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In Defense of an Iconoclast: Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers by Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins

By Tony Williams.

24th June, 2020

“I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone”

“Peter Wyngarde defined the complete, bravura actor who dominated a stage with an incomparable elegant physical presence and a voice which defined emulation, a voice akin to music.” Steven Berkoff (Page 190)

“Peter Wyngarde defined the complete, bravura actor who dominated a stage with an incomparable elegant physical presence and a voice which defined emulation, a voice akin to music.”er-sleuth Jason King in the early 70s.” Keith Howes (Page 168)

Although popularly well known as the title character of the 1960s TV series Jason King (1971-1972), one of the influences on the Austin Powers franchise, Peter Wyngarde (1928-2018) was far more talented than the performances he contributed to that series and its Lew Grade ITC predecessor Department S (1969-1970). Wyngarde often operated in the manner known as “the actor as auteur” creating his performance in a manner designed to evoke the best possible result, something that most control freak directors react against rather than work with in a collaborative manner with creative associates.

Jack Clayton proved one notable exception in The Innocents (1961), by accepting the actor’s suggestion that made one scene much better than it appeared in the script (Page 126). Despite Richard Matheson’s credit as scenarist for Night of the Eagle (1962), the final screenplay resulted from a collaborative re-write by director and actor (Page 137). Wyngarde was actually responsible for the creation of Jason King’s character from a senior Oxford don/James Bond Q stereotype to a more contemporary figure (Page 169-171). He also had a clause in his contract allowing him final say on the other main cast members in Department S. One wonders whether Wyngarde’s reputation for being “difficult” resulted from his meticulous sense of artisanship rather than excessive ego. Both Department S and Jason King only lasted one season each, perhaps due to the actor’s frustration of working in the then conveyor-belt television series practices as well as with journeymen directors wanting to supply non-distinctive product.

Looking from a fundamentalist perspective, dramatically and intellectually, Jason King was inferior to Department S. The problem with the series from certain viewpoints was that the character of King became too over-the-top and cartoonish in its depiction of the ideal `woman’s man.’ Peter was also to make the fatal mistake of allowing the boundaries between actor and character (to) become blurred; this could be seen in any number of the interviews he gave at the time. In a way, he’d fallen for the sex symbol status he’d acquired and had encouraged it Instead of distancing himself, keeping his head down and making people sit up and concentrate on him as an actor. (Page 210-211)

Although Wyngarde was wise enough not to sign up for any of the Carry On films that Peter Rogers wanted him to do in the 60s (Page 101), Jason King had the same effect on the actor’s future that the Carry On films did to Kenneth Williams. Popular memory could never again take them seriously as accomplished actors. It is often forgotten that Orson Welles selected Kenneth Williams (with whom he had first worked with in Herbert Wilcox’s 1952 version of Trent’s Last Case) to play several roles in his 1955 London stage production of Moby Dick Rehearsed. Williams also played The Dauphin in a 1958 BBC TV production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, and Napoleon (seriously) in the 1964 BBC TV Wednesday Play production of Jean Anouilh’s Catch as Catch Can that I actually saw.

Although capable of becoming the heir to Laurence Olivier, as Steven Berkhoff notes in his poignant afterword, “Sadly, most of the public only know him as the jaded TV hero Jason King” (Page 512). Yet, though he always delivered a professional performance, limiting the actor’s legacy to this particular role is as reductive and unfair as exclusively identifying Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first Star Wars trilogy and Ian McKellan as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Both knighted thespians have left enough surviving material of different performances on film and television to allow us to correct such popular misconceptions. However, this is not the case with Peter Wyngarde, one of the most talented actors of his generation. (1)

This 532-page biography (from Austin Macauley) appearing some two years after the passing of its title character is a “labor of love” in many ways and certainly, no “Love Labor’s Lost.” It comprises a detailed inventory of the actor’s life and comprehensive achievements in all the major arts as actor, singer, writer, and director. It is also a sensitive and very understanding chronicle of a complex person, often treated badly by the press, so-called friends, and peers in his lifetime. He who could often be difficult (Michael Powell once mentioned in our 1981 meeting at Zoetrope Studios that all creative people are “difficult”). However, Wyngarde also earned the respect of sincere friends in the profession and those rare souls who genuinely appreciated him, especially the author who was his loyal partner and soulmate for nearly thirty years and remained with him in his last days. As well as providing one of the most accurate and detailed accounts of the actor’s long career, she offers a personal (but not sanitized) record of a man of many faces who hid his genuine self behind an artificial mask of celebrity but also revealed his inner person to those he felt he could trust. Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers is a complementary bio-bibliography akin to those in the Greenwood Press series but providing poignant personal insights into an actor who did spend his entire life “amongst strangers” yet attracted a few genuine souls into his life.

