Lesley-Anne Down dropped from The Bold and the Beautiful

British actress Lesley-Anne Down has been dropped from the regular cast of CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.

The actress has not been offered a new contract with the daytime serial and will not remain part of the regular cast; she will however continue to appear in a recurring capacity. The news of Down’s departure, of sorts, from The Bold and the Beautiful was broken by her official website as a note was posted.

‘Bradley Bell has decided not to renew Lesley-Anne Down’s contract on B&B. Lesley-Anne wants all of you to know how special and important you all are to her. Your continued effort and support of Lesley-Anne is so appreciated by her. When one door closes another one opens. This thankfully has been the case in this instance. We will let you know what it is when the time is right.”  – Note on Lesley-Anne Down’s website.

Lesley-Anne Down plays Jacqueline Payne Monroe on The Bold and the Beautiful and runs a fashion company which is a rival to that of Forrester Creations. The actress joined the cast of the CBS series in 2003 having previously played Lady Sheraton in NBC‘s Days of our Lives and Olivia Richards in the cult Aaron Spelling soap Sunset Beach.

It is perhaps though for her prime-time roles that the actress is best known to a wider audience. The actress played Georgina Worsley in the hugely popular Upstairs Downstairs (original series) in the 1970s for three seasons. The period drama has since been revived by the BBC in the UK with the drama picking up several years after the close of the original with only actress Jean Marsh – so far – reprising her role from the LWT series. Down’s other prime-time roles include North & South and Dallas in which she played Stephanie Rogers in 1990 for an eight episode stint.