Welcome to my “Thoughts of Peter” Page

8h October, 2025

It’s always been the way that film, TV and music fans have wanted a little piece of their idols. It started with people collecting autographs of theatre stars, with admirers waiting for hours outside stage doors in the hope of getting a signed photo.

These days, film and TV memorabilia is big business, with items changing hands for thousands of pounds at auction and online. But it’s no longer just an autograph on a picture or a classic film poster that people desire. What’s in demand now are more personal items; clothing, private letters and other intimate objects.

After Peter passed away in January 2018, a surge of items including photos, books and other objet d’art began to appear on eBay and elsewhere – some legitimate, others not so. I was alerted just a week or so after his death to an auction that was due to take place in the south of England where a record player dating to the 1960 was to be sold and which, it was claimed, had come from Peter’s “estate”. At that time, nothing had been touched or removed from his home. Indeed, the funeral was yet to take place! I contacted the auction house and advised them that, wherever the radio had come from – whether it had belonged to Peter at some point in time and he’d either sold it or given it way, I’ve no idea (there didn’t appear to be any tangible provenance attached) – it had not come from his “estate”.

In March 2020, a sale of items described as coming for Peters ‘estate’ was held at East Bristol Auction House which, despite fingers being pointed at me by misinformed people, I had absolutely nothing to do with and which I refused to acknowledge. Everything that was submitted to the sale, as far as I was aware, had come from private sellers – many of whom had probably decided to take advantage of this opportunity to make hay. I was to hear via Peter’s agent, Thomas Bowington, that Peter’s estranged family had attempted to halt the auction, as they appeared to believe that anything that had once belonged to him now belonged to them. The auctioneer, who had chosen to sell these items under the banner, ‘Peter Wyngarde – His Estate & Related Collections’, refused to comply and the sale went ahead as planned.

It should be made clear that Peter had actually left his entire estate to me, which was ratified by him in a handwritten Will (dated 1st November, 2017) and in a recording made in January 2018 (that recording is in the keeping of Bowington Management’s solicitor) . Given that I cared far more for Peter than I did the contents of his home and bank account, I chose not to contend his family’s application for Probate.

The prospect of getting an unexpected handout can do strange things to people. Around two months after Peter passed away, I received not one, not two, but THREE obnoxious notes via Facebook Messenger from a former friend his. Despite not acknowledging Peter’s existence for well over a decade, and never once bothering to visit him as he lay dying in hospital, this person was to lob some exceptionally nasty grenades in my direction, even though I had never once left Peter’s side throughout his illness. He claimed, without a single note of irony, that his decision to walk away from his “good mate” was all Peter’s fault because, “He didn’t wish to be seen due to his advancing years and deteriorating health”. None of this rang true, of course, given that Peter was to make several appearances on primetime TV in the UK during that time, and I would suggest that the last place someone who didn’t wish to be seen in public would put themselves is at the NEC in Birmingham during ComiCon Weekend!

This so-called ‘friend’ also seemed strangely confused in his attempts to define the relationship I’d shared with Peter: One moment I was nothing but an “obsessed fan”. The next, I held so much sway over him as to dictate who should benefit from his Will! So which one was it? Surely I couldn’t be both! Peter was a very strong-minded man who did what he wanted, not what he was told. While this ‘great pal’ may well have know where in Peter’s flat the Champagne was kept, when it came to the nuts and bolt of his life and what his nature was, this person didn’t have a clue – less cared. Indeed, the suggestion that Peter was coerced in some with regard to his Will, was not only an extremely serious allegation that he’d would never have been able to substantiate, but was also contemptuous of Peter, who remained as sharp as a tack right up to the very end of his life.

My feeling is that, by March 2018, this individual was thinking to himself, ‘Well, it’s been 3 months since he died. Surely the Will should have been read by now, so where’s my share?!’ When finally the penny dropped and he realised he’d been left diddly-squat (as Peter’s “great pal”, he should’ve known that our man never rewarded disloyalty), he was looking for someone to blame, and that someone was me!

Given his obvious desperation (he was to mention the word ‘Estate’ twice in 3 short messages), I did offer him a carrier bag that’d been filled with odd socks and the like when clearing the flat, but this gesture was ignored.

• A number of company cheques (Wyngarde Productions – unsigned).
• A handkerchief
• Copies of private phone call messages
• A gold tooth
• C90 tape of private message from a relative in Austria.
• A signed copy of the biography, ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers’ by Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins.

There are a couple of things I’d like to say here. Firstly, things were taken from Peter’s flat without permission back in 2018. I’m not suggesting that this particular seller is at fault here, as he/she may well have bought these items in good faith. Secondly, to my knowledge, based on almost 30 years of knowing Peter, he never had a gold tooth! Whether it had once belonged to someone else, or it was added to a lot by an auctioneer etc., I don’t Know but, to my mind, it’s not Peter’s.

To be perfectly honest, I hate the thought of people pawing a Peter’s private things. It’s deeply upsetting. I know it goes on but, sadly, there’s nothing I can do about it. I just find the whole thing disrespectful and ghoulish. That said, I wouldn’t like genuine fans to be ripped off either, so PLEASE be very careful when buying things like this online, as there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there. If you’re unsure of something, you can always contact me here and I’ll do my best to verify the item or items for you.

19th July, 2025

The world of the internet Vloger came into shape focus for Wyngarde fans , when this attempt at bringing the world some Earth-shattering news was uploaded onto You Tube in July 2025.

It wasn’t necessarily the content of the Vlog itself that was a problem, since the information contained in it was so old and timeworn that even the Sentinelese – the most remote tribe on Earth, must’ve have heard it all this by now. No, it was some of the comments left by members of an all-knowing public that were ridiculous to the point of absurdity. The concerning thing is that there are so many people out there who are not only willing to accept this nonsense, but who are prepared to repeat it without a moment’s hesitation.

Here are just a few of those comments, followed by the facts:

“A little-known incident happened when he threw out his live-in lover/”valet”, who then locked Wyngarde’s 2 Afghan Hounds in his white leather upholstered Rolls Royce and threw away the keys after feeding the dogs on laxative chocolate. The things you learn when you have friends in the entertainment business!” @kevin-mix1vi

• The “valet” referred to here, I presume, is one Jeremy Dallas Cope – a PA who was recommended to Peter by a wardrobe mistress at Elstree Studios. He was not Peter’s “lover”. He was merely a PA recommended to him by a Wardrobe mistress at Elstree Studios.
• He did not live with Peter. He lived four-and-a-half kilometers away in Chayne Walk, Chelsea, with his partner.
• Peter didn’t “throw him out”. He was arrested for theft at the above address after being reported to the police by his own mother.
• Peter had ONE single solitary Afghan Hound – not TWO, as stated here.
• Peter never at any time in his life owned a Rolls-Royce – leather upholstered or otherwise.

