have sex and I said no. He tried everything on the planet but  wasn’t ungentlemanly – he ordered champagne and strawberries and got on his  knees and I still said no, so he said OK and we just had a nice  chat.’

Wasn’t Lesley remotely tempted? ‘No,’ she  says, ‘but Harrison Ford – I was tempted and did. I was in lusty love with him.  He was very quiet but divine. It lasted as long as the filming did – about six  to eight weeks. It didn’t hurt when it ended... it was just a nice time.’

Lesley’s acting career has spanned over 40  years and included films such as The Pink Panther Strikes Again with Peter  Sellers as well as soaps like The Bold And The Beautiful, and US Civil War  mini-series North And South.

But after so many professional triumphs,  Lesley faced a personal crisis four years ago when she underwent a double  mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer. ‘Am I all-clear now? I’m  still alive, and that’s all you can say. But getting something life-threatening  changes you because it makes you realise every day really does count.’

Next for Lesley is a new horror film,  Haunted. ‘I play a mother who’s a little crazy, though that’s probably the  product of her meeting a really bad man. I know something about that!’ she  smiles.

Given her Upstairs Downstairs history and  those timeless looks, one might imagine she’d have been offered a role on  Downton, but she insists, ‘Oh no – they haven’t asked!’ Well, maybe they should.  There’s no question Lesley-Anne Down could give Maggie Smith and Shirley  MacLaine a run for their money.

Haunted  is released later this year.

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