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.
22-28 May, 1971
Love, Peter Wyngarde and Eastern Promise
Jason King is the writer-investigator who helps Department S solve its more bizarre cases. Jason King is played by Peter Wyngarde. In between filming a new series to be called The World of Jason King, Wyngarde talked about himself, trading stamps, stardom… and about The Hand of Fatama.
In the gently elegant, detached and vaguely aristocratic way of his, Peter Wyngarde is rather interested to see what’s going to happen…
There he was, on location in Morocco as Jason King for The World of Jason King and in between shooting he found himself in the local marketplace when suddenly, he was confronted by a fortune teller.
“He was like John the Baptist, with grey hair and incredible blazing eyes,” he says
Surrounded by a shoving, pushing crowd, Wyngarde gave a coin to the seer. “This man actually told me that I was going to have three children, very soon, one after the other, and that I wouldn’t be married! That, I think, is the answer to anyone who asked me if I am ever likely to get married again”.
For all that, at the idea of siring children is strong.
“As long as they keep their independence and I keep mine,” he says, obviously recalling his broken marriage. “I believe greatly in independence, and if I did marry again we would have to live in separate houses”.
And who would look after the children? Wyngarde? “Oh no, I expect one of the various mothers would. I think I’m the hunter, you see, if you keep a hunting creature in its cage it will lose its individuality”.
This probably sums up the public image of Peter Wyngarde. Women all over the world drive themselves into frenzies over him; write to him the kind of letters that make the Kama Sutra look like a convent school text book.
One Australian magazine voted him The Man Whom Women Would Most Like To Lose Their Virginity To. “But women who throw themselves at me don’t interest me,” he explains. “I feel I must be the one to do any chasing that’s got to be done”.
He stretches his long, lean legs in the vivid scarlet velvet-corduroy trousers. His shirt is pale cream, etched with leaping gnomes and elves. A healthy-looking man, with his deep sun-tan and droopy moustache.
It is difficult to appreciate that as a child he was brutally tortured in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. For three years, from the age of 14, he suffered deprivations that many an adult succumbed to.
When he was freed, he was riddled with sickness, shrunken with malnutrition. He could only get around with the aid of crutches, his feet shattered after an interrogation session conducted with rifle butts.
“The part of my childhood is almost completely gone from my mind. I have rejected it. The pain and the danger have been pushed right out of my mind.”
Wyngarde was born near Marseilles, his mother French and his father, an English diplomat. He was in Shanghai when the Japanese attacked. When they drove him away in a truck he thought he was going off on a lovely holiday. It took two years in a Swiss hospital to recuperate from this particular “holiday”. Later, in London, he turned his hand to finding a worthwhile job. First it was the law, but he lost interest. Then he tried writing, but gave it up to become an actor. Now, he is reverting more to writing. He has written a screenplay which he plans to direct if Jason King gives him a chance.
His career has brought him recognition in repertory, television, films, the West End and Broadway. Then came Department S and stardom.
His long dark hair with a streak of grey, bobs enthusiastically. “Tell me, have you seen Budgie?” He is referring, of course, to Adam Faith’s new TV series.
“I like that chap very much indeed. He makes me roar with laughter. I first met him at a party many years ago and he turned to me and said, ‘We’re all right Pete, ‘cause we’ve got the cheekbones. It’s the cheekbones that count. They catch the eye highlights.’ Of course he’s perfectly right. Good cheekbones are a tremendous help to an actor”.
He touched the medallion hung around his neck. “I got in Morocco along with the prediction’s. It’s The Hand of Fatima, and legend goes that while you have it you’ll never be without sex. The true translation from the original should be that you would never be without love, but there is no equivalent word in the Arabian dictionary. So I’ve translated it myself”.
Does he find it difficult to live up to the big star image. “I don’t attempt to. I think it’s pointless. To prove it to you; I was doing a recording session in Soho and every morning I would put on a pair of jeans and an old sweater and grab the first taxi. One driver didn’t say a word all the way, which is unusual for a British taxi driver. When I was paying him, he said, ‘Excuse me, but I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you did get the award for The Best Dressed Man In England, didn’t you?” True, Wyngarde did get such an award but treats it in the same way as all the other trappings of stardom and adulation. “It’s all part of the training. Actors are brought up and taught to act the part of being a star. It’s as much part of the job as saying your lines”.
His famed drooping moustache blossomed first in the Chekov play, The Duel, at the Duchess Theatre in London, two-and-a-half years ago. Its origins, despite those who may have ideas about Mexico and Zapata, are Russian.
“The character was supposed to be a Tartar, and the moustache helped round off the character.” And from that, Jason King was born.
He laughs a languid laugh – that manages to become so animated to the point of schoolboy glee. We walked back to his dressing room from the set where he has just completed a scene from The World Of Jason King.
“This,” he says, “is an indication of a person’s real personality” – and he produces a massive bunch of keys. Pendants and discs separate the keys into bunches
“Have you ever seen so many keys? Ever? And every single one has a purposeful. These three are keys to the flat, that’s the key to the cottage, that’s for the dressing room, that’s the key to the garage…”
In the garage is his beloved Bentley which he bought from a surgeon. “It’s the last of a classic line made in 1958 and I adore it”.
With the car – at 12 miles a gallon – came a bonus which appealed to his bargain-hunting instincts. “Green Shield Stamps”, he declared. “I collected thousands and thousands of them with the petrol and oil. I was saving up to get a scooter. Then someone broke into the car and stole stole the lot! Oh, I’m mourned those stamps”.
In Wyngarde’s London home is the accumulation of years of bargain hunting. But probably his greatest interest is antique clocks. Even as we talk a man is busy hanging Wyngarde’s latest acquisition – a 1320 Swiss Buco – at his home. For 10 minutes, Wyngarde talks to me about hanging the weighted chains. “Collecting clocks is a sign of madness. Make of that what you will”.
When he next gets a break from work he plans to take up flying. “I’ve got 7 hours, but I consider I’ll be starting from scratch. I don’t think one should take a pilot’s licence, one needs to do the navigation too – and that means a bit of swatting”.
Recently he toyed with the idea of buying a new kind of mini helicopter for £2,000. “I thought I’ll get one of those and buy a place up in Norfolk and I’ll be able to commute to the studios”. Approaching the airfield with his chequebook he looked up to the sky. There it was, his longed for mini helicopter, hovering overhead. As he watched, it fell apart and crashed. “It was a tremendous tragedy, the pilot was killed. But I don’t think one should let these things play on one’s mind or we would worry about every car or train crash or, even, scheduled air flight”.
“One of Wyngarde’s great relaxations is writing. “I tried painting. I was good at it as a child but when I tried it some time ago, I realised it was really a whim”. These days, it seems that most personalities spend every spare moment on a golf course. Not Wyngarde. “I’ve only played once, in the teeth of an hailstorm. My partner said I should take it up. He said I had a good swing. I said I don’t care what I’ve got, I don’t want to play it again!” And he hasn’t. “I don’t understand it”.
He does enjoy fencing, tennis and swimming. “But really, I’m very happy finding a wild bit of country with a wild beach and lots of sun. I don’t need too many people around me”.
It is time for him to see the film rushes of The World of Jason King. We leave the dressing room, and he locks it from his great bunch of keys. I hadn’t notice before, but there on the door, designed as a knocker, is a huge Hand of Fatima.
Interviewer unknown.
PETER WYNGARDE: The Official Website 
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