Yes indeed – the things you learn when you have friends in “the business”! This a case of two separate events being cobbled together to make something more salacious. The REAL story involved Peter’s dog and a former housekeeper (a woman, in case anyone wishes to manufacture a story out of that!), which you can read about in my book. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the a “valet” or a car of any description!

Above: Peter with is one and only Afghan Hound, Yussef.

*You can see all the cars that Peter owned during his lifetime, here. There’s not a Rolls-Royce amongst them!

We then get the following…

“He [Peter] was also arrested in my home town of Portsmouth for cottaging. He made the classic schoolboy error of choosing a public toilet next to a police station, a couple of hundred metres from the theatre where he’d been performing. For what it’s worth, the toilets are still there but the police station is now a pub.” @sphinxtheminx

There is absolutely no evidence WHASOEVER that this ever happened, so it’s obviously a complete and utter fabrication! This yarn falls into the same category as the notorious ‘Birmingham Arrest’ (see here), which originated on Wikipedia, and for which there’s similarly not a scrap of proof to corroborate this claim.

The next one involves a supposed incident in a pub in Portsmouth (Great Scot! Peter must never have left that city… except, of course, when he was getting arrested in Nottingham, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham, Leeds… etc. etc. etc.):

“My parents owned the Crown pub, Charlotte Street, Portsmouth. Wyngarde came into the premises and insulted my mother calling her vile names. She immediately responded by pouring his pint of Guinness over his carefully coiffured hair. He didn’t even pay for it.” @davidmills3569

Absolute unadulterated RUBBISH! Peter’s didn’t drink Guinness for a start. His tipple of choice was Scotch whisky. and he certainly wouldn’t speak to a woman in the manner described here. He was always very gentlemanly with women, and was known for defending actresses who found themselves being bullied by an actor or director. I suspect the who entered this pub was a Jason King clone, and over decades of this tale being told and retold, it’s BECOME Peter!

Some people seem to treat the internet, books and websites like ours as a kind of magic mirror, which they can look into and see a reflection of their own expectations. Devoid of independent thought, they’ve spent their lives relying on tabloid gossip and online tittle-tattle to tell them what to think. They don’t seem to understand that newspapers wish only to increase their circulation; a whiff of scandal often does the trick. And as for those who post salacious nonsense on the ‘net, they’re doubtless as in the dark as they are. What has always troubled me is why some people will automatically believe what someone else has posted on a forum or elsewhere without enquiring how that person came by the tale they’re peddling. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when I’ve challenged someone on the internet and responded with a heap of facts (and other evidence) contrary to what they’re claiming, they suddenly fall silent – tip-toeing away with their malicious gossip around their ankles.

It should always be remembered that rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots!

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10th January, 2025

I haven’t contributed to this page for a wile for various reasons, but over the past couple of weeks I’ve been posting some little stories about Peter on our Facebook group page, and thought I’d transfer them over to here.

While none of these stories are Earth-shattering or massively important, they have succeeded in making our group members smile:

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“It’s got the door number on, though, surly?” asked Mum with increasing desperation.

“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you with any amount of certainty!” he responded.

When I got back, my Mum asked me if, per chance, I’d received a letter from Pierre in a completely blank envelope?

Needless to say, this wasn’t an isolated incident. He would often ask me (and also Thomas on occasion) to post letters for him which had no door number or road name on the envelope, or there might be an amalgamation of various peoples names and addresses. When, not unsurprisingly, a letter or card failed to reach it’s destination,, or rocked up at someone else’s address, there’d be the same reaction:

“BLOODY POST OFFICE!”

While I was working for Royal Mail some years ago, I was sent to cover temporarily in another area because of staff shortages.

While I was watching telly in my hotel room, Peter phoned and asked what I was up to. I told him I was watching a film about the Titanic: ‘A Night To Remember’.

“Oh,” he exclaimed. “A friend of mine [David Peel] was in that.”

He went on to tell me that David, who was perhaps best known for his work on radio, had been a very handsome chap, with blond hair and blue eyes.

“He said to me once,” Peter continued, “that it isn’t plain people who catch all the flack, but the good looking ones that suffer most because of the petty jealousies of others.”

There was a few seconds silence at the other end of the line, and then Peter added…

“Darling – I’ve had a TERRIBLE life!”

Peter had been staying at the Holiday Inn hotel in Paradise Street, Liverpool, whilst appearing in ‘The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari’ at the Playhouse Theatre.

We were both at the reception desk where Peter asked for his bill, which the receptionist spent some considerable time totting up (Peter and I were to exchange glances several time, and I do believe there were a few ‘tuts’ and ‘blows’ thrown in for good measure from both of us). Eventually, the bill was handed over.

I can’t remember how much the total amount was now, as this was some years ago, save to say that it was somewhat higher than had been anticipated. After Peter told the receptionist that he’s been quoted whatever it was for the room he’d stayed in her head, I swear, did a 190o turn before she herself ‘tutted’ and leapt from her seat.

Slapping the bill/invoice down on the counter in front of us, she began pointing out the breakdown of charges with her pen. “…and then there was £7.99 for breakfast each morning.” she announced.

“Breakfast?!” Peter exclaimed. “I never had breakfast!”

“Well, it was there if you’d wanted it!” she replied, haughtily.

After exchanging a rather cross glance with me, Peter produced his cheque book and after scribbling away for a few seconds, he tore the now complete cheque from the book and handed it to the receptionist. With that, we turned on our respective heels and began to walk away.

“Excuse me, Sir,” came the receptionists voice from behind us, “but this cheque is ‘X’ amount short!”

“It’s for the loan of the Porsche,” Peter replied.

The receptionist looked at us with a puzzled expression. “Porsche?”

“Yes,” Peter said, “I have a beautiful Porsche 911 parked outside my flat in London.”

The receptionist’s face suddenly morphed from puzzled to out right bemused.

“We haven’t loaned a Porsche from you!”

“No,” Peter replied. “But it was there if you’d have wanted it!”

