Any articles that mention Lady Heather that I can find. Thanks to Rosie for the scans and to slavicmargy for finding some of the articles.

Lady Heather

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Melinda Clarke as Lady Heather

Lady Heather (played by Melinda Clarke), is a fictional character, a guest character in the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Lady Heather is a professional dominatrix who runs a house of domination in Las Vegas.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Throughout the series Lady Heather has made three memorable appearances on the show.

Lady Heather first appeared in the season two CSI episode Slaves of Las Vegas.

In the special 90-minute CSI episode Lady Heather's Box, deaths among Lady Heather's staff lead to a criminal investigation. As the episode progresses, she develops a rapport with the lead character of the series, forensic scientist Gil Grissom (William Petersen). It is deliberately left unclear whether her relationship with Grissom develops into a romantic relationship.

She returns in the episode, Pirates of the Third Reich, in which her daughter, Zoe, was murdered, and she attempts to exact revenge upon the killer by whipping him to death.

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TV Biography

Lady Heather was researched when one of her employees ends up dead. Her fetish club brings in $20,000 a week. Lady Heather has a daughter, Zoe, who was a freshman at Harvard in the episode "Slaves of Las Vegas." She told her daughter that she could give her body or her heart to a man, but never give him your power. Lady Heather claims she knows a lot about people. She thinks Catherine Willows would make a great dominatrix and takes a special interest in Gil Grissom. She even invites him for afternoon tea.

Lady Heather is the suspect in another murder case when two more of her employees get killed. They worked for her Web site, LadyHeather.com, which she calls "Voyeurism in a Brave New World."

Lady Heather is quick to notice Gil Grissom is reading her lips. They later spend some time together, but it not clear what exactly happened between them. When they are drinking tea, Gil Grissom learns that Lady Heather is a diabetic, which makes her a suspect in his case, because insulin was used to commit the murders. Heather is disappointed that Grissom suspects her. She is later cleared, but by then the damage to their relationship is already done.

Lady Heather meets Gil Grissom again when her daughter, Zoe Kessler, is murdered. In the sixth season episode "Pirates of the Third Reich," she reveals that Zoe dropped out of Harvard, began seeing a psychiatrist, slept with him and became pregnant by him. Lady Heather reported the psychiatrist to the disciplinary board, infuriating Zoe. Mother and daughter were estranged when Zoe was murdered. Lady Heather says she understands that having a dominatrix for a mother must have been difficult for Zoe, but she always emphasized "empowerment" when raising her daughter. Lady Heather does not know whether Zoe aborted or gave birth to her baby. The autopsy was inconclusive about whether Zoe had given birth. Zoe went to a sleep clinic for help with insomnia. Zoe's killer saw her there and targeted her for Nazi-like experiments because of an unusual physical feature -- Zoe had one brown eye and one blue eye, a condition known as heterochromia.

Lady Heather later sleeps with the man suspected of killing her daughter Zoe to obtain his DNA. She then abducts him, drives him out into the desert, ties him to the front end of her car and starts lashing him with her whip until Gil Grissom arrives to stop her.

It's hard to read so I wrote it out.
CSI Vamp Returns!
Lady Heather and Grissom Reunite



Most weeks, it's the cold corpses that get the attention on CSI. But this winter, it's the return of one hot body that will get all the buzz. Professional dominatrix Lady Heather (played by The O.C. Melinda Clarke), who complicated Gil Grissom's life in two previous episodes, will be back
in a story line that "involves Nazis, medical experiments and Siamese twins, promises CSI executive producer Carol Mendelsohn, "Lady Heather and Grissom come together to solve a case."
The Lusty lady's connection to an investigation "puts Grissom in emotional jeopardy," says the episode's director. Richard Lewis. "And we learn something we didn't know about her--that she suffers from sleep deprivation and is partaking in some experiments that lead to the dark underbelly of what's really going on in this story."
That means the third time may not be a charm for this quirky couple, and an Episode 4 could be in store. Says Mendelsohn, "The story will be resolved, but their relationship won't be."---Craig Tomashoff

Australian TV Week:

If you're an avid watcher of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, then you'd have figured out by now that Gil Grissom has a thing for a dominatrix named Lady Heather. And this week, he's in for a treat as she makes yet another reappearance.

The last time they crossed paths, it was hinted that Lady Heather - played by The OC's Melinda Clarke - had shown Grissom some of her professional, er, talents. But the circumstances surronding her return make their meeting more intense.

The body of Lady Heather's estranged daughter is found in the Nevada desert, and it appears she's fallen victim to a psychopathic serial killer. Out for revenge, Lady Heather stays a step ahead of the CSIs, and eventually brings Grissom some rather disturbing evidence.

