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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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.

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”.

“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.

Did they give you any indications as to how he wanted you to play the part?

He said “play yourself”, which I was horrified at, as it is quite hard being yourself. It’s much easier acting! I thought he was as nutty as a fruit cake, but trusted his judgement. He was jolly secretive about the project, but I do remember that the script was stuck to rigidly. However, he did often ask me to say things in a certain way and to talk slowly…

I expect the finished product surprised you?

Indeed it did, but as Pat also directed the episode[1], I suppose that’s no surprise, really. But it did end up very differently!

Did anything in particular strike you?

The sets – especially Number 2’s room. I loved sitting in the chair watching the screen on the wall. I also found the ‘eye’ in the control room very menacing indeed.

How authentic was the karate shop?

Very! I practise for an hour each morning – something which I expanded for Department S. Pat loved authenticity although I know others might say differently, I found him very easy to work with. We had been friends for years – a long time before The Prisoner.

How long did you work on the episode?

Two weeks, I think.

Did you keep any mementos?

No. I did consider using the plimsolls for tennis, but as they were yachting shoes, I didn’t (they had bad associations for me as I had almost been killed on a yacht in a gale off the South Coast on my way to Cherbourg, two weeks before I started filming The Prisoner.

Your part was studio only?

Yes. I would dearly love to have visit Wales[2], as it looked beautiful. Ronald Radd was there – he was a very dear friend. I acted with him in A Tale Of Two Cities. I know he thoroughly enjoyed The Prisoner. His death (in 1976) was a shock.

How did you get on with Angelo Muscat?

Although I remember him being around, I didn’t have much to do with him. To be honest, I thought some of his appearances were stock footage. I do remember Rosalie Crutchley – she is a dear friend too. We have worked together a lot. Her nickname is ‘Bun’ – I don’t know why!

Well thank you for chatting to me.

It was a pleasure.

Interview by Tony Worrall

NOTES:

[1]: ‘Checkmate’ was actually directed by Don Chaffey.

[2]: Peter finally made it to Portmierion in October 2017 for the ‘Fall Out – The Prisoner At 50’ celebration. Click HERE for more information.

This interview was taken from The Prisoner Appreciation Society magazine, Number 6, and was reproduced by kind permission of six of one.

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.

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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Friday, 2^nd April, 1993.

Confessions of Felicity, the Jason King bimbo

The starlets who found fame in the 70s harem of a TV style icon.

It was the decade that style forgot. The one that dared to flare. Now it’s back in favour in a major way as the kitsch excesses of the 70s revival are shrewdly aimed at the under 30s, who never wore tatty old Afghan coats the first time around. Last weekend, massed ranks of Mexican moustaches, platoons of Noddy Holder platform boots and white satin Abba-esque loon pants were on the march. The faithful fans who light candles to such seminal 70s TV series as Jason King and Sapphire and Steel made a pilgrimage to the to the Shepperton Moat House in Middlesex to celebrate the video releases of their screen heroes and heroines from the vaults of Lord Lew Grade’s former company, ITC.

And the man behind the grooviest Mexican moustache of them all is thriller writer and amateur sleuth, Jason King – flamboyantly played by Peter Wyngarde, whose dashing adventures ran to four years of 60 minute episodes from September 1971. At the same time, these hit action-adventure shows introduced to our TV screens a new kind of young woman. While the 60s invented the dollybird, the glam rock era of the early 70s refined the concept with the making of the Bimbo. She was paid to look vacant, but gorgeous.

A Jason King Girl was, after all, the television equivalent of being a Bond girl. And for some of our top actresses, these early days are embarrassingly coming back to haunt them. As the award-winning Felicity Kendal prepares to open in friend Tom Stoppard’s long-awaited new play, ‘Arcadia’, on April 13th at the National Theatre, her past playfully returns to spook her. Hush, hush, whisper, whisper, who dares… yes demure Felicity Kendal’s was once a Jason King Girl.

Felicity was completely unaware of the show’s relaunch on video this month. She roared with laughter and said, “What a hoot! I think I wore lots of hippy clothes. Peter Wyngarde was a scream and great fun”. Felicity was only 22, look like the Princess of the Pixies with her long honey-coloured hair and bat wing sleeves in the role of Toki, an adorable but unattainable girl pursued by King in Paris. The elfing image stayed with her for years and influenced all her TV roles until she matured from the caring, self-sufficient neighbour Barbara in The Good Life into the serious award-winning classical actress who is now playwright Tom Stoppard’s favourite leading lady.