There was one evening when Peter and are were having a what some might describe as a ‘heated discussion’, when I said something to him I shouldn’t have said. He just sat there for a couple of seconds looking at me with doe eyes (a bit like in the pic below), and then said in a somewhat pitiful voice: “I love MY Soulmate unconditionally.”

Well, that told me; stopped me dead in my tracks! Taught me a lesson tho’.

It was during the time that Peter was in hospital (October 2017 to January, 2018).

A Consultant had been to see Pedro, along with his entourage of doctors et al, and he was now discus something with Thomas as our man watched TV (I was sitting next to his bed).

The next thing, out booms Peter’s voice: “Look at the tits on her!”

I first looked at him, then at the telly, then back at him. Meanwhile, there was poor Thomas – sweat streaming down his face, as he tried desperately to convince the Consultant and his staff that this was a total one-off!

I wouldn’t mind so much if Pierre had been watching a ‘Carry On…’ film or some such, but I do believe the programme of choice was ‘Bargain Hunt’!

As a lifelong Rugby League fan, I’d gone to watch St. Helens RLFC (The Saints) play the London Broncos at The Valley – Charlton Athletics’ ground in East London.

When I got back to the flat, Peter was seated on his Chesterfield sofa, and immediately asked as I walked in how The Saints has done.

My Northern accent had always been somewhat problematic for Peter, and so as I stood in front of him giving him chapter and verse about the game, he just sat there in silence – a puzzled look on his face.

“We wo’ better team,” I began. “But wo’ two points behind wi’ just 30 seconds left on’t clock. Their scrumhalf stuck a bomb up tha’ our winger defused, and took off up’t sideline. All he’d got do now was round their fullback, so he gets roun’t blindside an’ goes in under sticks just as th’hooter goes. Wi ended up winnin’ 24-22!”

There was not a word from Peter as he regarded me for a few seconds, then he exclaimed:

“It’s a completely different language!”

I remember Peter telling me a tale about when he was in a play some years ago with a young actor who had only one line. The play was set in Mediaeval times, and this chap was to walk up to Peter (who was playing his commanding officer), speak his line and then turn and walk off.

As it turned out, the novice actor had arrived late at the theatre and so had run on stage in his street clothes – much to the cast’s chagrin. As he walked over to Peter, he mouthed, “Clank! Clank Clank!’ spoke his line, and then Clank! Clank Clanked! back off.

When Peter confronted him after the final curtain came down, he asked what all the clanking was about: “It was the sound of the armour,” replied the actor.

“Never before or since I have been so lost for words!” Pedro said.

En route to do an interview for a Channel 4 documentary, Peter was caught short and so we (he, Thomas and me) were forced to stop en route so that our man could make a mad dash to an alleyway behind a wine bar in Central London.

With his left hand on the wall and and his right elsewhere, the fire door of the bar suddenly opened, and the head of a middle-aged female employee popped out. But rather than make a hasty getaway, Peter just carried on with what he was doing – saying to the startled woman: “Lovely evening for it!”

When he got back to the car and regaled us with his story, he said: “She was under the impression that I was Peter O’Toole. I allowed her to continue in that belief!”

I remember him texting me a couple of times after we’d reconnected, and him always ending his messages with ‘LOL’. I asked him what was so funny, to which he replied: “What do you mean – funny?” So I said, “LOL. Laugh out loud!” “Oh, he came back. I thought it meant ‘Lot’s of Love!!!

A bitter-sweet one this time:

During the final week of Peter’s life, he was visited in his hospital room by the Palliative Nurse, who held his hand throughout the time she was talking with him.

When she’d finished what she wanted to say, she asked him if he had any questions, to which Peter replied: “Yes. Why are your hands so cold?”

Peter and I were sitting in the waiting room of Charing Cross Hospital one day when some old bloke wandered in and sat down opposite us. Almost immediately he began bestowing upon us every chapter and verse of his 30 years service in the Army.

Despite the empty look on our faces and increasingly glazed eyes, he was determined to tell his story, to the point where Peter and me ended up with both Shell Shock and Trench Foot!

This went on and on for almost an hour, when suddenly Pedro turned to me and whispered in my ear, “Bring me the BORE worms!”

After Peter had come out of hospital one time, he had the luxury of a kind of ‘Home Help’ who’d flick around the flat with a duster (after a fashion!) or nip to Waitrose up the road for the shopping when I was working.

On this particular occasion, I’d been asked to do a presentation up in Edinburgh, and so I called Peter later in the day to see how he was doing.

“Oh, Darling – I’ve been terribly ill”, he wailed.

“Awww, baby. What’s wrong?”

“The girl who comes in – it was her.”

‘Great Scott!’, I thought. ‘What on Earth has she done to him?!’

The young woman, was of Eastern European origin and her English wasn’t good. Turns out, he’d sent her to the supermarket and, amongst other things, had asked her to get something like, “Three Pounds (in money) of chops.” She, of course, misheard him and had subsequently come back with three pounds (in weight) of ‘chocs’ – i.e. chocolate.

“So what is the connection between this episode and you being ill?” I enquired.

“Because I ate all the chocolate!” he replied, as if I should’ve known he would.

“So, how is that the girl’s fault?” I enquired in a rather perplexed tone.

“Well, whose fault is it, Darling?!”

Whose indeed!

Peter and I had been to see ‘John Gabriel Borkman’ at the National Theatre (Lyttelton), and were on our way back to Kensington via the London Underground.

While stopped at a station en route, a somewhat rotund gentleman walked past our train window. Both of us followed him with our eyes as he rumbled along the platform – neither of us uttering a word. Finally, we turned to look at each other. It was then that Peter exclaimed:

“Let that be a warning to the BOTH of us!”

When we were on holiday in Turkey, it was Peter’s turn to cook and mine to wash the dishes.

After we’d eaten, he went out to sit on the balcony that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. I was about to clean around the sink and picked up some a pack of wipes that had been on the dining table since we arrived at the apartment. Since I wasn’t sure if they’d been left for us or were solely for the use of the cleaners, I showed them to Peter and asked him if he thought it would be OK for me to use them.

“Why on Earth would you use those to clean a sink?” Peter replied in a mystified tone.

“Well, they’re bleach wipes!” I responded – equally bemused by his question.

“I thought they were moist toilet paper!” he exclaimed. “Imagine what would’ve happened if someone had stuck one of THOSE up their arse!”

