INTERVIEW: Titbits

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.

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February 1973

“Life’s Too Short For Marriage”

Peter Wyngarde, TV’s heart-throb hairy hero, Jason King, has revealed what happens when he’s not working. His thoughts turned to marriage – especially after a night on the town.

The 40-year-old once married star said, “When I’m acting I am very happy not to get married. But when I’m not working, I think ‘maybe I will…’ it happens on those nights, or morning after, when you crawl drunkenly into a solitary bed.”

Peter’s first marriage, at 22, lasted only five years. Since then he has said he would remain single because “Life is too short to spend with one woman.” But he told me, “I have discovered that when you shout too strongly about something you become vulnerable. I met a girl in Australia last year and I got involved. Marriage? It nearly happened. Luckily Bali leered its romantic head at me and I managed to escape.”

Peter, who gets marriage proposals by the sackful admits to having one or two girlfriends. But he emphasised. “I don’t play the field like some people I read about. I’m more discreet. Sex is vital – I’m a physical person. Next comes intelligence, unless the girl is so lovely and dotty I wouldn’t give a damn if she couldn’t spell two words. But one must think of the future, when it’s no good just banging away all night and then finding out in the morning that you’re left with is somebody were all you can do is read the papers, including the sports pages!”

Peter is the star all the women love, but the only companion in his elegant Kensington flat is his faithful dog – an Afghan Hound called Yousef – and an impressive collection of antique clocks. “I’m a loner,” he said. I always feel lonely on festive occasions like Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I think of the people I’ve met during the year and who I’d love to be with again. People I really care for and have been close to. But I don’t twiddle my thumbs saying, ‘I’m lonely’. I occupy myself in some way. I write a lot.”

Australian women voted Peter the man they would most like to lose their virginity to. But he winces when called a sex symbol. “God help us!” he shuddered. “Most of us have sex appeal, but mine is probably a little more blatant, more visual. I don’t see myself as anything in particular, I don’t think actors should. They should be chameleon’s – change colour with their surroundings. It’s much more important to look at other people than yourself. I’m more concerned about other things, like relationships. And much more tolerant than I was. I used to be very intolerant of things that didn’t go my way. I sulked or made an awful lot of noise. Now I’m more inclined to see other points of view. Acting has done that for me. It has held me to learn more about people and kept me growing as a person through performances.”

Peter, a completely unpompous professional, says that he is having more fun now than ever before. “After slogging away you suddenly get international recognition. It’s lovely to find people responding to your kind of openness, were before they would say, ‘Who the hell is that? That’s too much that one.’ I adore travelling and meeting people. I go to a lot of parties, so I’m told the morning after! I’m sure the time will come when I won’t be invited. Then I have to give parties.”

This spring Peter returns to the West End stage, after five years, in a new two-character play Mother Adam. Hermione Baddley co-stars as his mother. It is the third of Charles Dyer’s trio of plays about loneliness.

“I’m hoping to do a Jason King film, but I want to do this play first,” he said. “It’s fantastically written. It’s about a mother and son living in their own extraordinary world. Adam is completely different to King. Adam has the world’s problems on his shoulders. His exoticism is in his language; he has tremendous humour.”

Peter spoke to me during rehearsals at the British Legion club in Kings Road, Fulham, London. Gone was Jason Kings peacock look. Instead, Peter wore a chunky woollen sweater and flared trousers. He explained these are rehearsal clothes. “I am a flamboyant person. Years ago people looked at me as if I was peculiar. I have a lot of energy and tremendous drive. Most people control themselves and count to 10 before they burst forth, but I can’t count!”

As we talked, middle-aged women sipped gin and tonic in a nearby bar, unaware that Peter was within kissing distance. Unlike the 35,000 women who mobbed him in Sydney, Australia. His smile faded a little as he recalled it: “I was on a plane with a pop group, when we arrived I saw these millions of women. I thought they were meeting the group and I wished them luck as they walked in front to me. Suddenly the women crashed the barriers and charged towards me. I thought that they’d mistaken me for one of the group. But they weren’t interested in them. I wish they had been. They stripped me and knocked me unconscious. It was the most frightening mass hysteria thing that has ever happened to me.”

Interview by Douglas Mirl.