For the first time, she also reveals a more vulnerable side to Grissom. Beneath the sexy black leather she's a mother grieving - and who better to provide a shoulder to cry on than a certain CSI?

Could it be love?

William Petersen says the storyline makes Grissom realise that he "wants to be a part of her life. When you find someone who may share your soul, it has an impact."

It seems the show's producers agree, with one of them revealing that, "This sets it up for her to come back and, perhaps, pursue the love-interest."

 Melinda Clarke: Lady Heather Is No Julie Cooper

By Carolina
June 27, 2006 - 12:18 AM

Melinda Clarke (Lady Heather) talked to the German TV Highlights magazine about what sets Lady Heather apart from her The O.C. persona, Julie Cooper.

"Both are very strong women," she said. "But Julie is a bigger challenge. She's a figure that doesn't exist in real life, she's a fictional character. As an actress this is a special situation. Actors love parts like that, I love such parts. You can breathe life into them on your own. – However, Lady Heather is real. There are women like her out there, she's a typical representative of her trade."

Clarke has never seen Lady Heather as a mere prostitute, but thinks the character is much more complicated, and smarter, than that. "She is one [a dominatrix]. But this is only a facet. In the first place she's a business woman, it's a different kind of business but definitely a ware that is sold. She sells wishes ... needs to her clients who pay for them. Lady Heather discovered a gap in the market, she sells something very exclusive and takes a lot of money for it."

As for Lady Heather's relationship with Grissom, Clarke admits it's a bit complicated, and doesn't know if the writers have dropped it or not. "It's tense. If I knew that. It just developed that way. I don't know how the part will continue, but the fan community of Heather is large, larger than I had imagined."

Why not 'CSI: Kink'?
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES —On CSI, the way people live can be as bizarre as the way they die.

Thursday's episode (CBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT) features a one-eyed pirate, Nazi-like human experimentation and a whip-wielding dominatrix. And, of course, murders.

As TV's most-watched scripted show, averaging 26 million viewers a week, CSI has maintained its broad fan base even as its Las Vegas crime-scene sleuths delve into the worlds of full-grown men who favor diapers; people aroused by obese sex partners, aka "chubby chasers"; and "plushies and furries," a fetish group for whom fun fur has nothing to do with fall fashions.

Many CSI viewers either enjoy or don't mind taking the one-hour trips to forbidden worlds, viewed from the safety of the living room couch. Some could do without the taboo topics but still like to watch Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and his team use science to solve crimes. Others no longer watch because of the content; the Parents Television Council has named CSI one of the worst shows for families.

"It's a matter of individual taste," says Miriam Smith, who teaches broadcast communications arts at San Francisco State University.

This week's offering, "Pirates of the Third Reich" (a tribute to CSI and Pirates of the Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer), likely offers something to reinforce all opinions. It descends into the world of a serial-killing Nazi experimenter, one of whose victims is the estranged daughter of dominatrix Lady Heather (The O.C.'s Melinda Clarke).

The sixth-season series walks on the kinky side more frequently than its spinoffs in Miami and New York. "It goes back to Vegas, where the show is set. In Vegas, anything goes," executive producer Carol Mendelsohn says. And Thursday's show "is one of our more out-there episodes."

"Pirates" is significant for two other reasons. It marks the return of Lady Heather, whose hold on Grissom has made her a fan favorite. And it was written by Jerry Stahl, an author and former heroin addict who wrote a book about his habit (Permanent Midnight).

Stahl has served as tour guide for the show's kinkiest trips into the netherworld of infantilism, underground sex-reassignment surgery, self-loathing models and sado-masochism. He introduced Heather and her fetish business in CSI's second season.

"He's completely perverse," says Petersen, laughing. The star helped recruit Stahl for the show, saying people are fascinated by unknown, darker realms. "There's no place Jerry won't go. There's nothing Jerry won't look at."

Stahl, who declined through a studio spokesman to be interviewed, is nothing if not a lightning rod. His episodes last season, the transsexual-related "Ch-Ch-Changes" and the infant-fetishizing "King Baby," were respectively CSI's most-watched ever, at 31.5 million viewers, and tied for second for the season, with 30.7 million.

But some viewers didn't like them. "King Baby," which dealt with breastfeeding, enemas and excrement, drew protests from the Parents Television Council, whose members filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission. According to the PTC, no FCC response has been received.

CSI "tends to delve into areas of kinky sexual fetishes," says the PTC's Melissa Caldwell. "They go into a depth of detail that I think is unnecessary for a show about forensic investigations."