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23rd March, 2023

While he was in the planning stage of writing his autobiography back in 2016, Peter asked me if I’d go through all his diaries, engagement and address books etc. (dating from 1954) to make an alphabetical list of every person mentioned in them. Given that he was nothing if not a diligent record-keeper, this would included every friend and foe, acquaintances and colleague, doctor, dentist, solicitor, vet, window cleaner and, indeed, anyone else that might merely have been passing through. In total, there was almost 200 volumes. To me, it seemed as if I was being asked to scale the North face of the Eiger with a hundred-weight of potatoes strapped to my back!

The purpose of this task was to make a kind of aide de memoire for him, so that he could decide who (if any) of these people he wished to reference in his book.

The entire project took me well over nine months, but eventually we had a comprehensive inventory of EVERYONE that had ever crossed his path during the last 60-odd years. It would include such luminaries as Dame Joan Collins, Lord and Lady Olivier, Lady Maude Cunard, Dame Diana Rigg, Sir Roger Moore, Dame Edith Evans, Sir Alan Bates and both Princess Anne and Princess Margaret, plus almost every actor, writer, producer, director, photographer and brusher-up ever to grace the entertainment industry. The next job was to go through the entire register, with Peter allocating the following ‘code’ to each of them:

• GFBD = Good Friend But Dead(!)
• GFA = Good Friend – Alive
• C = C**t(!!)
• DUOC = Dried Up Old C**t(!!!)
• SO = Strike Off

Of course, with every name that I read out, Peter had an anecdote which, I have to say, was not always complementary! I could’ve used many of those stories when I came to write my book, ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers’, but chose not to if only to save a lot of unsuspecting people a great deal of needless embarrassment!

In addition to being of great help to me during the writing process this list – which was cross-referenced with the diary(s), engagement book(s) etc. in which a particular name was logged – it also proved invaluable when someone would pop up as if from nowhere claiming to have been a “close friend” of his[1]. If that person was included on the list, then I’d refer to Peter’s ‘Code’ to guide me on how I should respond. If however, they didn’t feature at all on the list, then I’d know with absolute certainty that they were either a crank or they were simply the machination[2] of one of the lunatics that had plagued Thomas Bowington[3] and myself since Peter’s passing in 2018. In those case, I neither recognised nor engage with them.

While it seemed like a monumental task when Peter first asked me to help him compile this inventory, I am so relieved that he did and, moreover, that we were able to complete it before he passed away. I’ve seen so many underhanded characters crawl from the woodwork since he died – all of them professing to have “known” him in some capacity or other. It’s a shame that these supposed “good friends” couldn’t be bothered to do anything for him in the final years of his life. At least one of these individuals fully deserved being put in the DUOC category – not least for his attempts to project his own fickleness onto those of us who remained at Peter’s side until the very end.

Notes: [1]: I was introduced to many of Peter’s friends by the man himself over the years, so was familiar with those that had remained in his life until the end. [2]: At least 3 separate entities were created by an absent faction from 2019 onwards to encourage a group of credulous malcontents to instigate and peruse an online witch hunt when, in reality, they didn’t exist. [3]: Peter’s friend and Agent.

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15th January, 2023

Thoughts of Peter on the fifth anniversary of his passing

As it is five years ago today since we lost Peter, I was inevitably I thinking, what would’ve been happening over the final few days I had with him.

For those of you who don’t know, the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is on Fulham Road and just a short distance from Chelsea’s football stadium. As fate would have it, they were playing Leicester City that afternoon – a team I’ve supported since the age of 11. Because much of the hospital was closed at the weekends, they allowed football supporters to use the car park at a small charge – the revenue from which went back into the hospital. I recall watching from the hospital window on the 4th Floor, this river of blue and white all streaming down the road toward Stamford Bridge, and thinking how surreal it looked. Just a silly thing that sticks in my mind.

Above: Peter and me in happier times

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Birthday Thoughts, 2022

Stephanie Harpin: Happy birthday in heaven, beautiful one 

Diane Brierley: Happy heavenly Birthday Peter. I shall raise a glass to you. I think of you often, maybe somehow you know that as you often appear in my dreams. RIP lovely XX

Susan McFadden: Happy Heavenly Birthday Peter 

Annarita Ranalli: Happy birthday in heaven talented.

Jay Berrington: Happy Birthday Sire, very best wishes.

Toby O’Brien: Here’s thinking of you, Sir. Thank you for the art you left us, those immortal characters. Salute.

Sharon Kennedy: Happy heavenly birthday god bless xxx

Terry Haslem:

Ian Kelland: Happy Birthday dear Peter and love to Tina 

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5th July, 2022

An interesting and often heated debate took place on our Facebook group page this week concerning Wikipedia (WP) and the misinformation it has posted about Peter and others.

The conversation was sparked by an email I received from a gentleman by the name of Austin Makinson (see ‘To TheHeartOf’) who made mention of a story that first appeared on the aforementioned online encyclopaedia some years ago, which claimed that Peter had been arrested in Birmingham in 1975.

Whilst carrying out research for my book, ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers’, I was to make numerous enquiries about the story which, Wikipedia claimed had originally been published in ‘Crime Through Time: The Black Museum’ – a 2003 publication by Stephen Andrews. However, no mention of such an incident was in that book.

During the recent debate between fans on our Facebook page one of our member’s, Andrew Humphries, who is himself a regular contributor to Wikipedia, suggested that the origin of the Birmingham story was probably the online version of The Mirror[1], which had supposedly referred to it in their article of 18^th January, 2018[2]. The question is, if the Wikipedia contributor had got the story from The Mirror, why did they state that they’d found it in the ‘Crime Through Time’ book?

There was, of course, no such mention in that article… that was until it was updated eight months later on 12^th September, which was AFTER it appeared on Wikipedia[3].

Needless to say, this story has since been republished in numerous other newspapers both in the UK and overseas and likewise, repeated by bloggers and those that frequent social media ‘sites and online forums.

Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that Wikipedia have got it wrong. Professional music journalist and member of our Facebook group, James Gaden, had the following to say about his own experiences with well-known personalities and their gripes about WP:

“I have seven interviews under my belt where I published comments by artists who had false claims about them on their Wikipedia page. The most memorable was the late Alan Lancaster from Status Quo spending 20 minutes of a 45 minute interview listing the inaccuracies on the band’s page and telling me the actual events that took place for publication in an attempt to set the record straight. There was also Sebastian Bach, who transitioned from Metal band Skid Row to playing the lead in Jekyll & Hyde on Broadway and a citation listing on his Wiki bio that he was the lead singer of Dragonforce, a band he’d never even met, let alone sang for.

