GANDER, N.L. — An actress best known for her starring role in the '70s erotic film "Young Lady Chatterley" has been fined more than $36,000 for behaviour that caused an Air France flight to be diverted to Newfoundland.
Harlee McBride got into a dispute with cabin crew while flying home to France from New York City after her brother's funeral on Oct. 12, 2014, her lawyer Ellen O'Gorman said Wednesday.
McBride had been drinking before the flight, and flight attendants refused to serve her alcohol, O'Gorman said. A tray of food was upset, and they felt she became unruly.
"She was restrained in her seat almost immediately" with plastic restraints, said O'Gorman.
The plane made an emergency landing in Gander, where McBride was taken into custody.
McBride, 67, pleaded guilty through her lawyer in Gander provincial court on Tuesday to intentional interference with the performance of the flight crew. Neither the actress nor her husband, actor Richard Belzer of "Homicide:Life on the Street" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," was present.
O'Gorman said her client — who actually played an Air France stewardess in the 1976 TV movie "Raid on Entebbe" — took full responsibility for the diversion, but had a somewhat different version of events.
The tray of food had fallen, rather than been thrown, she said, and McBride had become agitated after a man sitting next to her made sexual comments to her.
"What she has always maintained is there was a gentleman next to her who was quite inappropriate with her," said O'Gorman from St. John's.
McBride's fine reflected costs of the diversion, including about $3,850 for an international emergency landing at Gander, plane servicing worth about $3,150, and about $19,500 for fuel. Air France had dumped less than a fifth of a tank of jet fuel in order to land at Gander, said O'Gorman.
Air France had claimed total costs of more than $100,000, but the restitution was based on receipts submitted by the airline, she said.
Provincial court Judge Harold Porter also fined her $10,000.
O'Gorman said her client has no history of trouble with the law, and has flown repeatedly with Air France since the diversion.
"When she looks back, she's glad to put an end to this, pay the fine and get on with her life," she said. "This is just a blip."
According to imdb.com, the Los Angeles-born McBride appeared as Cynthia Chatterley in both 1977's "Young Lady Chatterley" and its 1985 sequel, "Young Lady Chatterley II." She also played Dr. Alyssa Dyer in multiple episodes of "Homicide: Life on the Street."
