Lesley-Anne Down Denies Patrick Swayze Romance Rumors 40 Years After Filming ‘North and South’

Patrick Swayze‘s breakout role as Confederate soldier Orry Main in the 1985 miniseries North and South came with a side of dating rumors involving costar Lesley-Anne Down. However, according to Down, their relationship never turned romantic.

“We were very, very friendly and close,” Down, 72, told People in an interview published on Tuesday, September 22, clarifying that she and the actor, who was already married to longtime wife Lisa Niemi at the time, did not have an affair. “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 — who previously told People that filming love scenes with Down was the “scariest thing” he has done — tragically died at 57 in 2009 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Down had nothing but kind words to say about her former costar.

“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,” she told the outlet.

While the Dirty Dancing star’s relationship with Down was purely friendly, another North and South star previously said she allegedly had an affair with Swayze while filming.

“Both of us were married,” Kirstie Alley — who played Virgilia Hazard in the miniseries — told Entertainment Tonight in 2012, per New York Daily News.

According to the late Cheers alum, their relationship was emotional but never crossed the line to physical.

“But again, I think what we did was worse because I think when you fall in love with someone when you’re married, you jeopardize your own marriage and their marriage,” she said at the time. “It’s doubly bad.”