Throughout the book, the author provides the actor’s personal comments in bold italics either from memory or recorded material. It is almost as if he were still with us to provide illuminating commentaries on the events described. One of the author’s regrets was that very few of those who interviewed him in his later life drew on the actor’s encyclopedic memory of a lost world of film, theatre, and television to which he once contributed. Final chapters dealing with the actors’ last days are touching in the extreme revealing a very different National Health Service from the one Wyngarde (and I) originally knew. Fortunately, the author was there in her partner’s final hours to look after his interests (as she always did) and become “Keeper of the Flame” in promoting his real personality and achievements.

At this point, I wish to contribute some personal memories. Although I only watched one episode of Department S when it first appeared, it was not until recently that I watched my first episode of Jason King. I knew of its existence at the time as well as the actor’s adopted persona but was also fortunate enough to grow up seeing his earlier 1950s television performances, the majority of which are now lost, but which contained scenes still imprinted in my memory. Wyngarde played Sydney Carton in the BBC TV mini-series A Tale of Two Cities (1957) though he didn’t appear till the beginning of the second episode. He personified a jaded lawyer bored with another day in court who nonetheless came to the rescue of accused Charles Darney anticipating how he would redeem himself at the end. He appeared alongside Mervyn Johns as Mr. Lorry, Margaretta Scott as Madame Defarge, Duncan Lamont as her hapless husband (who did not “marry a monster from outer space” like his earlier 1953 role in The Quatermass Experiment but a fanatical Revolutionary monster), and Edward De Souza as Charles Darney. Wyngarde displayed theatrical professionalism as team player and star in the final scene. After encouraging the seamstress (Carol Marsh) to meet her underserved fate, he ascends the steps moving towards the guillotine, slowly approaching the camera, his final speech delivered in voice-over, before he bows down, and we see the deadly descent of the instrument of execution. The screen fades to black.

It is a great performance showing what television was capable of at that period of its existence, a performance leading both to acclaim and later suggestions that he, rather than Dirk Bogarde, should have played the role in the 1958 film version. Coincidentally, the Hammer Dracula featuring Carol Marsh appeared that same year. Wyngarde later played the title role in a 1975 stage production (253-257, 518). However, he had earlier portrayed an ageing matinee idol based on Bela Lugosi in the ITV Love Story series episode “It’s A Long Way to Transylvania” (1967) (that I also saw at the time). It was one of his favorite roles (163).

A year before he appeared in “The Duel” (1956) episode of Assignment Foreign Legion (1956-57), a TV series that escaped the notice of his otherwise meticulous biographer, as it seems to have had for those keen contributors to the Facebook Unofficial Talking Pictures TV Discussion Group. (However, one cannot often cover everything 100%.) Hosted by Merle Oberon, the episode also featured Anthony Dawson (1916-1992) known for his various roles in Dial M for Murder (1953), Curse of the Werewolf (1961), Dr. No (1962), and Death Rides a Horse (1967). Dawson played a callous duelist who allows his victim, Lt. Charles Designe (Wyngarde), to live in an act of sadistic revenge rather than immediately firing the final bullet to put him out of his misery. Directed by Terence Fisher, the role allows Wyngarde to display non-histrionic feelings of terror and paranoia, especially when he re-experiences the duel in a nightmare. The Legion sends both men on a deadly vision against Arabs known for torturing their captives to death. When the Arabs capture the terrified Designe, Dawson finally delivers the final bullet knowing what his eventual fate will be. Assignment Foreign Legion often featured distinguished performances by actors such as Patrick McGoohan, Richard Johnson, Tom Conway, Anton Diffring, Ferdy Mayne, Patrick Troughton, Roger Moore, Andre Morrell, and many others offering them a showcase for their talents.