Women were Jason King’s fashion accessories. His ever-changing harem wore tarantula eyelashes, bovine expressions and even wore bikini’s to do the housework for him. He well remembers Felicity’s first day on the set to play ‘A girl for whom a king would abdicate’.

“My lovely Felicity – I fell in love with her. I found she was madly attractive,” recalls Wyngarde, in his deep, well-spoken tones, whose elegant style won him the Best Dressed TV Star of the 70s around the world.

“She is an was one of the most attractive things around. I was in love with her and so were 50 million viewers. The whole crew fell for her. She was quite unique, because it was rare to find intelligence and beauty. Everyone loved the ladies on the set, because they were young and glamorous with long legs, which were quite appealing. I endorsed all the ladies they were getting. They were one of the perks of the game. It’s lovely to have beauty around, whatever kind.”

Stephanie Beacham was obviously not thrilled to hear that her days as a Jason King decoration were being revisited in the 90s, even though she went onto even camper glories in The Colbys. She was crowned with a glittering diadem as an upmarket Madam. And she has kept the same glamorous image ever since. “Oh my God, that’s ancient history,” screeched her representative. No you can’t talk to her because she’s filming in Los Angeles”.

Another of his leading ladies was Michelle Dotrice. “She had a wonderful sense of comedy”, said Wyngarde, explaining: “Comedy is nothing to do with the person who says the lines it’s to do with listening and reacting. She had a kind of innocence and yet intelligence”. So why was almost every woman on TV made to look so dumb? “It was all to do with fashion. They didn’t want girls looking as if they had a brain. A man had to have the brains. Remember, it was pre-yuppie time. A man had to have the brains and to be dominant, while the woman were just extra-terrestrial bits hanging around,” he explains. “It was pre-macho days. Men were dominating in a suit. Now they have to be dominating in their boxer shorts”.

King’s elegant wardrobe frequently competed with the costumes of his ladies. His personally tailored single-breasted suits cost £500 a time and had to be figure hugging, apart from the slight flair covering platform heeled boots. But not so tight that he couldn’t karate his way out of trouble. His shirt cuffs were always turned back without cufflinks. He never carried a gun, only smoked his own brand of Russian cigarette’s, and drank champagne and whisky, but not together. Jason King was an all action, devilish ladykiller with large sideboards who inspired a million suburban imitators still lurking in Top Rank suits on Saturday nights. A spin off from another adventure series, Department S, it turned Wyngarde into a highly influential star. To prove it, Jason became the most popular choice of nomenclature for boys born in 1971. Despite becoming a TV hero, with his stylish clothes copied by men including pop stars like Barry Gibb and receiving hundreds of adoring fan letters a week from women, Wyngarde admitted he lost out on making a fortune.

“I’m not very good with business,” he said over breakfast at his Kensington hideaway. “I had a standard contract fee. They syndicated the shows in America and I didn’t get a penny extra. With my London tailor, I designed the Jason King suits based on an 18^th Century riding jacket. When the series became successful around the world, everyone was trying to copy them. In Hamburg, it was terrible. I found there was seven shops advertising Jason King suits and I wasn’t earning anything from them”. Did it make him feel bitter? “Not bitter,” he replied. “I had a great deal of fun doing it. It brought me a great deal of fame at that time, and I enjoyed doing them. It was really a sendup of Ian Fleming and James Bond”.

At one time he had 56 Jason King suits in his wardrobe, but now there are only two left. “I’ve given them all away. After spending four years changing into about four suits every day of the week, the last thing I want to do now is put one on”.

Interview by David Wigg and Maureen Paton.

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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16-22 April, 1969

The Terrifying Past Of Jason King

How Peter Beat The Torturers

Again and again the rifle boats of the Japanese guards smashed down on the little boys bare feet. “Tell us about the bombing,” they hissed between each blow, “or you will never walk again!”

The young Peter Wyngarde, captured when the Japanese army overran the Chinese town of Lung Hua, said nothing. He couldn’t understand the question.

Today, the 40-year old Peter is a successful actor. As Jason King, is the star of the new ATV crime series Department S. But, in a macabre, twisted way, he owes his success to the torture and degradation he suffered in that Japanese hell camp 26 years ago.

He still bears the scars mentally as well as physically and even now, has nightmares which, for sheer horror, outstrip any scene he ever had to play onstage.

The guards shattered both of Peter’s feet before they realised he couldn’t tell them anything. Then they flung him into a cramped cell with a constantly dripping tap within earshot.

