The British star began attending acting school and performing at a youth theatre club in Liverpool, where she grew up, at the age of 16. Alison considered the club a safe place, many of the teachers were excellent, but sometimes teachers from other schools would visit the course. It was one of these visiting mentors who changed the star’s life, burdening her with painful memories of sexual abuse.
One evening, the teacher offered the girl a ride home. Despite her refusals, he continued to insist. Eventually, the schoolgirl got into the man’s car, but instead of taking her home to Enfield, he drove into a secluded forest in Sefton Park. When Alison threatened to tell the club’s management, the attacker said no one would believe her. “I could kill you and dump your body in the park. No one will know it was me,” he threatened the terrified victim.
The man abused the girl for an hour, and then drove her home as if nothing had happened. Alison was too shocked to tell her parents what had happened, and it haunted her for the rest of her life. Twenty years later, in the 1980s, she came face to face with the man at Euston station in London. It was only then that Steadman found the strength to confront her attacker. “I went up to him and asked if he remembered me. I told him I would never forgive him for what he did to me in Sefton Park all those years ago,” Alison said. The Olivier Award winner also spoke of the horrific conditions on the set of the TV show Z Cars in the 1970s. A female director publicly mocked her and criticized her performance. Alison was paralyzed by fear and cried bitterly after every shift. The situation worsened after she was harassed by a man on the set. He began to harass the girl when he was giving her a lift home. “He tried to grope me. I heard him say, “You know you want to do this.” But I certainly didn’t. It was horrific,” the Mirror quotes the Pride and Prejudice star as saying.
Eventually, after meeting with determined resistance, the man dropped the passenger off at the nearest train station. “The shame and embarrassment I felt was a constant burden. That and my time on Z Cars were clear memories that disturbed my peace of mind,” the actress noted, looking back on her difficult experience.
The National Society of Film Critics Award winner for her role in The Sweetest Thing expressed her disappointment that all these years she had watched these people continue to make successful careers, while she was tormented by anxiety, doubt and the weight of her experience.
