Please note that some of the additional information provided here by the journalist named below may not be accurate, so it should be treated with caution.
14th September, 1986
What Wyngarde Learned From Cosby
Unlikely as it may seem, comedy superstar Bill Cosby has played a major part in the career of actor Peter Wyngarde.
Wyngarde, appearing in the Hilton Playhouse is Wait Until Dark at the Hong Kong Hilton from today until Saturday, was once a guest on Cosby’s 60s detective series I, Spy.
“I watched him religiously, how he worked. His method taught me more about movies than anyone else. He showed me how to relax on screen ;all this was unconscious, it didn’t know I was watching him, he explained.”
Wyngarde, best known for his role as Jason King in televisions Department S, is exactly what you expect an actor to be – flamboyant with a voice that carries down corridors. Tall, fit and tanned, and able to dominate any conversation.
“Twenty-five years is the time it takes you to become an actor,” he said. He has little sympathy for those who ask how to become an actor, preferring the question,’ How do I become a better one?’
Acting was an instinctive career choice, and he felt the best way to learn his trade was through life’s experiences. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included Alan Bates, Albert Finney, and Peter O’Toole, didn’t suit him.
“I left because I didn’t think it was the best place to learn quickly,” he said. His unconventional bold approach led him to reparatory theatre, where he stayed no longer than three months with each company, often less. “I was in The Letter by Somerset Maugham, playing a coolie with the line ‘Missy, Missy – Master he come fort tiffin’. I got bored and after the line, started singing ‘A Room With A View’ as I went off. I was sacked.
He later worked with Vivien Leigh, who was instrumental in getting him off a West End
blacklist. She wanted him as her leading man in Duel of Angels and it was only when director Jean Louis Barrault insisted that he had the role that he was removed from the blacklist. The ban was as a result of appearing in a Noël Coward play.
“The prop letters used in plays are usually silly ones but in this play they were from out of work actors looking for work. I found this disgusting so I ripped them up. When the secretary carried them onstage they were all these little bundles of paper. Quick as a flash Coward said, ‘Oh dear, the rats have been at work.”
However, Coward was angry and Wyngarde was sacked and blacklisted. He greatly enjoyed his Jason King role “Because Jason is a very romantic extension of myself.”
The programme was based on the rumoured adventures of Ian Fleming, James Bond’s creator. As to the success it brought him, “I freely admit I miss it dreadfully.”
Despite playing more than 100 television parts from Brunel to Arabs, he has felt typecast for 15 years. He has taken up directing, most recently The Merchant of Venice for Austrian TV. He has already been in several films but would like to do movies, “I am now prepared for them.”
“Filming is exciting. It’s when the impossible may happen,” he explained.
Interview by Patricia Moore.
PETER WYNGARDE: The Official Website 
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