Lynda La Plante has lived an illustrious life and has the stories to prove it. From her early days in Liverpool to her unexpected acceptance into RADA, joining peers Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt and Ian McShane; from beginning her scriptwriting career with Widows and Prime Suspect and becoming a BAFTA award-winning writer and producer, Lynda's tales of stage and screen will have you gasping in shock as well as laughing in the aisles. Lynda has an important story to tell, one of breaking down stereotypes and blazing a trail for others along the way. Starting her writing career in the eighties, an era of entrenched gender inequality both in front of and behind the camera, Lynda faced innumerable obstacles to her vision. Getting Away with Murder shows how she overcame them to create generation-defining television and become a multi-million-copy Sunday Times bestselling author. Still at the very top of her game, Lynda shares her story on her own terms, in a way that's guaranteed to make you laugh, cry and be inspired to live a life without limits.
Author
Lynda La Plante (born Lynda Titchmarsh) is a British author, screenwriter, and erstwhile actress (her performances in Rentaghost and other programmes were under her stage name of Lynda Marchal), best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series. Her first TV series as a scriptwriter was the six part robbery series Widows, in 1983, in which the widows of four armed robbers carry out a heist planned by their deceased husbands. In 1991 ITV released Prime Suspect which has now run to seven series and stars Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. (In the United States Prime Suspect airs on PBS as part of the anthology program Mystery!) In 1993 La Plante won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her work on the series. In 1992 she wrote at TV movie called Seekers, starring Brenda Fricker and Josette Simon, produced by Sarah Lawson. She formed her own television production company, La Plante Productions, in 1994 and as La Plante Productions she wrote and produced the sequel to Widows, the equally gutsy She's Out (ITV, 1995). The name "La Plante" comes from her marriage to writer Richard La Plante, author of the book Mantis and Hog Fever. La Plante divorced Lynda in the early 1990s. 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 & Retribution (ITV 1997-), the widows' revenge of the murders of their husbands & children Bella Mafia (1997) (starring Vanessa Redgrave), the undercover police unit operations of Supply and Demand (ITV 1998), videogame/internet murder mystery Killer Net (Channel 4 1998) and the female criminal profiler cases of Mind Games (ITV 2001). Two additions to the Trial and Retribution miniseries were broadcast during 2006.
