Zienia Merton is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 actress born in Burma. Her mother was Burmese

Bamar

The Bamar are the dominant ethnic group of Burma , constituting approximately two-thirds of the population. The Bamar live primarily in the Irrawaddy basin, and speak the Burmese language, which is also the official language of Burma. Bamar customs and identity are closely intertwined with general...

, and her father half English, half French. She was raised in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Merton's first significant science fiction credit was as Ping-Cho in the 1964 Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

story Marco Polo

Marco Polo (Doctor Who)

-CD and DVD releases:*In 2003, a three-CD set of the audio soundtrack was released, as part of Doctor Who's 40th anniversary. This CD set is unique in containing a map of Cathay as represented during the period of the Doctor's visit to China, and also explaining historical inaccuracies...

, long since lost in its original form. Her other early television appearances included Strange Report

Strange Report

Strange Report is a British television drama starring Anthony Quayle as Adam Strange. It was produced by ITC Entertainment and first broadcast in 1969....

(1968), The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), Jason King

Jason King (TV series)

Jason King was a British television series produced from 1971 to 1972. Each episode was one hour in duration , and the series had a run of one season of 26 episodes. As well as its native UK, the series was also screened in countries as far afield as Australia, Norway, Argentina and Peru...

(1971). She was a lead actress as Christina in the Dennis Potter

Dennis Potter

Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...

 television adaptation of Casanova

Casanova (1971 TV serial)

Casanova is a British television drama serial, written by television playwright Dennis Potter. Directed by Mark Cullingham and John Glenister, the serial was made by the BBC and screened on the BBC2 network in November and December 1971. It is loosely based on Italian adventurer Giacomo Casanova's...

with Frank Finlay

Frank Finlay

Francis Finlay, CBE is an English stage, film and television actor.-Personal life:Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay, a butcher. A devout Catholic, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He was educated at St...

, and appeared on The Benny Hill Show

Benny Hill

Benny Hill was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.-Early life:...

in 1972, playing the wife of Hill's Chow Mein character.

Zienia Merton also featured as Ting Ling in the film The Chairman

The Chairman

The Chairman is a 1969 spy film starring Gregory Peck. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson. The screenplay was by Ben Maddow, based on a novel by Jay Richard Kennedy.-Plot:...

(1969) with Gregory Peck

Gregory Peck

Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...

.

Space: 1999

Probably her most memorable role is that of Sandra Benes

Sandra Benes

Sandra Benes is a recurring character in the British science-fiction television series Space: 1999. She is of Western European/Burmese origin and is in her late twenties. Her role was played by actress Zienia Merton.-Character Biography:...

 in Space: 1999

Space: 1999

Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...

, the science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 series produced by Gerry Anderson

Gerry Anderson

Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....

 and Sylvia Anderson

Sylvia Anderson

Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....

 in 1973-1976, with Martin Landau

Martin Landau

Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999...

, Barbara Bain

Barbara Bain

Millicent Fogel , known professionally as Barbara Bain, is an American actress.-Early life:Bain was born in Chicago. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in sociology. She moved to New York City, where she was a dancer and high fashion model. Bain studied with...

, Barry Morse

Barry Morse

Herbert "Barry" Morse was an Anglo-Canadian actor of stage, screen, and radio best known for his roles in the ABC television series The Fugitive and the British sci-fi drama Space: 1999...

 and Catherine Schell

Catherine Schell

Katherina Freiin Schell von Bauschlott is an Hungarian-born actress best known for her work on British televison.Schell rose to fame in various British film and television productions in the 1960s and 1970s...

. In 1999 Merton reprised this role in the professionally produced short film Message from Moonbase Alpha, written by series writer Johnny Byrne. This short episode surprised everyone on its debut at the closing ceremony of the Breakaway 1999 convention in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 on September 13, 1999 - the same fictional date in the pilot episode of "Breakaway" when the moon is blasted out of Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 orbit. Regarded by many of the series' fans as the 49th and final episode, and providing a closure to the series, "Message" is included as an extra feature on The UFO and Space: 1999 Documentaries DVD, exclusively available from Fanderson

Fanderson

Fanderson is the official appreciation society for the works of Gerry Anderson. It is a not-for-profit organisation endorsed by Anderson Entertainment Ltd, Gerry Anderson Productions plc and ITC Entertainment Group Ltd...

.

Other performances

After Space: 1999

Space: 1999

Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...