In 1958, Wyngarde played a young Long John Silver in The BBC TV mini-series The Adventures of Ben Gunn far different from the Robert Newton stereotype (see also 90-91). When he appeared in the closing minutes of the last episode, it was as a poignantly decrepit old man approaching his final days. In 1962, he featured in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre production of John Galsworthy’s Loyalties as the maligned Jewish outsider Ferdinand de Levis who dares to question honorable “officer and gentleman” Captain Dancy (Keith Michell) over a stolen item. One of the scenes I remember is Michell’s disdainful aristocratic Aryan look of disgust at a Jew who is clearly “not one of us,” as Mrs. Thatcher would later say. Once the real facts finally emerge de Levis shows himself to be more of an honorable man than his entitled and privileged opponent. This was another accomplished performance now probably lost.

Also lost is his performance in the title role of the BBC TV mini-series Rupert of Hentzau (1964). He played the title role combining the swashbuckling prowess of Douglas Fairbanks Jr from the Ronald Colman 1937 Prisoner of Zenda with a touch of decadence. Wyngarde’s acting, complemented performances by George Baker in the dual role of Rudolf, Barbara Shelley as Queen Flavia and John Phillips as Colonel Sapt (who appeared two years before in the now-lost Nigel Kneale TV play The Road).

I mention these performances to complement the author’s diligent research in bringing them to our attention as well as emphasize that long before Jason King, a role that resulted in him not given respect later, Wyngarde had already shown himself an outstanding actor. He suffered from making poor choices later as well as professional malice. He incurred the enmity of Peter Hall since 1954 (56). Nineteen years later, Wyngarde learned from Laurence Olivier that Hall, then Director of the National Theatre, had blocked his nomination to lead a company there (235). Wyngarde had the respect of virtually all the actors of his generation, often helping others out and receiving no thanks in return, which he never wanted in the first place. He assisted Alan Bates at an early stage of his career (120-121). His generosity towards others less fortunate than himself appears throughout this book, and it is heartbreaking to learn how several unscrupulous people took advantage of him.

Apart from scandals that drastically affected his later career, Wyngarde had the potential (and showed it) of being a major star. Fortune cast him a double-sided coin: one side brought him fame and high profile as Jason King, but the other led to amnesia concerning theatrical roles that only contemporary audiences could see as well as early television performances that disappeared. He was also the victim of malicious press attacks and denigration by people who never bothered to research his achievements, preferring instead slander.

Some film performances reveal his potential, such as his distinctive role as Peter the Painter in The Siege of Sidney Street (1960) that outshone its leading star Donald Sinden (not too difficult to in terms of his contemporary unmemorable screen presence). Wyngarde’s non-speaking presence as Quint in The Innocents displays accomplished silent film acting. His starring role in Night of the Eagle (1962) reveals remarkable abilities. Yet the challenge of different parts in theatre and television also tempted him to flex his muscles in ways that did not please those who wanted conformist actors. He could usurp an initially scripted limited role by suggesting different ways of staging scenes to any mediocre director’s chagrin, especially when confronting someone who knew what he was talking about, though not always in the diplomatic manner needed. He did not “suffer fools” gladly, and this attitude has consequences in acting (or academia). Wyngarde was an accomplished director as well as actor, as his biographer thoroughly documents. Even his later “man behind the mask” role as Klytus in Mike Hodges’s Flash Gordon (1980) contained memorable elements, so much so that it became along with Jason King one of his most well-known roles.

Amazingly, for a book of this length, I have only found one typo on p.146. “James Bolam” rather than “James Bowlam” appeared in the 1964 ITV Play of the Week production “A Choice of Cowards# 1 – Present Laughter” where Wyngarde played Garry Essendine. However. Hodges did not direct Wyngarde in the 1959 TV play Engineer Extraordinary about Isambard Kingdom Brunel (293). The two reunited for Flash Gordon but Hodges functioned as Teleprompter Operator at the time Wyngarde was also appearing at the Bristol Old Vic as Cyrano de Bergerac, a production also well-covered by this very diligent author-researcher (see Pages 99-100, 146, 152, 244). (2)

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone, not just for the author’s strenuous work in setting the record straight but also for her sincere, unvarnished depiction of a man who could be awkward, difficult, and provocatively iconoclastic, as well as one possessing unique personal and creative talents.

