Peter Wyngarde (23 August 1927 – 15 January 2018) was a British actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two television series: Department S (1969–70) and Jason King (1971–72). His flamboyant dress sense and acting led to popular success, becoming considered a style icon in Britain in the early 1970s; Mike Myers credited him with inspiring the character Austin Powers. In 1970, Wyngarde recorded an album released by RCA Victor entitled simply...
Peter Wyngarde (23 August 1927 – 15 January 2018) was a British actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two television series: Department S (1969–70) and Jason King (1971–72). His flamboyant dress sense and acting led to popular success, becoming considered a style icon in Britain in the early 1970s; Mike Myers credited him with inspiring the character Austin Powers. In 1970, Wyngarde recorded an album released by RCA Victor entitled simply Peter Wyngarde, featuring a single, "La Ronde De L'Amour"/"The Way I Cry Over You". The album is a collection of spoken-word/musical arrangements produced by Vic Smith and Hubert Thomas Valverde. A promo single of the track "Rape" (entitled "Peter Wyngarde Commits Rape") was also issued in 1970.
In 1998, the album was reissued on CD by RPM Records, now titled When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head. According to Wyngarde himself (quoted in the liner notes of the CD re-issue), prior to his deal with RCA Records, EMI Records had also been interested in cashing in on his fame and suggested recording an album of Sinatra songs. However, RCA allowed him carte blanche, assuming that the record would be a failure and could be used as a tax loss. However, when the initial pressings quickly sold out and the album showed a profit, RCA declined to press any more copies.
The album is now usually treated as a curiosity because of its unusual spoken-word style and the controversial subject matter of some of the tracks.
Wyngarde claimed to have been married to the actress Dorinda Stevens for several years in the 1950s. In the 1960s, he shared a flat with fellow actor Alan Bates. According to some sources this was a sexual relationship. It was well known within the acting community that Wyngarde was gay - reputedly he acquired the nickname Petunia Winegum, though this was disputed by others who claimed that the name had merely been invented for a comedy sketch.
Public attention was drawn to his behaviour in September 1975 when he was fined £75 (under his probable real name, Cyril Louis Goldbert) for gross indecency with a crane driver in public toilets in Gloucester bus station.[46] This followed an arrest and caution for similar acts in the toilets at Kennedy Gardens in Birmingham the previous year.
Wyngarde battled alcoholism at the height of his career, telling an interviewer in 1993 "I drank myself to a standstill ... I am amazed I am still here", but that he stopped drinking in the early 1980s. After regular acting work dried up at that time, it was reported that he was bankrupt and living on social security benefits.
Wyngarde was a member of (and at one time on the Committee of) the Kensington Rifle and Pistol Club,[citation needed] which in the 1970s and 1980s was located just off Cromwell Road in Kensington, London.
Wyngarde died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London on 15 January 2018.
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