Literally anyone can edit Wikipedia, and that’s the problem. Another classic example was after Soccer Aid 2012, when Teddy Sheringham gave Gordon Ramsay a particularly rough challenge, resulting in the chef being stretchered off. Someone, as a joke, wrote on Ramsay’s Wikipedia page that Sheringham had killed him. It was on Ramsay’s page for over a week before it was noticed and rectified.”

Such is W.P. notoriety that a series on YouTube has sprung up which deals with the numerous lies and inaccuracies posted on Wikipedia website. Additionally, several well-known personalities have produced their own clips in an attempt to address these errors.

What may have begun as a noble idea, Wikipedia has become a byword for inaccurate reporting and the origin of many damaging rumours. The most disturbing thing is that those people who so jealously guard this online compendium and the Peter Wyngarde ‘biography’ in particular, are determined never to acknowledge or repair the damage they’ve done.

Notes: [1]. National British tabloid newspaper. [2]. Written by Steve Myall and Robin Turner. [3]. The article was updated for a third time in July 2021 and retitled.

I have been sleuthing again, because I found some blogs from 2013 and 2014 that mentioned a Kennedy Gardens incident. This was long before the 2018 Mirror article that I said was the original source, but I can see I was wrong about that. Looking at the Wikipedia article again, but going back much further, I can see that a user added the info on 28 Sept 2010, but with no source. It was only removed by another user in about June 2016 who noticed it was not sourced, or not sourced properly. It was then added back in after the Mirror article was published in Jan 2018, but without any citation of the Mirror. The true crime book was already a source for something else, and sloppy editing made it look like it was also being cited for this new info. I tend to agree with Tina now, that the earliest trace of this factoid is when a Wikipedia editor added it in 28 Sept 2010. It *appears* to have been sincerely added as a fact, and specific newspapers are mentioned, but without any proper verifiable source or citation. As for the Mirror, I think they probably had a pre-written obit for PW, perhaps prepared when that questionable info had been live on Wikipedia between 2010 and 2016. Andrew Humphries – Member of the Official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society and regular contributor to Wikipedia: 7th July, 2022.

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11th May, 2022

In light of the treatment meted out to veteran actor Frank Langella by Netflix recently, it’s difficult to imagine where Peter would fit in to this ultra left-wing, rabidly WOKE, ‘Cancel Culture’ that now exists in the entertainment industry. It would appear that producers and broadcasters are so terrified of being labelled “racist” or “sexist”, that any tiny faux pas – especially by a man – either presently or in the dim and distant past, will inevitably result in their being dismissed and blacklisted; an otherwise unblemished career of many decades in ruins on the word of one person.

 

In the 5 short years since Peter left us, things have become so unbearable for those working within the acting sphere that simply being in the public eye can be akin to a game of Russian Roulette: one wrong word, or at least something that might be perceived as being the wrong word, and you can kiss goodbye to the life you knew.

Peter was a very outspoken man who said what he meant and meant what he said. He cared little for other people’s delicate sensibilities, believing that if you have the nerve to get up on a stage in front of hundreds of people every night, your skin should be thick enough to handle a spade being called a spade!

It would appear that all male actors are now viewed as the next Harvey Weinstein until proven otherwise, while so-called ‘Keyboard Warriors’ around the globe sit poised, not only to act as judge and jury, but executioner too. NO ONE is safe. Should one of these self-appointed arbiters of justice take a sudden dislike to a particular performer (this can include musicians and sportsmen), they will dredge up just about ANYTHING regardless of how long ago a particular incident occurred or ‘offending’ word was uttered. One’s opinions at the age of 18 can be starkly different to those held a decade later. However, in the world inhabited by the WOKE combatant, a real or imagined indiscretion leaves no room for contrition or growth of a person. All conversation is immediately closed down because the idea is not to garner a response, it is simply to remain angry. Anger gives meaning to an otherwise mundane and empty existence. ‘Cancel Culture’ (or ‘Consequence Culture’ as it really should be described) is merely the revenge of the nonentity because he or she feels empowered by it. While there are roughly 1 million words in the English language, it would appear that there is someone, somewhere, who is offended by every single one of them!

There is something fundamentally rotten about an individual or group of people that will incite an online witch hunt. Unlike a court of law, there is no requirement for any kind of legal inquiry to discern whether or not the victim has actually done what they’re being accused of. Many an innocent head has been lopped off when the mighty sword of righteousness has been swung by the misinformed or easily lead. And if just ONE individual can convince others that the subject of this misguided hostility IS guilty of a perceived outrage, then they will ALL feel justified in doing whatever they damn well please to that unwitting person because, in their minds at least, their victim “deserves it!” THIS is the hysteria of the mob.

Left: Photofit of the common or garden online bully: A wimp that needs to abuse others online so he can feel more of a man.

But while there are many who are happy to play judge and jury online few, if any, are resolute enough in their arraignment to put their name to it – resorting instead to cowering behind a Username. The reason for such spinelessness is that they fear being scrutinised themselves. Certainly, if you’re prepared to scream “Witch!” then you’d better be as pure as the driven snow yourself or suffer similar investigation!

But, of course, being whiter than white is rarely ever the case. I myself have been harassed by a group of strangers that were recruited on social media to instigate a hate campaign against Thomas Bowington[1] and me shortly after Peter passed away. The trouble with launching a witch hunt online is that you open a door through which anything can pass, and what we were to get was a malignant gang of nonentities that were not only obsessed with the idea of persecuting two people who had done absolutely nothing to them, but who would inevitably turn their venom on Peter himself – a man who is no longer able to defend himself.

While one of their number had often been witnessed pontificating online about race and Racism, he himselfappeared quite at home fraternising with this pack of anti-Semites, misogynists and homophobes. Evidently, the hypocrisy of his actions was to fly clean over his head! Needless to say, much of the claptrap doled out by these people had absolutely nothing to do with uncovering deceit or highlighting wrongdoing. It was wholly and entirely about getting a voice, and not only that, a voice that was louder and more powerful than either of the individuals they sought to persecute. What better way to get yourself noticed than to turn the volume up to 11![2]

Psychiatrists around the world have devoted much of their time to uncovering why certain people engage in this bizarre behaviour. While one conclusion is that the perpetrator(s) might themselves have been the victim of bullies at some point in their lives, and now the anonymity of the internet is affording them the opportunity to exact revenge – even on someone that is personally unknown to them and who has caused them no harm whatsoever. Another determination that many agree upon is that such people are often low achievers who, being unable to create anything of note themselves, seek to damage or destroy the very thing they cannot have. Many actors, including Peter, have experienced this to some degree from critics in the media. He was to identify several of these commentators as failed actors. While a critic might wield power over a performer with the threat of a bad notice, so bullying and intimidation online can be utilised to control and intimidate those who are perceived to have overstepped the mark. In effect, the bully is telling his victim, “I’m here to remind you of your place.”