Endnotes

1. Wyngarde’s posthumous reputation resembles that of Joseph Wiseman (1918-2009), best remembered for playing the title role in Dr. No (1962). According to his daughter, he regarded it “with great disdain” and preferred posterity to value his theatrical work. See https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-joseph-wiseman21-2009oct21-story.html His theatrical work was never recorded.
The same is true for Wyngarde’s distinctive stage roles. Harold Bloom regarded Wiseman as the best Edmund he had ever seen in a stage production of King Lear, a role that few actors accomplished successfully. “Wiseman played Edmund as an amalgam of Leon Trotsky and Don Giovanni, but it worked brilliantly, and there is much in the play’s text to sustain that curious blend”. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, New York: Riverhead Books, 1998, 476. This evokes imaginative interpretations Wyngarde often attempted throughout his career, especially on stage. Apart from the 1950s, most of Wiseman’s television performances have survived. Sadly, like Wiseman’s theatre performances, most of Wyngarde’s distinctive television work only exists in memory or lost forever unless secondary source documentation, used extensively by Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins fills in those missing gaps.

2. I wish to thank Mike Hodges for his very prompt and gracious response in his May 15, 2020 email. He also informed me that his directorial debut with actors actually began some 7/8 years later.

Tony Williams is a Professor at the English Department of Southern Illinois University, and an independent critic and Contributing Editor to Film International.

Written by Mark Cunliff:

3rd April, 2020

“This is not only an astonishing, comprehensive and impeccably researched book, it is also an engaging, heartfelt and touching read too,”

Peter Wyngarde. The actor who effectively created 1970s pop culture with the character of Jason King, the suave thriller writer-turned-action hero who, at the height of his powers, made millions of women go weak at the knees. Mention his name now, however, and you may be met with some initially blank looks or indeed a murmuring inquiry along the lines of ‘wasn’t there some controversy or other?’

Now, almost two years after his passing at the grand age of ninety, his close companion for over thirty years, Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins, has written the definitive biography – Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers – which attempts to bring Wyngarde back to his rightful place in the popular culture and consciousness, but also dispel a good deal of the myths and untruths that had surrounded him for so long.

I can’t quite recall when I first came across Peter Wyngarde. It was in the 1990s when I was on the cusp of adolescence, an introduction that came from one of the many nostalgia fests for the ’60s and ’70s that dominated our TV schedules at that time; perhaps it was the BBC’s One Day in the Sixties, which saw a day’s schedule given over completely to entertainment from that swinging decade, including an episode of Department S, the ITC serial that first introduced Wyngarde’s most famous creation, Jason King. Or maybe it was one of Frank Muir’s ascensions to TV Heaven, cherry-picking some of the best television of the ’60s and ’70s for Channel 4. What I do know is that, wherever and whenever I first saw Wyngarde, I was instantly struck by a remarkable screen presence, a dapper, foppish look and a voice like velvet.

I came across The Hellfire Club: The Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society, not long after. As a fan of Doctor Who, I regularly subscribed to Doctor Who Magazine throughout the 1990s and there, in the classifieds beyond the letters page, I spotted a familiar address in my home town of St Helens that announced itself as the fan club for the star, run by Tina Bate (aka Ms Wyngarde-Hopkins, the author of this book). I think that I was struck by the notion that someone else in my relatively small, northern industrial town appreciated the ‘cult TV’ of yesteryear and, although I never joined the society, its presence nonetheless made me feel less alone. In many ways, this insight into the existence of a world of like minds out there, one that could even by on your doorstep, has made me the ‘geek’ that I am.

The formation and running of The Hellfire Club (the title is a reference to ‘A Touch of Brimstone’, an episode of The Avengers that Wyngarde guest-starred in and one of the most fondly remembered by fans and TV viewers alike) brought Tina into close contact with her subject and a great, lasting relationship developed between the pair. As Wyngarde himself said in just one of the 2,000 examples of correspondence he made to the author which has used to produce this extensive work; “What we have is above everything that either of us have ever experienced, or will ever experience in our lives; higher than love, closer than marriage, more enduring than the universe. No other relationship ever compares. You are, and ever shall be, the deepest of all my loves”