'Darker and edgier'

In 2003's "Fur and Loathing," broadcast the day before Halloween, Stahl took CSI to a convention of plushies and furries, people with an affinity for stuffed animals and furry costumes. The episode related a group sexual endeavor known as a "fur-pile."

"He introduces Americans to worlds that they wouldn't normally see," says CSI supervising producer Richard Lewis, who directed Thursday's episode. "It's always a little darker and edgier when Jerry writes."

CSI visits such dark places to entertain viewers, Mendelsohn says, and many like the vicarious thrill. "We try to think, 'What would our fans like to see? What would be a thrill ride?' Our job is to make them want to come back next week, to create a great hour. That's the guidepost to everything we do."

The taboo topics also expand the range of potential plotlines, an important consideration for a show that must produce more than 20 episodes a season. And competition from cable, with its looser content restrictions, pressures broadcasters to present edgier content, San Francisco State's Smith says.

By audience measures, CSI has more than achieved its goal; it trails only American Idol.

But CSI ranks fifth — one spot ahead of ABC's Desperate Housewives - on the PTC's latest list of the shows it deems most inappropriate for family viewing. That high placement is a combination of subject matter and the large audience, which means more youths are exposed to the shows, Caldwell says.

Some viewers confirm they like the occasional peek into unusual lives. "I watch CSI every week and haven't had any problem with the envelope-pushing subject matter. Though I found some of the stuff slightly weird, to say the least, I also find it fascinating to see other perspectives on life and how the CSI crew are able to solve the crimes," says Sam Vowell of Lennon, Mich.

However, Jane Lansing, of Minneapolis, has given up on the series. "I was a CSI-aholic when it first came on ... and this year I stopped (watching) the original because the story lines are reaching too far," she says.

While acknowledging that CSI episodes such as Stahl's can enter bizarre worlds, CBS is satisfied with its "time-honored system of self-policing" to make certain programs are appropriate for viewers and advertisers, network spokesman Chris Ender says.

By now, viewers generally know what to expect from CSI, too, he says. Content-rating labels and advisories also alert viewers.

But even CSI's producers say they have their concerns with content and sometimes pull back. "The key to this episode is restraint," Lewis says during a shooting break. And, in the post-Janet Jackson era, scenes that were once OK are now off-limits, Mendelsohn says, acknowledging that the show is concerned about being a target for watchdog groups such as PTC.

The wide range of reactions shouldn't be surprising, says S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a non-profit, non-partisan, media-monitoring group. A shocking scene that one viewer finds enticing, another may find appalling. A show such as CSI will try to strike a balance, "trying to figure out how to keep the shock value without it costing them money" from lost advertising or government sanctions.

Nothing 'gratuitous'

For Petersen, who is also a CSI producer, any kinky subject matter has to make sense for the story. "I just don't want it to be gratuitous."

As far as fans are concerned, there's nothing gratuitous about Lady Heather, introduced by Stahl in 2001's "Slaves of Las Vegas." She took Grissom, Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) and viewers into the world of sado-masochism, complete with whips, chains, leather and latex body suits, but also introduced a complex character.

Lady Heather interested Clarke because of her contrasts: She was the successful operator of an upscale fetish club and the mother of a daughter attending Harvard, a woman who could give a man a whipping or, as in Grissom's case, serve him tea. "She was a multidimensional person who hadn't been seen, a dominatrix who was much more evolved — enigmatic and empowered," Clarke says.

What has made the character a favorite of viewers, despite having appeared in only two previous episodes, is her ability to read the usually opaque Grissom. She's his equal and a strong foil.

"Their chemistry is electric. (It) reveals aspects of the Grissom character that we don't get to see with anyone else he interacts with. Tolerance. Depth. Humanity. He feels," says fan Tammy Hoganson of New Prague, Minn., who says she enjoys when CSI delves into "less-than-vanilla subject matter."

Grissom, ever the student, is curious about Heather's field of work, just as he was fascinated, not put off, by the plushies and furries convention. Grissom and Heather, Petersen says during a break between scenes with Clarke, are "both anthropologists. He's fascinated by her science, (a look at) the sexual psyche of human beings."

There's also a sexual tension between the characters (one that may have been acted upon, depending on how scenes are interpreted from Lady Heather's second visit).

Their delicate balance will shift in Thursday's episode, which Mendelsohn says may seem disturbing not for its sexual content but for the horrible experiments of a brilliant scientist she describes as "a Grissom gone wrong."

And Lady Heather, a woman who depends on her steely control, will lose it as a victimized mother.

The power roles will shift in the desert, Mendelsohn says. Grissom will have "to save her from herself."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/ne...-csi-kink_x.htm