, Merton performed in roles in many popular television series including Return of the Saint

Return of the Saint

Return of the Saint was a British action-adventure television series that aired for one season in 1978 and 1979 in Britain on ITV, and was also broadcast on CBS in the United States...

(1979); Grange Hill

Grange Hill

Grange Hill is a British television drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television...

, Bergerac

Bergerac (TV series)

Bergerac was a British television show set on Jersey. Produced by the BBC in association with the Seven Network, and screened on BBC1, it starred John Nettles as the title character Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, a detective in "Le Bureau des Étrangers" Bergerac was a British television show...

(1983), Angels (1983), Tenko

Tenko (TV series)

Tenko is a television drama, co-produced by the BBC and the ABC. A total of thirty episodes were produced between 1981 and 1984 for women, followed by a one-off special , Tenko Reunion, in 1985 - also for women in mind.The series dealt with the experiences of British, Australian and Dutch women...

(1984), Dempsey & Makepeace

Dempsey & Makepeace

Dempsey & Makepeace is a British television crime drama made by London Weekend Television for ITV, created and produced by Ranald Graham...

(1985), Lovejoy

Lovejoy

Lovejoy is a TV series about the adventures of Lovejoy, a British antiques dealer and faker based in East Anglia, a less than scrupulous yet likeable rogue. The episodes were based on a series of picaresque novels by John Grant...

(1986), Crime Traveller

Crime Traveller

Crime Traveller is a 1997 science fiction detective television series produced by Carnival Films for the BBC based on the premise of using time travel for the purpose of solving crimes....

(1997), Doctors (2001), Dinotopia

Dinotopia

Dinotopia is a fictional utopia created by author and illustrator James Gurney. It is the setting for the book series with which it shares its name. Dinotopia is an isolated island inhabited by shipwrecked humans and sentient dinosaurs who have learned to coexist peacefully as a single symbiotic...

(2002), Casualty

Casualty (TV series)

Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...

(1986 to 2002), EastEnders

EastEnders

EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...

(1998 to 2003), The Bill

The Bill

The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...

(1999 to 2005), Judge John Deed

Judge John Deed

Judge John Deed is a British legal drama television series produced by the BBC in association with One-Eyed Dog for BBC One. It was created by G.F. Newman and stars Martin Shaw as Sir John Deed, a High Court judge who tries to seek real justice in the cases before him. It also stars Jenny Seagrove...

(2006), Coronation Street

Coronation Street

Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...

(2008) and Wire in the Blood

Wire in the Blood

Wire in the Blood was a British crime drama television series, devised and produced by Coastal Productions for the ITV network that ran from 2002 to 2009. The series is based on characters created by Val McDermid; a university clinical psychologist, Dr Anthony "Tony" Valentine Hill , is teamed with...

(2008).

Merton rejoined fellow Space: 1999 co-star Ian McShane

Ian McShane

Ian David McShane is an English actor, director, producer, voice artist, and comedian.Despite appearing in numerous films, McShane is best known for his television roles, particularly the BBC's Lovejoy and HBO's Western drama Deadwood...

 in the 1986 LoveJoy

Lovejoy

Lovejoy is a TV series about the adventures of Lovejoy, a British antiques dealer and faker based in East Anglia, a less than scrupulous yet likeable rogue. The episodes were based on a series of picaresque novels by John Grant...

episode "The Axeman Cometh."

Just before Christmas 2008, Zienia Merton recorded a guest role in episode eight ("Samaritan") of ITV's new drama for 2009 - Law & Order: UK. Although the series premiered on 23 February 2009 some episodes were held over to appear as 'series two'. "Samaritan" received its premiere broadcast on ITV1 on Monday 11 January 2010 at 21:00.

In May 2009, Merton returned to the world of Doctor Who, 45 years after her appearance in Marco Polo. This time, she recorded a special episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures

The Sarah Jane Adventures

The Sarah Jane Adventures is a British science fiction television series, produced by BBC Cymru Wales for CBBC, created by Russell T Davies and starring Elisabeth Sladen...

, starring Elisabeth Sladen

Elisabeth Sladen

Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen was an English actress best known for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in the British television series Doctor Who. She was a regular cast member from 1973 to 1976, alongside both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and reprised the role many times in subsequent decades, both on...

. In episodes 3.5/3.6 "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith", broadcast on BBC One on 29/30 October 2009, she worked alongside special guest star David Tennant

David Tennant

David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...

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External links