Just as Wyngarde was not a conventional actor, so too is Peter Wyngarde – A Life Amongst Strangers not a conventional biography. It is effectively neatly divided into two distinct halves. The first recounts the story of Wyngarde’s birth and his life, from his time as a boy POW in the Lunghua internment camp to the great highs of the 1960s and ’70s, through to the late 1980s, when the author came into his orbit. From there, the memoir becomes more personal, as Tina recounts their relationship with both a remarkable candour and a true and genuine love that one would be blind not to see. The author herself reveals that Wyngarde cared little for the memoirs of thespians, believing that an air of mystery and enigma was integral to the make-up of a performer, but in many ways, this aloofness could be said to have unfortunately allowed a great many falsehoods and myths to gather around Wyngarde. As a result, this memoir serves – just as Tina herself has done for three decades now – a staunch defender of his name and reputation. The controversy I alluded to at the top of this review is, of course, the incident in 1974 in which Wyngarde was arrested for gross indecency in a gents lavatory in Gloucester as part of a police ‘sting’ operation and subsequently fined £75. Though Wyngarde always protested his innocence, many attest that this scandal, whose flames were fanned by a News of the World ‘exclusive’ with a disgruntled former employee of the star, effectively and prematurely curtailed Wyngarde’s television and film career.

Understandably there’s a lot to untangle here, and the author does her very best. With regards to his subsequent career, Tina is at great pains to point to his many stage productions, guest appearances on television shows ranging from Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes and even The Lenny Henry Show, and his role in the 1980 film Flash Gordon (a real scene-stealing performance as the suavely villainous Klytus, despite being hidden behind a £5,000 6″x9″ fibreglass face mask!) as an indicator that his career – whilst never reaching the heights of his Department S/Jason King days – was still in rude health (though I note that, whilst she takes understandable umbrage at Peter Davison’s rather dismissive attitude towards Wyngarde in his own autobiography which – she attests incorrectly – cites that he had not worked much prior to appearing alongside him in the 1984 Doctor Who serial Planet of Fire, she does not rebut Flash Gordon co-star Brian Blessed’s claim that Wyngarde had “been out of the business for a time over that fucking ‘gay’ thing”). What she does untangle admirably is the myth that this was not Wyngarde’s first offence. A rumour still circulates the internet that, prior to his arrest in Gloucester, Wyngarde had been cautioned for ‘cottaging’ in Birmingham, an incident many claim was widely reported at the time. In an example of the author’s extensive research, she has contacted both the West Midland Police and the archive offices of the local newspapers, and found nothing to support such a claim. As an author, Tina always seems to be able to detach herself from the personal enough to approach these claims with an admirable open-mind, challenging them with reasoned argument and clear evidence. Nonetheless, the ‘damage’ of these allegations has been done and, even now, one can look online and find rumours regarding Wyngarde’s sexuality with dubious blogs claiming all manner of evidence to his proclivities for rent boys; myths built upon myths often given the Wikipedia seal of approval. As for Wyngarde himself, he always believed that he was framed, having incurred the wrath of the well-connected local foxhunt whose barbarism he had little time for and been seen as a target by the tabloids who perhaps believed it was their ‘duty’ to knock him down after building him up.

However, whilst the author does not believe that Wyngarde was homosexual (and with the extent of their relationship, one would have to say that she should know) she does share an interesting conversation between them both regarding a documentary on the SMSM (straight men who have sex with other men) scene they had watched together in later years. “A lot of actors view their sexuality as fluid, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with gender,” Wyngarde is quoted as saying. “It’s just base, sexual pleasure. Genuine sexual desire is really a combination of a physical and emotional attraction, which is how I asses my interest in women; it must include both of these elements. In contrast, a transitory encounter with another man, would be purely sexual; neither romantic or emotional, it just is” Or, as he goes on to succinctly put it; “Labels are attached to us by other people,so why the fuck should it be our responsibility to live up to them? If a person who identifies as being a meat eater makes cheese on toast once in a while, is he really a closet vegetarian? The answer is would irrevocably be no!”

Wyngarde’s agent in later years, Thomas Bowington puts it well when he claims that the acceptance of metrosexuality (and I would go one further and add gender fluidity) in today’s society was one that Wyngarde’s persona had championed decades earlier. “Peter was a man before his time and society is really only know beginning to catch up with him. In the meantime the mob that continues to deride him is beginning to look increasingly ignorant and out of touch” Certainly from the more enlightened position we have achieved today it’s almost impossible to conceive the damage of the incident of 1974. Who the hell would care now if he even was gay? Why should we? It’s just terribly sad that society at that time, and bigoted elements on the fringes of the net today, would use it as a stick to beat him with.

If I had one complaint about this exhaustive and honest memoir it would be that it can be sometimes a little wearing to read rebuttal after rebuttal of so many falsehoods and fallacies that cling to Wyngarde’s name (not just the sexuality question, but also claims that he was unprofessional, walking out of a failing theatre production of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari in Liverpool in the 1990s) but not as wearing as having to live with them for decades I am quite sure. Tina’s book is an exhaustive, open and honest tome, one which does not shield from the flaws of her subject either, for it is perhaps fair to say that the perfectionist Wyngarde could engage in ‘diva’ like tantrums and behaviour often lashing out at those closest to him such as Tina herself or Thomas.