Perhaps this whole malignant ‘Cancel Culture’/Online Bullying/’Trolling’ situation is down to something as fundamental as identity, which can often be a very elusive thing. By attaching oneself to a “movement”, regardless of it’s motives, the disenfranchised has finally found a purpose which enables him/her to run away from their own self-loathing. In the case of the Internet ‘Troll’, it’s easier to take on an identity that 99.999% of the population would find abhorrent than it is to have no identity at all! While maintaining this website, I was to received a series of emails some time ago from a woman who, in late-middle age, supposed to have intimate knowledge of the relationship I’d shared with Peter – this in spite of the fact that she’d never met or even spoken with either one of us. I doubt that you’ll be overly surprised to learn, dear reader, that even her own “partner” – by all accounts, a keen fisherman – would rather sit dangling his tackle in a freezing canal for hours on end than spend time with her, so perhaps she reasoned that by repeatedly sending pieces of fallacious mail to a complete stranger she’d somehow get noticed, and maybe she did within the circle she chose to move in: ‘SHOUT AND THOU SHALT BE HEARD!’ Mercifully, it took Pam[3] much less time to delete this woman’s inane bluster than it took the ridiculous mare to write it!

The individuals that have the most to say about Peter online know no more about him than what they’ve garnered from the tabloids – certainly, they know nothing of the nuts and bolts of his life and yet often feel the most qualified to comment. Calling someone out, whether they’re a well-known personality or the average Joe on the street has become the latest spectator sport. The cessation of this terrifying trend, by common sense or litigation, can not come soon enough.  

Notes: [1]: Peter’s friend and agent. [2]: A reference to the 1984 spoof rockumentary, ‘This Is Spinal Tap’. [3]: A friend who looks after the mailbox of this website. She is NOT a police officer, nor is she an “employee”!

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6th April, 2022

Written by Tim V. – Lead Singer of the legendary British Punk band, ‘Sham 69’

Some years ago, I had the good fortune to work with Peter on an idea I had. With huge trepidation (and anticipation) at meeting someone who was, and still is, a big hero of mine, I rang Peter’s door bell and he answered.

Above: Tim on stage

When Peter passed away in 2018, I asked Tina about the possibility of resurrecting the play Peter and I had written all those years ago in the hope of putting it on stage as a tribute to him. Tina, in turn, introduced me to Thomas Bowington – Peter’s agent and friend – who has been incredibly helpful and supportive.

In the time that I had spent with Peter, I learnt so much, including that what you read – especially in the press – isn’t always what it true. Peter was an incredibly enthusiastic man with a huge amount of talent and skill. I watch the TV today when I get the chance and I feel that it’s missing actors of the calibre of Peter Wyngarde. He was a real actor who, I believe, not only deserves to be remembered but also brought to a new audience. It’s comforting to find that Tina has been so resolute in her determination to ensure that this will happen, even in the face of the appalling treatment meted out to her by the deluded and dim-witted in the wake of Peter’s passing.

God willing, Tina, Thomas and I can now work together to get this play onto the stage. I now have a few more doors open thanks to their kindness and support, so watch this space!

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23rd September, 2021

Yesterday, I had two rather interesting(!) exchanges with a couple of characters online concerning their supposed intimate ‘recollections’ of Peter ‘back in the day’. They were the type of people who believe that, having read a tabloid article half a century ago, or heard a bit of uncorroborated gossip back in the Sixties or Seventies, they’re acquainted enough with Peter’s life to make grandiose statements about it.

 

Our first case involves a 75-year old bloke who we’ll call ‘Bill’, for that was his name. According to him, Peter was a “Pervert” because – and I quote –“he was convicted of Gross Indecency in 1975 in Gloster (sic).”

Well, yes, but that in itself doesn’t make someone a “Pervert”, so I asked the silly old sod what additional evidence he had that might  justify his making such a damning declaration?

“Well, he was also cautioned for the same offence in Birmingham. That makes him a perv.” Really!?! And where did he acquire this information from?

“It’s on Google.”

“And where did Google get it from?” I asked. Not unsurprisingly ,ol’ Bill didn’t have an answer.

In actual fact, this particular yarn comes directly from that font of all knowledge, Wikipedia which, in turn, claim it was in a book entitled, ‘Crime Through Time: The Black Museum’ (Mirage Publishing, 2003) – penned by ex-con, Stephen Richards.

In actual fact, Mr Richard makes no mention of this supposed incident in his tome, and enquiries made I made to West Midland Police (or West Midlands Constabulary as they were known when this… a-hem… ‘incident’ allegedly took place) when writing my book, showed that there had been no arrest or caution was ever made or given! 

Read about this Wikipedia invention here.

When I pointed this out to a now battered and bruised Bill, the accusatory swagger he’d previously adopted seemed suddenly to desert him and he was to become somewhat more contrite:

“But it still says it on Google.” he whimpered. Deary, deary me!

This line reminded me of my Granddad who would often seek to win any (often heated) discussion about politics or the like by saying, “Well, it’s in the Daily Mirror, so it must be true!”

I was obliged to explain to Bill that Google is a search engine that will continue to spew out such nonsense as long as arrogant, misguided gossips like himself persist in repeating any piece of uncorroborated rubbish they hear. I asked him how he’d feel if some half-wit with too much time on his hands began repeating any salacious claptrap they found online concerning one of his loved ones? Needless to say the old far didn’t an answer to that either.

The second slice of poppycock on the menu came from a woman – I’ll call her ‘Margaret’ for convenience sake – who claimed that her brother had, at one time or another, lived “near” Peter. He’d reported seeing our man in an open-top car driving around Kensington and Chelsea with his “toy boys”. When I queried this, ‘Margaret’ suddenly changed the identity of the supposed ‘eyewitness’ from her “brother” to herself: “The young men,” she asserted, “all looked foreign.” How in the name of all that’s holy could she possibly know that? Were they all wearing keffiyehs’ or silk kimonos and playing the Balalaika? And when exactly was this? “In the late 60’s or early 70s. He [Peter] then went to ground.” Oh, really!

