'It was a role for a woman. I was content with what they gave me'

Forget Jane Tennison, Vera Stanhope, Cagney and Lacey, Scott and Bailey and Catherine Carwood-before them came Pepper Anderson.

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Known to her colleagues as 'Pep', she was played by Angie Dickinson in Police Woman, the first TV police drama to put a woman front and centre of the action.

Based on an original screenplay by Lincoln C Hilburn, the series revolved around Sgt Pepper Anderson, an undercover police officer working for the Criminal Conspiracy Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Sergeant William 'Bill' Crowley, Earl Holliman, was her boss and Pete Royster, Charles Dierkop, and Joe Styles, Ed Bernard, were the other half of the undercover team that investigated everything from murders to rape and drug crimes.

There were four series screened from 1974 to 1978.

Of course, there was Miss Marple but she was an amateur sleuth, a dowdy spinster with as much sex appeal has a Tellytubbies calendar.