Lynda La Plante CBE

Lynda La Plante, CBE

Since 1993 Lynda La Plante has spearheaded La Plante Productions. In that time the company has produced a stunning slate of innovative dramas with proven success and enduring international appeal. La Plante’s philosophy is that the quality of the production is at the forefront of everything and it is precisely this quality that has set the benchmark for the company.  

Born in Liverpool Lynda trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Work with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company led to a career as a television actress with regular roles in dramas such as Fox, Minder and The Sweeney.

While filming The Gentle Touch as an actress, La Plante 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!’ That was all the encouragement La Plante needed, and that brief synopsis eventually became the phenomenally successful TV series Widows. La Plante’s original scripts for the highly acclaimed Prime Suspect (starring Helen Mirren) garnered many awards and set a new standard for television drama.

La Plante Production Slate to date includes: twenty two episodes of Trial & Retribution, starring David Hayman; commissioned directly for the ITV Network. The show has starred many of the UK’s best known actors including Victoria Smurfit, Simon Callow, Charles Dance, Hugh Dancy, Tamsin Egerton, Iain Glen, Richard E. Grant, Rhys Ifans, Gemma Jones, Corin Redgrave, Kierston Wareing and Greg Wise.  As well as an internationally renowned cast Trial and Retribution has garnered impressive ratings and award nominations over its 12 years on British television and in the international market place.

The Commander, starring Amanda Burton in the title role, premiered on ITV1 in February 2003.  Following its success a further five series have aired; with The Commander; ‘Abduction’ aired in autumn 2008 with impressive viewing figures.

Two series of The Governor, starring Janet McTeer, a television film and subsequent series of Supply and Demand; Killer Net, a cyberspace thriller and Mind Games, a pilot drama starring Fiona Shaw.

For the US, La Plante co-wrote and executive produced The Prosecutors (starring Stockard Channing) with Tom Fontana (Oz) for NBC. The Konigsberg Company produced Bella Mafia, a four-hour mini series for CBS which Lynda adapted from her novel of the same name.  
 
La Plante has also co-produced with ABC her adaptation of Widows (starring Mercedes Ruehl), produced Cold Shoulder (starring Kelly McGillis) as a pilot for New Regency/CBS and The Warden (starring Ally Sheedy), a two hour pilot for TNT, which is a changed format of her highly successful series The Governor. La Plante executive produced Daniel Petrie Jnr’s adaptation of her show Framed, which aired on TNT and starred Sam Neill and Rob Lowe.

Above Suspicion, a two-hour drama filmed in London launched a major new female detective in a gripping crime thriller for ITV1 which transmitted early in 2009. Based on La Plante’s best selling novel, the two-part drama introduced DC Anna Travis, played by Kelly Reilly, a young and ambitious officer who is fast-tracking her way through the ranks, eager to prove herself to be as successful as her late father.  The show also stars Ciarán Hinds and Jason Durr. 

With the critically acclaimed premiere of Above Suspicion series one which kicked off ITV1's 2009 drama season with 8m viewers, ITV1 commissioned a second series - Above Suspicion: The Red Dahlia (based on Lynda’s second Anna Travis novel) which aired in Jan 2010. Above Suspicion: Deadly Intent (based on Lynda’s forth Anna Travis novel) is due to start filming in the summer of 2010. 

La Plante International launched in 1993 as the company’s own distribution company, in order to control the rights of its production slate and oversee foreign sales. La Plante International is committed to close involvement with its international broadcasters in order to cater for each territory's specific marketing needs.

Awards Prime Suspect (starring Helen Mirren) garnered many awards including six British Academy Awards (BAFTA), 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. La Plante won the 1997 Liverpool Echo Arts Award for best television writer for Trial & Retribution and the series was nominated for an Indie and a Royal Television Society Award. Widows was nominated for a BAFTA award in 1982.

La Plante bestowed John Moores University with a creative writing scholarship in her hometown of Liverpool and is an honorary member of the British Film Institute. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has also awarded Lynda with the Dennis Potter Writers Award.

On 14th June 2008 Lynda was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List (Writer and Producer for services to Literature, Drama and to Charity). 

On 3rd October 2009, Lynda was honoured at the Cologne Conference International Film and Television Festival with the prestigious TV Spielfilm Award for her television adaptation of her novel, Above Suspicion.  Later the same month (21st October) Lynda was inaugurated into the Crime Thriller Writer’s Hall of Fame.  An event that was televised by ITV3. 

Books penned by Lynda La Plante include: The Legacy, The Talisman, Bella Mafia, Entwined, Cold Shoulder, Cold Blood, Cold Heart, Sleeping Cruelty, Royal Flush, Above Suspicion, The Red Dahlia, Clean Cut, Deadly Intent and Silent Scream have all been international best-sellers.  Blind Fury, Lynda’s latest novel, is due for release in the summer of 2010. Lynda La Plante is published by Simon & Schuster. 

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