Star Maidens

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LIZ BECKER
Played by LISA HARROW
German Character name: Liz Barry
German Voice Artist: Almut Eggert

LIZ is the Earth scientist taken hostage by the Medusans and held in luxurious custody while her male colleague (and possibly lover?) Rudi is sent on punishing work details. It falls to Liz to act as a female voice of reason in contrast with the cold-hearted Octavia and occasionally dizzy Fulvia. By far the strongest female character of the series, an independent 70s woman unburdened by the reversion to stereotype demonstrated by the rest of the female cast. Even Liz’s ‘screamer’ episode, Creatures of the Mind, has her continue to display a calm, rational and intelligent streak.

LISA HARROW was born in New Zealand in 1943. She later relocated to England to pursue an acting career. She also married the Irish actor Sam Neill who, like her, had grown up in New Zealand. An RSC actress she made inroads into film and television in the mid-70s with appearances in the two James Herriot films All Creatures Great and Small (1974) and It Shouldn’t Happen To A Vet (1975) although she took no part in the resulting BBC TV series, Carol Drinkwater taking the role she vacated.

British TV guest roles in the 70s included The Professionals (The Rack) and it was the role of Anna Davis in the Space:1999 episode The Testament of Arkadia that led most directly to her appointment in Star Maidens. Post-Star Maidens she took another genre role (albeit one far removed from the glitz and gadgets of Maidens!) as Lynn Blake in the second season of the downbeat science-fiction thriller 1990 (BBC2 1978) which also starred Edward Woodward. A far better actress than her role in Star Maidens demanded, perhaps her finest TV moments came in the successful BBC mini series Nancy Astor (1982), in which she took the lead as Britain’s first woman MP. She has continued to appear regularly on American TV in the 90s as well as taking guest spots in the British detective series Inspector Morse (The Sins Of The Fathers), Poirot, Kavanagh QC and the Ruth Rendell Mysteries.

For a full CV, see her entry on the Internet Movie DataBase