There is no escape, except into the realms of a little boy’s fantasy. Alone in the darkness, Peter pretended he was the Prisoner of Zenda. Sometimes he imagined he was not there at all and was a cowboy and riding the Prairie.

For five weeks, as he crouched in his cell, the steady drip of the tap became background music to the world’s great plays with himself, of course, always playing the lead. When he dropped off to sleep, that drip-drip-drip became the applause.

Peter says, “It was only by creating a fantasy world for myself that I could shut out the misery around me. I still do, to some extent.

He recalls, “It was all ‘Boys Own’ adventure stuff to me and I didn’t really take in the messages, nor did I understand which planes were bombing which cities. But when the Jap’s caught me they wouldn’t believe that and tortured me to get any information I had”.

Afterwards, Peter took his mind off his injuries by reading everything he could get his hands on and most of the books were by Shakespeare and Robert Louis Stevenson. Then he wrote his own version of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde and organised a bunch of prisoners to play in it. He, of course, played both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

For the first time he heard what real applause was like, as the prisoners called the boy back onto the rickety bamboo stage for curtain call after curtain call. Except there wasn’t any curtains there.

When he was set free, the boy actor/producer was in a bad way; just a bundle of skin and bone. His parents sent him to sanatorium in Switzerland where he spent several months getting over malnutrition, malaria and the injuries to his feet.

As one executive once said of young Wyngarde: “He seems to live in a life of fantasy or something. I can’t make him out it’s all”

He then started the traditional round of repertory companies. “What can you do?” they demanded. Innocently, Peter would trot out the parts he knew well… The Prisoner Of Zenda, The Merchant Of Venice and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

His first acting job came to nothing and, if you ask him how he came to get it, Wyngarde is frank.

“I think they felt sorry for me,” he says. “At the time I still looked like something out of Belsen. I was a poor actor just a good show off”. He was fired and, dejected, he decided to study law.

Today, it might have been a country solicitor, immersed in the intricacies of wills and testaments but for the fantasies that every now and again would take over his thoughts.

improving his frail appearance (“The way I looked, it seemed that only part open to me was Oliver Twist before he asked for more!”). He did regular exercises to build up his physique and slowly the Wyngarde dream world began to assume some sort of reality.

He found success with provincial repertory companies, received rave notices for his Cyrano De Bergerac at the Bristol Old Vic.

He took the West End by storm with Vivien Leigh in Duel of Angels. In America he was acclaimed on Broadway and more and more plum parts came the way of the tortured kid who still suffered from nightmares. Then came his first appearance on British television, first as Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, followed by parts in The Saint and The Avengers.

In his present role is Jason King in Department S – a series of 1-hour films being screened by several TV companies – Peter plays a successful thriller writer who solves crimes that have baffled the police. It is a part that fits him as well as his floppy moustache – and it should. That moustache, the bushy sideboards and the flamboyant clothes he wears in the series are the same as Peter wears off camera.

But then there’s a lot of Peter Wyngarde in Jason King. When he plays the part, he is still working off the fantasies which began in the dark days he spent in the Japanese prison camp only now, he’s getting paid for it.

Interviewer Unknown.

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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Wednesday, 23^rd September, 1998

When cult actor Peter Wyngarde flew to Lanzarote to film scenes for Planet of Fire, this month BBC video release, he never imagined it end up on the run from the local policia…

Even when young, Peter Wyngarde was a larger-than-life character. “I was a terrible, outrageous little show off. A precocious, hideous little child”. Born in Marseille in 1933, the last thing his upbringing could be described as is conventional. When he was just six he found himself held in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and it was here that he discovered his love of performing. “I remember the camp doctor, he was a marvellous fellow, who read stories to the children in the camp. One of those stories was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I was so taken with it that I decided to dramatize it for the monthly camp show”. For this, Peter kidnaped the camp commandant’s pet rabbit on which his Dr Jekyll would try out his fabled elixir!

Peter went on to become a well-established stage and screen performer and, in 1969, found himself cast as the hero in a new ITC series, an event predicted by Welsh clairvoyant who told him, “Very soon you are going to be in front of millions, not hundreds, not thousands, but millions. Millions and millions of people are going to be watching you”.

Not long after, and just before opening in London in Checkov’s The Duel, he was asked by Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner to appear in their new television series, Department S, but his character was largely undefined. “The original fellow was to be a professor, but that wasn’t me. So I went to Sevenoaks to stay with friends Michael Bryant (later a Doctor Who director) and his wife for the weekend. I told him that I have come up with a name for this character. By the end of the weekend I had thought of Jason, Michael’s wife had thought of King, and Michael had come up with the Bentley as the only car this character would be seen in”.

