Actress Lesley-Anne Down Left California for Georgia, Citing Wildfires and Politics
British actress Lesley-Anne Down, 72, says she traded Malibu for a quiet life outside Atlanta after growing weary of California's worsening wildfires and liberal politics. She now feeds deer at her Georgia home and recently played Margaret Thatcher in the 2024 biopic Reagan.
British actress Lesley-Anne Down has traded the Pacific coastline for the suburbs of Atlanta, saying she left California after decades in Malibu because of the state's worsening wildfires and its liberal-leaning politics. Down, 72, moved with her husband, cinematographer and director Don E. FauntLeRoy, and their son George to the Atlanta area around the time she took the role of Margaret Thatcher in the 2024 biopic «Reagan».
Down, best known for her roles in the 1976 film «The Pink Panther Strikes Again» and the 1978 film «The Great Train Robbery», lived in Southern California for decades after moving from Britain to pursue a Hollywood career. She and FauntLeRoy spent time in Malibu in the early 1980s before buying their first house together on Point Dume, where they lived until 2020. She described the area as a wonderful place to raise their older children, who are now in their middle and late 40s.
But the environment changed, she said, both in terms of people and fire danger. During her first decade in Malibu, Down recalled only one fire that forced her to evacuate. Not more than two years later, another fire drove all of her friends in Corral Canyon from their homes. She remembered hosting a house full of fire victims because, as she put it, no one wants to sleep on a cot at Malibu High School. Her husband was often away working when the fires occurred.
The Woolsey fire in 2018 was the final straw. Down recalled being escorted by police over Kanan Dume Road, which she said looked like the moon at that point. She credited her young son George, then a typical Malibu-raised surfer, with saving their home. After that, she said she could not take it anymore.
The growing frequency of wildfires was not the only factor. Down said she was also increasingly troubled by California's shift toward more liberal politics and policies. She described the current climate as a politically correct world where people can only be one thing, calling it a very frightening environment. In her view, the United States is rushing at light speed toward what her native Britain has become, and she said America tends to follow England by about eight to 10 years.
Down made a point of endorsing fellow Briton Steve Hilton, a California gubernatorial candidate, calling him a smart man. She said she has never made any secret of where she stands politically, even though her views were different when she was young. She added that because of her politics, her chances of working in the industry, even if she wanted to, are slim to none. She said that if she were 35 and needed work, she would either have to be very brave and very poor or keep quiet and pretend to be something she is not.
For Down, the role in «Reagan» came out of the blue and felt somewhat fortuitous. She noted that COVID-19 had left the pool of actresses smaller. The part came around the same time she, her husband and their son moved to Georgia, a place FauntLeRoy knew from work ties and where George, who wanted to work in the industry, could thrive.
Down said she never really wanted to be in the industry in the first place. Life just happened, she said, and she ended up on a roller coaster. She felt very much part of the old school of Hollywood and never transitioned well to what she called the new school of actors. When she attempted that transition, she was not happy, and she described the industry as having changed radically and, in her view, become less professional.
Now settled outside Atlanta, Down described her life as the ultimate suburban countryside. She spends her days feeding the deer that frequent her residence, a quiet contrast to the fires and political debates she left behind in California.
