British actress Lesley-Anne Down recounted surviving three separate life-threatening encounters during her childhood and adolescence in England, including an attempted kidnapping and leaping from a moving vehicle. The 72-year-old performer, who portrays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the biographical drama Reagan, detailed the traumatic incidents following the recent release of the film’s director’s cut.
Down stated that she believed she had used up three of her nine lives after repeatedly facing situations where she could have lost her life to violent predators. “There were three times in my life when I should have been killed by other people,” Down said, noting that the earliest trauma emerged in 1964 when she was 10 years old.
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Lesley-Anne Down and the Moors murders connection
The earliest scare occurred during the height of the Moors murders investigation, a notorious series of killings that shocked the United Kingdom between 1963 and 1965. Serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley abducted and murdered five children and teenagers aged 10 to 17, burying several victims in Saddleworth Moor. When authorities announced the abduction and murder of 10-year-old Leslie Ann Downey, Down’s family was inundated with phone calls because of the striking phonetic similarity of their names, their matching ages, and their identical dark hair and blue eyes.
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Down described how her mother feared for her safety during the national search for the serial killers, who were later apprehended and sentenced to life imprisonment in Chester on May 6, 1966. Hindley died in prison on November 15, 2002, at age 60, while Brady died on May 15, 2017, at age 79 in a high-security psychiatric hospital. Although Down was not the victim in that case, the proximity of the violence left a permanent mark on her family.
Attempted kidnapping and an escape at 25 mph
Danger returned one year later when Down was 11 years old and walking back from a local launderette with her mother. After running ahead over a pedestrian footbridge, an unknown man approached her and attempted to force her into his vehicle under the guise of needing a babysitter. Down already had one foot inside the vehicle when her mother walked into view over the bridge, causing the suspect to abandon the abduction and speed away.
At age 18, Down faced another predatory encounter after stepping into what she believed was a licensed taxi in the English countryside. After noticing the absence of official equipment and realizing the driver refused to stop along a rural road, she took drastic action to escape.
“I opened the door and threw myself out of the 25-mile an hour car,” Down 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.”
Key dates in the historical timeline
- May 6, 1966: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are convicted in Chester for the Moors murders and receive life sentences.
- November 15, 2002: Convicted serial killer Myra Hindley dies in prison at age 60.
- May 15, 2017: Serial killer Ian Brady dies in a high-security psychiatric hospital at age 79.
- August 30, 2024: The biographical film Reagan premieres in theaters across North America.
- September 25, 2026: The director’s cut of Reagan arrives in cinemas.
- October 8, 2026: Down recounts her survival experiences in a published interview.
Lesley-Anne Down issues safety warning to young actors
The identities of the man who attempted to abduct Down at age 11 and the driver who trapped her in the fake taxi at age 18 were never established, and neither perpetrator was ever apprehended. Reflecting on those survival experiences, the actress, who moved from California to Georgia around 2012, advised young women entering the entertainment industry to never travel alone and to keep their representatives nearby at all times.