Jason King became famous for his highly fashionable, if somewhat outrageous clothes sense, and Peter admits responsibility for choosing the cuffs, shirts and ties worn on screen. Perhaps his haute couture was responsible for a poll which voted him ‘The Man Australian Women Would Most Like To Lose Their Virginity To’!

After 28 episodes of Department S, his character had so captured the imagination of the viewing public that Peter was offered a second series solo, this time called simply Jason King. “Actually what happened was Lew Grade, who was head of ITC, called for me and said, ‘I want to talk to you’. I thought he was going to tell me they were not repeating Department S. When I went to see him he said to me, ‘I don’t like you. My idea of a hero is somebody blond with blue eyes, like Roger Moore. You, with your funny dark hair, moustache, and terrible clothes are not my idea of a hero at all, but I have to tell you that my wife loves you so you have to do another series’”.

Jason King came to the end of its run early in 1972, and marked the beginning of a long period where the flamboyant Wyngarde was rarely seen on television screens. But, come 1983, he accepted the part of Timanov in the Doctor Who story Planet of Fire. “Somebody said to me, ‘You’ve done The Avengers, The Saint, The Prisoner and The Baron, you must do Doctor Who. I had no idea what Doctor Who was about, mainly because I was working a lot and you didn’t get a chance to see much television. I made a point of watching some episodes and found I liked it. I liked William Hartnell enormously. The first episode I was offered I didn’t do because there was too much studio work and I hate studio. However, with Planet of Fire the character was interesting, and there was the idea of going to Lanzarote. You only have to tell me once that we are going where the sun is and I’m there before I’ve even read the script. In fact the script on this occasion was a bit tricky. We changed a lot of the lines; some of them were a bit corny. I found the idea of the story fascinating and that was what appealed to me. Once you have the idea you can take it from there and rewrite the dialogue”.

Laughing, he explains that this is the reason people don’t employ him: “Directors are terrified of me when I do rewrites. They think I’m going to take over, and usually I do. I think you have to do that but nobody else thinks so, especially not the directors”.

Planet of Fire was directed by Fiona Cummings, and Peter is the first to acknowledge her input. “What is so marvellous about her is that she likes actors. Most of the directors that one gets in touch with these days don’t like actors. She assesses what kind of actor you are, always remembering that she and the writer want to bring to it. Then if she finds an actor who is rather over imaginative, she listens to whatever is good and takes it whilst at the same time getting rid of the rubbish. I will present a whole bag of tricks, and she would say what she liked. I’m surprise she doesn’t do more. I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, she isn’t 12 years old as a lot of today’s directors appear to be and, secondly, she knows her job too well. You see they have to find someone they can blame; someone to carry the can if things go wrong. Fiona was great to work with and I wouldn’t have enjoyed it half as much without her”.

Lanzarote itself is a place of breath-taking beauty, and Peter decided to make the most of his time. “I rented a Jeep, and would drive myself out to the locations miles away from civilisation. Of course I’d get hopelessly lost until I’d find people looking at me rather strangely and pointing towards where the tents had been set up for the days filming. It was great fun. I remember my first scene with Edward [Highmore playing Malkon] was up in this wonderful lookout. That was a sensational place that Fiona had found. It was incredible, the views were wonderful”.

Once the film work is out of the way it left little time for the cast and crew to play, but Peter had one last trick up his sleeve before leaving Lanzarote. “When we arrived at our hotel we passed this pool in the grounds and saw these two little turtles going round and round like tigers in a cage, paddling up and down. I didn’t think it was very nice having turtles in a small pool like this, so as a joke I suggested we should get them out, and put them back in to sea. One or two of the company said, ‘don’t be ridiculous, you can’t do that’. None of them had any spirit of adventure, except Dallas Adams who played Professor Foster. We decided to do it very late at night so that we wouldn’t get into trouble. At about 4:00 O’clock on our last morning in the hotel, Dallas woke me up and said, ‘Come on, this is it.’ He’d worked out when the security guards went by and decided that this was the best time to do it. So I got out of bed, got some shorts on and went down to rescue these turtles. When we got there, however, we couldn’t move them. They weighed a ton. Just as we managed to get one out of the pool we saw torch light, so like the hero I am I ducked behind some sort of statue, while Dallas went off and asked the guard for a light to keep him quiet. As I crouched there I wondered, what would Jason King do in this situation? Once the guard had gone we got back to lugging these turtles. Mine was only a baby but it was huge, and it nipped me. Eventually I got it over the top of the pool and started trying to push it in the direction of the beach. There was quite a little distance between the hotel and the beach but I finally got my one on the sand. I started back to help Dallas with the other one. When we got the two of them down to the sea do you know what the silly things did? They turned around and started to head back to the hotel after we’d spent an hour pushing them down to the sea. Finally, we got them away and the next morning there was hell. Everybody was talking about it. They thought that they had been stolen for their meat, which is apparently very delicate and tastes like veal. When we went to book out there was Policia in the hotel reception. I looked at Dallas, he looked at me and said, ‘Let’s get out of here before we get nailed’.