This is not only an astonishing, comprehensive and impeccably researched book, it is also an engaging, heartfelt and touching read too, with the descriptions of his final days in hospital being particularly affecting to read. It comes with a foreword by Wyngarde’s co-star on Flash Gordon, Sam J. Jones and an afterword by his good friend, Steven Berkoff, both attest to Tina doing Peter Wyngarde proud, and I am inclined to agree. More, I believe she will continue to do Wyngarde proud, for she was, as he is quoted in the introduction to the book his “Joan of Orleans”. For anyone with even the slightest interest in the man and the times, I recommend picking up a copy. It is available in all formats and from the usual suppliers such as Amazon, Waterstones and WH Smith, as well as from the publishers Austin-Macaulay themselves.

I’ve been a fan of Peter Wyngarde’s film and television work for a fair few years, but until now I didn’t really know a great deal about the man himself – apart from a series of oft-repeated tales (which no doubt grow more distorted every time they’re repeated).

Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins’ hefty tome (clocking in at over 500 pages) has been designed to rectiy this and although she’s obviously approached the book intent on righting perceived wrongs from various points in Wyngarde’s life, it still manages to paint a vivid picture of a charismatic, but often difficult, man.

Wyngarde-Hopkins first met Peter in the early nineties when she set up a fanzine dedicated to him. Over the years their bond grew closer as she became his assistant, companion and eventual soul mate. Drawing upon an impressive archive (letters, scripts, diaries, interviews) she’s been able to fashion a substantial biography where the subject is often able to chip in on the subject in hand.

His early years, as a prisoner of the Japanese in an interment camp in Shanghai, are vividly portrayed. There are lighter moments – organising theatrical entertainments – but also darker ones (the guards broke both his feet in order to discourage him from running about). Wyngarde’s relationship with his parents – his mother looks to have been something of a flighty man-eater whilst he idolised his father (who died at sea in 1947) – is also touched upon.

Rather like his mother, Wyngarde enjoyed a healthy sex life (one of the things he’s – along his with acting – probably best known for). And as he attempted to establish a name for himself as an actor in post-war Britain, there were no shortage of opportunities for liaisons. Plus plenty of invitations which Wyngarde declined (from the likes of Noel Coward, Peggy Ashcroft and Bette Davis). It’s up to the reader to decide how much of this is credible – no doubt Wyngarde wasn’t above spinning a tall tale or two.

His years in provincial rep and his eventual emergence during the 1950’s as a familiar face on both the London stage and as an early television favourite are entertainingly sketched. The likes of Kenneth Williams and Orson Welles feature in some amusing anecdotes.

By the 1960’s Wyngarde was guesting in a number of cult television series which still endure to this day. Most notably The Avengers and the episode ATouch Of Brimstone, in which he played the Honorable John Cleverly Cartney, leader of a modern Hellfire Club. Wyngarde would later recall that Cartney’s whip cracking was very carefully choreographed – one wrong move could have resulted in a serious injury for Diana Rigg.

His real ascent to cult fame would, of course, come with Department S and Jason King. Paid the princely sum of £336 for the first thirteen episodes (rising to £1,000 if the series continued past that point) Wyngarde seems to have earned the respect of many of the guest actors (Anthony Hopkins speaks warmly of his experience working with him on Department S) although it was a different story with his co-star Rosemary Nichols. More detail on this – or indeed production of both series – would have been welcome, as they’re dealt with rather quickly.

Two very different events during the seventies are still debated today by Wyngarde watchers. The first is his 1970 self-titled spoken word album, which included such memorable offerings as “Rape”. Judging by the eleven tracks not included in the final cut (including “Merry Sexmas”) it could have been a double album ….

A Life Amongst Strangers posits that RCA had hoped the album would be a flop, thereby allowing them to write it off as a tax loss. But unfortunately for them it turned out to be a success. That’s certainly an interesting spin on events.