In the late 60s and/or early 70s, the only open-top car Peter owned was a two-seater Austin-Healey ‘Frogeye’, so unless he was recreating an event from the classic British gameshow, ‘It’s A Knockout’, I’m not sure how many “foreign toy boys” one could possibly cram into such a vehicle?!

Above: What Peter’s car must’ve looked like back in the 1960’s… at least according to dear old ‘Margaret’.

I assume that the message she was aiming to get across was that Peter spent much of his time cruising around the Royal Boroughs of London with a gaggle of young, exotic men which, in her mind at least, proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were his lovers. Did this, in her opinion, paint a complete picture of Peter’s life? I guess I’ll never know as ‘Margaret’ would suddenly ‘go to ground’ herself once she realised that she’d painted herself into a corner. Now, if I was to be unkind, I might’ve thought that her sudden disappearance had something to do with her argument going t*ts-up under examination, but let’s just give her the benefit of the doubt shall we?

For ‘Margaret’s’ information if no one else’s – during the late 60s/early 70s, Peter was at the height of his popularity. He was the highest paid actor on British television and was playing to sell-out audiences in the West End of London. Quite how this equates to “going to ground” is anyone’s guess, but then the old dear was probably getting a bit confused.

It would seem that, over time, human beings have lost the ability to think for themselves – evidenced by the fact that people like ‘Bill’ will read a statement written by some random stranger online and immediately take it as gospel. And not only that, they’ll copy and repeat it. Never once does it ever occur to individuals like him to enquire how the person responsible for posting this stuff in the first place came by the information; were they directly involved in the incident they’re reporting on, for instance, or did they witness it first hand? Did they actually know Peter personally? Did they attend a court hearing in person, or do they have access to privileged information – court papers perhaps, witness statements and transcripts etc? Given that 99.999% of the time the answer to such inquiries would be an unequivocal “No!”, what right has ANYONE to repeat salacious gossip? Certainly, you wouldn’t get the likes of ‘Bill’ or ‘Margaret’ approaching a random stranger on the street to suggest that THEY’D decided, based entirely on hearsay, that his or her husband/wife/brother/son/daughter/nephew/niece/cousin or friend was a “Pervert”. I suspect that ‘Bill’ would find himself nursing a broken nose if he did, which is probably why he chooses to make wild, baseless accusations about other people while skulking behind a computer screen in the safety of his own front room!

Update: The afternoon of 23.09.21: After contacting the website on which ‘Bill’ had TWICE referred to Peter as a “Pervert”, I was assured of the following: “I can confirm that we have now removed that post and reported the person responsible to the web host.”

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23rd April, 2021

As previously mentioned in these pages and in my book, some years ago Peter and I had planned to buy a home together in the Peloponnese. Given his love of writing, he would often pen short stories and scripts featuring our plans – both together and separately – expecting me to carry the story on. Below is one of those ‘scripts’ written in Peter’s own hand, which is a “scene” from the life he hoped we might have out in Greece.

I should point out a couple of things in way of explanation:

1. My surname was originally Bate.
2. For those people who know me as having dark brown hair – at the time that Peter wrote this, I had blonde streaks.
3. Peter had encouraged me to try writing a screenplay for a film, using the old but trusted adage of, ‘Write about something you know’. I still have the script (with all of Peter’s annotations and suggestions written in his own hand) which, with Peter’s help, was completed

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9th April, 2021

Above: Peter’s contract with Scoton for ‘Department S’

I was myself was to receive an email a couple of weeks ago from a fan who was under the impression that Peter had been in the employ of ITC whilst filming the aforementioned series (see Your Questions Answered), which appears to be a common misconception. He was in fact employed by Scoton – a production company founded by cinematographer, Monty Berman, and writer/script editor, Dennis Spooner. While it has been suggested by the misinformed that Sir Lew Grade would have a personal investment in the actors appearing in the so-called ‘ITC series’, this is completely untrue.

Whilst writing my book, I had the great pleasure of speaking with a number of well-known personalities within the acting profession, many of whom made mention of the appalling treatment that had been doled out to Peter by the press over the years, and of the wild misconceptions based on these stories. And it hasn’t just been Peter who has suffered at the hands of indolent journalist and vindictive gossips. While discussing the topic with actress Carol Cleveland, she told me that she’d been left reeling at times over what she had seen written about herself on the internet. Indeed, she’d often been left speechless by the places it’s said she’s had been and, more moreover, of her supposed behaviour whilst there!

Just yesterday my attention was drawn to an online article about the people who’d been closest to the late Freddie Mercury – most notably his boyfriend, Jim Hutton, and former girlfriend, Mary Austin. Since his death in 1991 fans of the rock star have, to all intents and purposes, divided themselves into two rival camps – one of which “supports” Hutton, while the other “defends” the honour of Ms. Austin. While there’s probably not one amongst either of these factions that had ever met Freddie or anyone intimately connected with him, every man Jack of ’em claim to know the “truth” about the other and are seemingly determined to force it down everyone else’s throat. There’s no doubt that social media can be a force for good, but there is a dark side to it which, as in this instance, serves only to divide those who should be as one – celebrating Mercury’s life and career, rather than lobbing abuse at each other from their respective living rooms. But regardless of who is right or wrong in this particularly argument, there is one thing that all those involved in this very public spat have failed to understand: NONE OF IT IS ANY OF THEIR BUSINESS!

It has been a long-held concern of mine that the arrogance, and in some cases, cowardice, of the minority will ultimately kill off ‘Fandom’. Over the past three or four years especially, I’ve heard from numerous former fan group admins and webmasters that have been forced to close their groups and forums et al. because of infighting. Take The Prisoner fan-base as an example. They have now divided themselves into two very distinctive contingents as a result of in-house friction. I recall Derren Nesbitt who, of course, played Number 2 in ‘It’s Your Funeral’, talking about an experience he’d had at a Prisoner convention at Portmeirion where no one from either of the two groups would acknowledge other. He described it as “totally bizarre!”

In the area of British Cult TV in general, I’ve heard from several people who are involved with associations and fan groups who’ve said that all the fun had gone out of it for them – not least because they, as admins and webmasters, have become reluctant to post even the most innocuous comment for fear of being attacked or abused.

As far as the Official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation is concerned, we’ve been obliged to ban a total of 9 people in the past five years for attacking Peter, myself or other members of the group. This is a comparatively small number compared to many other ‘sites, some of which have literally been “trolled to death”. At least two thirds of that number have used a fake account to gain access to our Facebook page, or are individuals that have been cajoled into joining for the sole purpose of posting personal abuse.