We left with Edward not far behind. He had borrowed my Jeep a couple of days before and crashed it into another car while driving on my licence. He was equally sure that they had come for him. So there we were, the three of us like terrible fugitives trying to get on this plane to get away from these guys. What was worse was when we got to the airport there was more there. I don’t think they were really anything to do with us at all, but they kept looking over and checking our passports. At the time I think we were all convinced we were going to end up in a Spanish prison. Myself and Dallas for stealing the turtles, and poor Edward for hitting someone’s car.

To this day, Peter has never actually seen Planet of Fire. “I never watch myself. In fact it’s only recently that I’ve been watching any of the Jason King episodes, because I used to have to watch rushes every day on that show, and that was enough to put me off watching myself for the rest of my life!”

Interview by Liam-Michael Rudden.

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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Monday, 14^th November, 1983

King Jason Rules Again

He was a cult figure of the swinging 60s. The guy every young blood tried to look like. And the fella 35,000 Australian women voted the man they would most like to be seduced by. But it is more than a decade since Jason King, the super smoothie with the droopy moustache disappeared from our screens. Now Peter Wyngarde, the actor who played the cultured hero of Department S on the follow up series Jason King, is back.

Peter, now 50, and still rakishly handsome, will be making his comeback in a new Doctor Who saga. At the same time, Channel 4 is preparing to screen reruns of the old series that made Jason King a household name.

But Peter still secretly dreads the character that made him famous. “Suddenly Jason King took me over,” he says. “I was in danger of not being Peter Wyngarde anymore. The pressure of the roll was amazing. I could only take it for three years and then I had to quit. I just wanted to back away from public life. I had had enough. So I took myself off writing”.

In his Jason king heyday, Peter used to design the suits that the fictional hero wore. And he set the style for shirts with turned up cuffs the hallmark of the well-dressed man of the day. But now Peter is more at home in jeans and a combat jacket.

“All I want to do is go back to my roots and try to start again,” he says. “It’s a real challenge”.

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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‘Woman’ – 10^th September, 1973

Peter’s Royal Progress

“Yes, I suppose people are surprised when they hear my singing voice,” said Peter Wyngarde, referring to his right royal success in the revival of the stage musical, The King And I. He added, “it was a surprise to me, too! I sound better than I originally thought I would. I’ve been enjoying the role tremendously, even though it’s poles apart from my tough guy TV image as the other king, author and detective Jason.

“I believe a lot of my fans, especially the teenage ones, don’t quite know what to expect when they come to see the show but they seem to enjoy it, all the same!” In fact, he’s still recovering from the enthusiasm of a party of 400 teenyboppers who made a block booking and all turned up at the stage door afterwards.

“It’s hard for me to analyse my appeal. Basically, I think my younger fans like the trendy clothes I wear as Jason King. Also, I’ve got an older man’s authority which makes me perhaps something of a change from the usual young pop stars, doesn’t it?”

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The London Evening Standard

Thursday, 11^th October, 1973

Surprise Encore With A Cuddle From The King

Dawn was almost breaking before Sally Ann Howes and Peter Wyngarde got to the beds today after the triumphant West End first night in The King And I. It had been an emotional occasion at the Adelphi Theatre, with audience applause thundering out and curtain call after curtain call.

The most emotional moments of all which was totally unexpected by the stars. It came when the curtain rose one more time to find the two of them hugging each other with delight. Peter explained: “We thought the curtain was down for good and we just fell into each other’s arms in relief. It was a magical moment.

“I don’t know what we said, but it sort of sealed the occasion. I imagine we were just gasping our thanks to each other”.

Backstage after all the congratulations from people like Cecely Courtnage, who looks upon herself as the second mother to Sally Ann, the stars exchanged presents.