In 1975 Wyngarde was fined £75 for committing an act of gross indecency in the public toilets at Gloucester Bus Station. Although he kept working, this dealt a devastating blow to both his career and public image from which he never really recovered. Wyngarde-Hopkins remains convinced he was innocent (and that he was PERSECUTED! not prosecuted). Throughout the book she’s also at pains to dismiss the numerous rumours concerning his sexuality – presenting Wyngarde as a firmly heterosexual character.

From the eighties onwards the work began to dry up, although there were still some notable credits, such as Flash Gordon (1980) and a guest role in a 1984 Doctor Who serial (Planet of Fire). Peter Davison would remember Wyngarde’s contribution to this story in his autobiography, although this still attracted Wyngarde-Hopkins’ ire (due to the fact he misspelt Wyngarde’s surname and omitted him from the index).

His final years, as his health began to falter, makes for bleak reading – although by the end you’re left in no doubt about just how much Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins loved him.

A Life Amongst Strangers offers a substantial portrait of Peter Wyngarde. As with all autobiographies and biographies the reader will have to decide just how accurate a portrait it is, but it certainly doesn’t skimp on detail. Published by Austin Macauley, it’s well worth checking out.”

Kenneth Barrett

Author and Journalist

24th June, 2020

This is one of the oddest biographies I have ever read. The first half of the book is fairly conventional, giving a well-researched account of Peter Wyngarde’s life and career, while the second half segues into a description of the personal relationship the author had with her subject for the last thirty years of his life; a platonic relationship that became so close and so intense that she took on his name.

An enduring mystery, not entirely resolved here, is why Wyngarde with his immense talent and charisma did not become a major screen star but instead, with the dubious exception of the Jason King creation, nibbled around the edges of generally second rate films and featured in second lead roles on British television. He seems to have been most at home on the stage, and indeed as a personality belongs to the great old theatrical tradition that was already passing into history.

Which leads to another point. Aside from an early marriage, and from a number of early affairs with notable actresses, the author very carefully evades the matter of Wyngarde’s sexuality. That business of him sharing a flat for seven years with Alan Bates? An arrangement of pure convenience for two actors with heavy travel schedules. That business of the joy hole in the gents’ toilets at Gloucester bus station? Rickety carpentry.

Beyond that, nothing, despite several references to the size of her subject’s member including giving down to the fractions of an inch, the exact dimensions. Very impressive indeed. But as to what he did with it, we are left up in the air, as it were. For the final thirty years, apart from being lovingly tended by its owner, it appears to have done nothing. Not even living in close proximity to the author does it become aroused from its torpor. It certainly appears to have been a most honourable member. Is this important? Yes, because the bus station bust came immediately on the heels of the worldwide success of Jason King, and it scuppered Wyngarde’s subsequent career. Granted, the camp characterisation was one of the most preposterous manifestations of a preposterous decade, but Wyngarde’s looks and virility would have carried him beyond that. A serious screen career was no longer possible. What the press did to his reputation was pure malice, and it continues to haunt his legacy today.

This is a very long book, and it includes fan letters, reviews, and (favourable) media comments. The ending, as Wyngarde becomes a very difficult and querulous old man, is desperately sad. He remains an enigma to the end, and one has the impression he preferred it that way.

Kenneth Barrett has been a journalist for almost his entire career, at various times specialising in travel, food, media criticism, humour, business and industry.

How do you write a biography of Peter Wyngarde? He was a master of the half truth, the obfuscation and the downright fib. He told so many variations of his life and family background, that fact seems to have become fiction.

Well it does help if you know you your subject intimately, as does the author, Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins, having been his closest confidante for nearly thirty years, until his death in January 2018.

Life amongst Strangers is comprised of two parts. The first 300 or so pages looks at Peters early life and his career up until the late 1980’s in fact as far as the authors arrival.

The most disappointing aspect of this biography is the lack of verifiable factual information. The author asserts that she has amassed over 1200 documents form Peters archive, but yet next to nothing is reproduced in the book. Basic details, such as his much debated date of birth are taken on say so. However there are some enjoyable stories, including a typically rumbustious encounter with Brian Blessed on the set of Flash Gordon and some nice gossipy, bitchy asides about co stars including Jean Kent and Claire Bloom. As well as the hysteria that greeted his personal appearances in the wake of Department S and Jason King.

But it’s the lack of factual detail, that does ultimately grate. Peters date of birth has been notoriously difficult to get a fix on. The author gives us a birth date of August 28th 1928, his agent however advises that he was 90 when he passed away on January 15th 2018, meaning with an August birthday, he must have been born in 1927. The author mentions that she was nearly forty years younger than Peter, but a quick check on the register of births, deaths and marriages, has the author being born in June 1963, giving Peter a more likely birth date of 1923 or 1924 , so it all becomes rather untidy.

