New Zealand holds a special place in Julia McKenzie's heart. The 73-year-old Londoner was on holiday in the North Island in 2008 when she learned that ITV had selected her to succeed Geraldine McEwan as the lead in its popular adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple murder mysteries.
"My husband and I were staying with some friends near Russell when I heard that I'd got the part. They flew a script out to me," she recalls. "I get quite a lot of mail from New Zealand. I stayed a lot in Auckland and I celebrated a birthday on a Coromandel beach, which was really long and amazing."
With numerous esteemed actresses, including Margaret Rutherford, Joan Hickson and Angela Lansbury, having taken on the Miss Marple character, McKenzie initially found the prospect daunting. "It's not without it's worries," she admits. "When you're reading an Agatha Christie story, you visualise what she looks like and as an actor you have to hope that you fit in physically with people's visualisation of her."
Miss Marple is repeating on Prime TV, Saturdays at 8.30pm.
- Herald On Sunday / View
Marple's mission
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