Down Time

BEACH's Lesley-Anne Down Put A Painful Child Custody Fight Behind Her and Now laughs at Life

Just the Facts

Birthday: March 17
Gimme a break? "My husband band is always saying I don't know how to relax."
The Write Stuff: "I've had an interesting life, but I would never wirte a book while my kids are young."
Is this what "NO-Brainer" Means? " I loved when [TV Son] Sean was in the hospital, and five episodes later, he was hanging out at The Deep. I said, 'But Darling, you just had major brain surgery."
Best Friend: "My husband, of course."

Looking at her elegant and flawless beauty, one would never guess that lurking no-too- deep under the skin of British-born actress Lesley-Anne Down is a crack-up who doesn't take herself so seriously. Spend any amount of time with her,a nd you get the sense that she loves making fun of just about anything. Especially herself. Down has a raucous sense of humor, in fact -- not that she has ever gotten credit for it, despite having a cache of comedies on her resume.

So one would imagine she must tire of always being referred to in the media as "the lovely Lesley-Anne Down," right? They rarely say she is funny, or a good actress. It's always ...about her looks.

"Are you kidding me?" she says, cracking herself up. "Do I mind being called lovely? I read the trades when they first announced SUNSET BEACH and they called me the verteran. And I ran to the producers 'What is this? The veteran Lesley-Anne Down? Excuse me.' That makes me sound so ancient. David Niven was a veteran, Myrna Loy was a veteran. I am not a veteran!"
She is funny.
And lovely. Sorry, Les, we couldn't resist.

Ever since she began modeling in her home country -- at the age of 10, no less -- people have remarked about her looks. Down was heard, ad nauseum, how beautiful she is. Ditto how much she reminds people of Joan Collins, which she still hears. "I've been compared to many people in my life. Joan is one of them. I've also gotten Liz Taylor, when I was younger. And Vivien Leigh. All the english actresses, really. It's heaven to be compared to anyone, especially if they're successful."

Success is something Down knows about, having been in such filmes as The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Brannigan and The Great Train Robert, not to mention ther most well-known TV credit, the MASTERPIECE THEATER classic UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS.

Well, Down might take umbrage at being called a veteran, but she has been working for several decades. So why a soap? She'd gotten tired, she says, of chasing the "one TV movie a year you're lucky to be offered." She likes to work. "Being an actress can be frustrating enough." (She is also writing screenplays using a male pseudonym.)

Nor did Down have a desire to be in a one-hour prime-time series. "Those people have no life," she says flatly. "I work three days a week and love that. It's very rare that I don't get to take my children to school or pick them up. A soap schedule also alows time for doing to the market, taking the dogs for a walk and going to the beach with my husband."

Not that she totally understands the soap genre yet. Although she loves playing Olivia ("I see her running the gamut from Mother Teresa to Jeffrey Dahmer"), Down doesn't always understand standard soap conventions. "All these people rush around talking to themselves," she laughs. "Its really quite weird, don't you think? Really weird. I beg them, 'Can't you put a dog in the scene with me, or a vision of Jesus?' Anything. It's so odd."

Welcome to soap opera, Les. One of Down's first major love scenes was a steamy romantic encounter with Ashley Hamilton, who created the role of Cole. "Its bad enough that Ashley looks like this baby," she says with a laugh, "but I've known him since he was with a little boy. I know his mother. And right before we're supposed to jump in bed, he says, "Oh, mom sends her love.' "

Her first love scene with Cole No. 2 (Eddie Cibrian) was also fraught equally uncomfortable with Eddie, at first," says Down. "Right before we're about to tape, I say, "Um, by the way, how old are you?' And he says, 'Twenty-two.' And I screamed, 'What?' I was gagging at this point. I"m old enough to be his mother!

It was Down's maternal insticts that led o her tabloid-worthy child custody fight with her ex-husband, Directory William Friedkin (of The Exorcist fame) a decade ago. They're now friends ("Time heals everything"), but so much mud was flung during their two-year battle over their son, Jack, that it took years for both parents to recover. She still can't quite believe the press brouhaha, especially in Britain. "I mean, there were wars going on, and we were on the front page at least once a week for towo years. And the papers were saying such obnoxious, horrible, gross things about me, my behavior, my family -- you name it. To them, I was the most horrible mother on the planet. And it didnt' stop them from making things up."

Down lives happily now with her husband, Don FrauntLeRoy ("a really wonderful man," she beams), a director of photography who took some of the photos that appear with this story, son Jack, now 14 and Don's daughter, Julianna, 15. His 16-year- old daughter, Season, lives with her mom, but visits often. It's pretty clear that the women who eventually got her good name (and sense of humor) back can find the sunny side of life anywhere. "The last time If lew into L.A. and the plane came through that horrible smog layer and I saw all those terrible, tiny, boring houses...all stretched out for miles...in that arid countryside," she says, laughghing, " I knew, I'm home!"