He, using a line from the script, gave her a huge model elephant. “I think it has brought us both good luck,” he told her. She, remembering that the King wore glasses in the show, gave him a pair of Georgian spectacles. Says TV’s Jason King, “When I get the lenses taken out I will wear them during future performances”.

Both of them went on to a series of parties to mark the opening. There were public ones and private celebrations. Peter got to two of them but missed a third. “With a matinee due today,” he said, “I felt I had to sleep at some time”.

It was his first West End musical and he was at the theatre early to mentally adjust himself from London to Siam – leaving one world for another.

“It was wonderful hearing the adulation for the music,” he said. “I was so nervous that I must have gargled 100 times before going onstage. But it was exhilaration rather than fear. My last words to Sally were, look into my eyes when we’re out there”.

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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March 2018

Interview with ‘Number 2’

Throughout The Prisoner, ‘Number Two’ was the visible face of authority – and one of the stellar guests at last year’s 50th Anniversary event was the late Peter Wyngarde, who took the role and so memorably goaded ‘Number Six’ in the episode Checkmate

Wyngarde’s extensive career ranged from Noël Coward and Shakespeare plays to starring in The Innocence, one of the finest horror films, underachieving television iconography as Jason King. He was also a motoring enthusiast, and one of his biggest roles came about largely due to a car.

“In the early 60s I received a script that was totally rubbish,” he told C&SP in his final interview before he passed away on 18th January (2018), “not a decent line in it!” Shortly afterwards however, Wyngarde was walking by Tony Cooks Bristol showroom on Kensington High Street and he fell for a new model retailing at £5,750 1s 2d. “Upon contacting my bank I discovered that the balance was 12s and 7d!” This vision of automotive splendour prompted a quick change of heart regarding the screenplay and the resulting Night of the Eagle turned out to be a splendid supernatural thriller in which Wyngarde drove a Triumph TR3A.

Off screen, he also experienced a TR2 – “pretty, but not very practical” – which was one of many vehicles that joined the Wyngarde fleet over the years. These included the Bentley S2 Continental with James Young coachwork that appeared extensively throughout Department S; a Studebaker Dictator that suffered a mishap – “I was speeding down the road to Southampton and the engine blew up”; and three TVR’s, the 3.5-litre V8 models receiving particular approval. Latterly, his marque of choice was Porsche; “They are incredible and feel hand crafted.”

Wyngarde also used to race at Brands Hatch: “I would love to have done more of it, but there were insurance problems due to my screen work.”

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The Hellfire Club: The OFFICIAL PETER WYNGARDE Appreciation Society: https://www.facebook.com/groups/813997125389790/

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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Thursday, 5^th February, 1970

Peter Wyngarde was chosen Britain’s Best Dressed Male Personality last month. Looks like he could win himself another title of Britain’s most missed TV star. It’s the women fans that have missed him most since his Department S series came off the earlier this year. “I get letters from them every week asking when he’s coming back in another series,” says Lew Grade, boss of ATV. “We’re finalising a new deal now”.

This would be good news indeed for Mr Wyngarde’s female admirers. The new series will be made by Monty Berman, who also produced Department S. Wyngarde will again play the character of Jason King and filming starts next month.

The first of the 26 programmes in the series will be ready for screening next year. Meanwhile, Mr Wyngarde is manfully shouldering his responsibilities as Britain’s Best Dressed Male Personality. When he talked to my colleague the other day. he had on a snazzy pair of greening and yellow striped trousers that went well with a fluffy shirt, bare feet and a gold bracelet.

“My trousers were made from deck chair ticking,” he said. “I had them run up in Spain I think”.

“Show her the Valentino coat”, Peter, said a friend in blue velvet. “For God’s sake, tell everyone! It’s gone into cold storage.” he pleaded, “or someone will break in and pinch it for sure!”

The coat, ankle length, black sealskin, mink-trimmed and with a squirrel collar belonged to movie idol Rudolph Valentino in the 20s. ! “I just love the colour”, said Wyngarde, trying the coat on over the deck shirt pants and bare feet. “It’s very Zhivago-ish, isn’t it?”

Peter’s dress style influenced designs for all the clothes worn as Jason King. I’ve got some material, raised embroidered black silk, for an evening suit,” he confided. With a lovely frilly shirt? Miss Griffiths inquired. “No,” he replied thoughtfully. “Perhaps not too frilly.”

It’s details like that which can make or break you as Britain’s Best Dressed Man!