The Civil War miniseries aired in 1985

NEED TO KNOW

• Lesley-Anne Down reflects on working closely with Patrick Swayze during the filming of North and South
• She denies rumors of a romantic relationship with Swayze, despite their close friendship on and off-set
• Down admits she never found Swayze attractive, even though she acknowledges his good looks and charisma

Lesley-Anne Down is opening up about working closely with the late Patrick Swayze on their television miniseries, North and South.

North and South aired on ABC in 1985, starring Swayze in his breakout role as Confederate soldier Orry Main. Down played his wife, Madeline Fabray LaMotte Main.

The two starred alongside screen legends Elizabeth Taylor and Jimmy Stewart, with Swayze at one point telling PEOPLE shooting love scenes like those with Down was “possibly the scariest thing I do,” adding, “doing something so personal and giving people out there the opportunity to see if you’re a good kisser or not.”

Down, now 72, was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in the 1980s miniseries.

The actress rose to fame in the British show Upstairs, Downstairs, which aired on PBS in the U.S., and went on to appear in films like The Pink Panther Strikes Again, A Little Night Music, as well as television projects such as Dallas, and The Bold and the Beautiful.

Speaking of Swayze, Down noted, “I’m not sure that everybody is exactly what they appear or purport to be. But for a year of my life, I worked with him in very close surroundings, not just on the set but off the set consistently.”

“We were very, very friendly and close,” she says, adding that many on set thought the two were engaged in something romantic — but they never were: “No, because he used to come spend the night or the day, and he’d disappear. He’d go off with Kirstie [Alley], I remember, and he’d come back and the film crew would be going, ‘Where’s Patrick?’ And who knew? He used to stop being Patrick for a few days, and then there’d been knock on my door at dawn, and I opened the door and, ‘Hello, Patrick.’ “‘Hide me.’ ‘Okay, come.’ And then, ‘I’m so tired.’ ‘Okay, get some breakfast, go to bed,’ whatever.”

She added: “There was a lot of that that went on.”

Alley, who died in 2022 at age 71 from colon cancer, also starred in North and South, as Virgilia Hazard, a strong woman from the North who fought against slavery.

In 2012, Alley claimed she and Swayze had developed romantic feelings for one another while making the miniseries. Both were married at the time.

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“There was no Patrick [in her love life],” Down added. “But people thought, and I wouldn’t actually… It’s so funny, because I mean, as good-looking as he was — and he was — and as charismatic as he was — and he was — I didn’t fancy him.”

Swayze died in 2009 of pancreatic cancer at age 57.

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