Today is the birthday of Lynda La Plante, one of the finest writers of television crime drama in the UK. After starting out as a RADA-trained actress under the name Lynda Marchal in 1969, with television roles ranging from drama to comedy, she moved easily into a screenwriting career as Lynda La Plante. Her first script for television was the womans point-of-view six-part crime drama Widows (ITV, 1983), in which four women carry out their late husbands planned armoured-car robbery. The success of this tough crime caper placed her firmly in the TV thriller writers landscape. She was perhaps the first female British television crime writer, joining the male-dominated ranks of such TV tough guy writers as Ian Kennedy Martin, Troy Kennedy Martin, and Ranald Graham. In the years following the highly popular Widows, La Plante became one of British televisions most sought-after writers of crime/underworld-themed drama. With her incredibly prolific output of well-researched, multi-part mean streets thrillers - with the narrative observed from an astute womans angle - Lynda broadened the scope of the television crime/mystery genre. Her prestige as a TV writer was assured when she created DCI Jane Tennison for the psychological police drama Prime Suspect (ITV, 1991), introducing one of British TVs most memorable characters of the 1990s (enhanced through a no-nonsense performance by Helen Mirren). In 1994 Lynda created her television company La Plante Productions and under that aegis wrote and produced the sequel to Widows, the equally gutsy Shes Out (ITV, 1995). Her output continued with The Governor(ITV, 1995-96), a series focusing on the female governor of a high security prison, and was followed by a string of ratings-pulling miniseries: the psycho-killer nightmare events of Trial and Retribution (ITV, 1997-), the undercover police unit operations of Supply and Demand (ITV, 1998), and the female criminal profiler cases of Mind Games (ITV, 2001). Into the 2000s, Lynda adapted a number of her dramas for the US. In 2001 she co-produced The Warden (2001 TNT), starring Ally Sheedy, a variation of La Plantes series The Governor. She also co-produced her adaptation of the UK hit Widows (2002 ABC) and produced the pilot of Cold Shoulder (2006 New Regency / CBS) starring Kelly McGillis, which was based on her Cold series. La Plante was also executive producer on Daniel Petrie Jnrs adaptation of her show Framed(2002 TNT) which starred Sam Neill and Rob Lowe. Lynda is also an accomplished novelist and has recently adapted and produced several of these novels for ITV as the Above Suspicion series (2009-2012). Happy birthday!
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 08:57:43 +0000
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