Peters marriage to the actress Dorinda Stevens in 1951 is also open to question. They were married in Sicily whilst on holiday. Now I’m not sure about this, but as British subjects marrying in a foreign country, would they then have had to notify the British authorities on their return? Again there is no entry for the marriage on the UK marriage register and no documentation is recorded in the book.

Inevitably when Peter Wyngarde’s name is mentioned, it is often to discuss his sexuality. Similarly with Elaine Parker’s recent biography of Dennis Price, The Price of Fame, The author seeks to reclaim Peter as firmly heterosexual. Recounting his relationship with Vivian Leigh and sharing many a picture of Peter, with various girlfriends at first nights and other show business events.

Thus the flat share with Alan Bates in the early 1960’s, is just that, a flat share to make the rent a bit more manageable. The same explanation was offered about Cary Grant and Randolph Scott when they shared a property in Hollywood in the 1930’s.

The 1975 arrest alongside a crane driver in a Gloucester bus station lavatory, after which Peter was vilified by the press, was merely an aberration, due to too much drink and it was the bus station that was coming down, not any article of clothing.

The last thirty years of the actors life, which forms the basis for the second half of the story, appears to be at least in the professional sense, one of unfulfilled ambitions. There were scripts and projects uncompleted, or completed but without backers. Work did trickle in, but from the mid 1990’s consisted largely of fan conventions, or the occasional DVD commentary for Department S and Jason King.

The author describes how during their years together, she tries to put Peter’s affairs in to some sort of order, tend to his everyday needs and cope with his increasing infirmity and worsening moods, all written in such finite detail, that it marks it out as one of the most intimate biographies I’ve ever read. Mind you, do we really need to know about Peter’s bladder problems.

It is fascinating reading though and easily the most impressive part of the story. So detailed is it and so well written, that you would have to have a heart of granite, not to well up in the last few pages, so painful does the story become.

As I read Life Amongst Strangers, I wondered whether Peter himself aside from his various poems and prose included in the book, had co written the book himself, before he passed away, or whether it was wholly a cathartic work from the author.

If Peter himself had written Life Amongst Strangers, I imagine he would be chuckling to himself saying ‘you’ve read the book; you think you know the truth, but I know otherwise’.

So does Life Amongst Strangers help us to separate the truth from years of grimy tabloid hackery? Probably not, but this is as close to the man himself as we are likely to get.

N.B. The author of this review was pointed in the direction of the ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers Companion Page’, which displays many of the documents referred to in the book.

Annette André

Actress – Artist – Broadcaster – Writer

Peter Wyngarde – A Life Among Strangers”. I highly recommend it. It’s been said that the unexamined life is not worth living, a wisdom Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins has taken to heart in writing her definitive life of actor Peter Wyngarde.

In exhaustive and intimate reporting, Peter’s legion of fans around the world now have a unique treasury of his journey from internment by the Japanese during his early teens years during WW11, to his well-deserved fame as one of the most talented and popular actors of what has become known as ”The Golden Age of British Television.”

I’m amazed that I never worked with Peter in any of the dozens of films, TV programmes and stage plays we each appeared in, but I’m grateful for the many laugh-filled hours we shared at his table in the Elstree commissary when he was shooting the “Department S” series and I “Randall and a Hopkirk (Deceased.)”

I’m usually a fast reader but it took me quite a bit longer to finish this book than I’d anticipated, as there wasn’t a chapter that didn’t bring back a flood of memories of a time when a unique talent such as Peter’s was appreciated with due respect.In riveting, factual detail, “A Life Among Strangers” covers Peter’s long career, from early stage successes to his starring in “Department S,” ”Jason King,” and “Flash Gordon,” to his acclaimed theatre performance as Petruchio in “The Taming of the Shrew.” But for me, it was his harrowing presence as the ghost Peter Quint in the film “Turn of the Screw,” a performance that lasted only sixty seconds, but continues to exemplify his star quality.

Perhaps no subject has had so devoted a biographer as Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins, whose decades-long relationship with Peter has given him the “life” he deserves, warts and all and produced a book that I truly can say deserves my five-star rating and a permanent place on your bookshelves.
I can see Peter raising a glass to that.