Crime writer Lynda La Plante appeared on 'The Late Late Show' on 18 November 1994.
Crime writer Lynda La Plante appeared on 'The Late Late Show' on 18 November 1994. Following a 20-year career as an actress, she turned to writing. Her first TV series, the 1983 drama 'Widows', about the widows of bank robbers who carry out a robbery planned by their dead husbands, was hugely successful and led to book-publishing deals. In this extract, La Plante tells Gay Byrne about the genesis of her best-known TV series 'Prime Suspect'.
The police procedural stars Helen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison and the first series was broadcast in 1991. La Plante says the series came about when she lied to an editor who asked her for ideas and said yes, she had a great one, about a female homicide detective. When she went to research it, she discovered that there were only four high-ranking female plain clothes officers dealing with murder because it was usually a male-dominated world and something went "bing" in her head.
