'I met the Yorkshire Ripper, Dennis Nilsen and Charles Bronson. I wanted to know what evil felt like.' Author LYNDA LA PLANTE’s withering verdict on the notorious killers (and celebrities) she's met By Michael Odell For You Magazine Published: 08:01, 31 August 2024 | Updated: 08:01, 31 August 2024 e-mail View comments In my life I’ve brushed off people being f*****g rude too often,’ says Lynda La Plante.
‘Sometimes one has to hit back.’ So petite she’s almost lost in the folds of a battleship-size sofa, La Plante is holding court in the wood-panelled front room of her West London home. Baftas adorn the mantelpiece and a Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger – which she won earlier this year – is displayed on a table next to her.
Lynda La Plante photographed by Lord Snowdon, 1986 La Plante, 81, is most famous for her TV dramas Widows and Prime Suspect , as well as more than 30 crime novels that have sold well over three million copies. But we are here to discuss her new memoir, Getting Away With Murder . It tells how Lynda Titchmarsh grew up in postwar Liverpool, won a scholarship to Rada at 15 and acted as Lynda Marchal before becoming the writer Lynda La Plante (she took the surname from her ex-husband Richard, who she divorced in 1996).
Getting Away With Murder is La Plante’s real-life story and is ‘quite an angry book’, she says. Born in 1943, she had a tough childhood. Her mother Flossie suffered mental health issues following the death of La P.