PlayBorn in Liverpool in 1946, Lynda La Plante’s first steps into TV were in front of the camera.
Working under the stage name of Lynda Marchal, she trained at RADA and went on to work with the National Theatre before appearing in classic TV series including The Professionals, The Sweeney and Minder.
It was while filming The Gentle Touch that she wrote four plot outlines and sent them to the show’s producers. All were returned as unsuitable, but on one someone had written ‘this is wonderful!’ It was all the encouragement she needed, and that brief synopsis eventually became the hugely successful TV series Widows.
But she is perhaps best known for Prime Suspect. This iconic, groundbreaking police drama, which starred Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison, ran for seven series and won an incredible array of awards, including six Baftas, the British Broadcasting Award, the Royal Television Society Writer’s Award, the Edgar Allen Poe Writer’s Award and an Emmy for Best Mini Series.
Her work proved so successful that in 1994 she set up La Plante Productions to maintain creative control over her output, and the company’s production slate to date includes Trial & Retribution, The Commander, The Governor, Supply and Demand, Killer Net, and Mind Games.
Off-screen, she’s written a number of internationally best-selling novels, including The Legacy, Bella Mafia, Entwined, Cold Shoulder, Cold Blood, Cold Heart, Sleeping Cruelty, Royal Flush, Above Suspicion, The Red Dahlia and Clean Cut.
In June 2008 Lynda was recognised for her services to literature, drama and charity in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and awarded a CBE.
See pics of Lynda and her TV creations