And yet this behaviour isn’t just confined to the Internet. When last year one particular idiot thought it would be a splendid idea to post an unprovoked tirade on our Facebook page, it was spotted by the actress, Jane Merrow, who happened to recognise the culprits name. She told me that this character – a man in his mid-60s (yes, you read that right!), was a regular at many of the film and Cult TV events held around the country each year. She went on to describe him as the most dour individual she’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. In point of fact, such was his ability to suck the air out of a room with his morose demeanour and incessant whinging, that when it appeared that he was about to approach one of the actors tables, everyone in the vicinity would scatter like ninepins to avoid him! Certainly, five minutes with this mope would have anyone reaching for a razor blade to slash their own wrists! But therein lies the problem. As Ms. Merrow was to point out, the lives of such people are often so shallow and meaningless that the only thing they can think of to enhance their lot is to make someone else’s life even more miserable than their own.

Thankfully, it does appear that some fan groups are beginning to fight back against the bullies and agitators by exchanging details about troublemakers. Since many admins are involved in the organisation of fairs and conventions, these names have been added to blacklists to ensure that the same agitators are kept from entering. This counteroffensive also involves agents – including Thomas Bowington – who have made it clear that they will immediately remove their clients should any of these troublemakers inadvertently gain entry. It’s a desperately sad situation, but these measures have had to be taken to ensure that the enjoyment of the majority’s is not ruined by the minority.

Peter genuinely enjoyed attending conventions and meeting his fans. I believe he’d be deeply saddened to see how low things have got over the past few years. He was extremely proud of his Appreciation Society and had been known to mention it in interviews and to his colleagues – the latter of whom have gone on to ask me to set up ‘sites for them. Fortunately, we have a large number of good and decent people supporting us, and I intend to keep fighting for Peter for a very long time to come.

Notes: [1]. Peter’s agent from 2007 to the present day. [2]. Peter never had a friend of the name given on the email. [3]. 13 x 2 Episodes in the case of ‘Jason King’.

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2nd March, 2021

The ‘papers hysterically announced recently that comedian and presenter, Rufus Hound, had been removed from ITV’s popular Sunday evening show, ‘Dancing on Ice’, after “a string of his old controversial tweets resurfaced” in which he’d, amongst other things, he’d “glorified” a particular track from Peter’s 1970 album.

Of course, the press managed to misreport the facts about the LP; Nine Shakhnazarova – supposed ‘Celebrity & Showbiz Reporter’ of The Mirror, for instance, asserted that the record was entitled ‘When Sex Rears Its Inquisitive Head’ and that it had been “banned” only days after release, which is incorrect on both counts! But I digress…

As far as I could tell from what had been said back in 2012 (yes, they were harking back 9 YEARS for this!), Hound hadn’t praised ‘Rape’ – the track in question – at all, but had merely expressed his astonishment at it. The fact that he recommended his followers purchase the CD version of the album so as to make up their own minds is really neither here nor there. By 2012 when Hound posted on Twitter, the record had already sold in its tens of thousands having been re-released on Compact Disc in the 90s.

As Peter once said of ’Rape’: “There are many types of rape. There’s the rape of countries, of cultures and of minds. It’s telling that some people’s minds are so limited that they can only conceive of one type.” In other words, you pays yer money and yer take your choice. Unfortunately these days, there are too many people who are willing to take offence on others behalf.

As might be expected, there was a difference of opinion on our Facebook group page when I mentioned the issue there last month, with fans both attacking and defending the track:

“I think the entire album is a work of genius and the track ‘Rape’”, James Gaden said. “Like it or not, it’s what made it so talked about. It’s clearly, to my ears, tongue in cheek. It’s interesting to read Peter’s thoughts in the sleeve notes of the reissue, where he says people take things so literally, and while of course rape is horrible, you can’t get into any kind of subject unless you make a joke of it. He then pointed out about how people ended up being gagged due to things being banned – how right he was. Speak about a subject now that people might decide they find offensive, it can literally cost you your job and leave you ostracised for daring to even bring it up.”

Reynard Toobes, meanwhile, replied as follows: “Nonsense the track means the album is remembered for all the wrong reasons.“

Deepinder Singh Cheema, on the other hand, felt it was Mr Toombes who was talking claptrap: “The track ‘Rape’ is, at best, challenging to these times. There are some timorous feelings which abound. You’ll actually get stronger stuff in the Bible and works of The Bard, not to mention the Greek underworld. I do like the drumming and production on ‘Rape’, All in all a great evening’s entertainment.”

If Peter had been here, I’m sure he’d have been bewildered by the whole thing. He had no truck with ‘Political Correctness’, and really couldn’t have cared less what anyone thought of him. He said it as it was, and if you didn’t like it – TOUGH! He was never the type of person to sugar coat his options, and loathed hypocrites; especially the type that will pontificate about one perceived transgression whilst they themselves perpetrate another.

Give the naysayers ‘The Twigs’ – buy a copy of Peter’s CD HERE!

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4th February, 2021

By Luther Bhogal-Jones

This is a story about how I came to be involved in filming Peter’s final ever performance.I have very fond memories of Basil, my boss and friend at Selectadisc (the much missed legendary record shop in Nottingham) being a fan of Jason King and watching episodes at his house. His favourite moment which I came to adore too was King walking into a café empty for a solitary woman, approaching her and asking “Do you mind if I sit here as all the other seats appear to be taken?” Classic.I also had a postcard of him framed on my wall for many years.

This was a pre internet age and it wasn’t always as easy to join the dots, so I’m not sure when I initially realised this was the same actor who played the karate chopping, guyliner-wearing Number 2 in the classic “Checkmate” episode of ‘The Prisoner’. This was one of my all time favourite programmes but for several years the only episodes I had on VHS were two lots of two episodes- the opening two episodes and then ‘Checkmate’ and ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ were on the same tape so I watched these four many times over and over. It took a while to twig that it was also Peter under Klytus’ golden mask in ‘Flash Gordon’, administering the Bore Worms.

He was one of those actors that I couldn’t understand why he had seemingly disappeared from TV and film, though with the internet you’d read of a particular “scandal” in the 70s which apparently derailed his career, when actually he carried on working into the 90s.

As a film maker I guess there was a pipe dream to bring him back to the screen, though I had no idea how to find him. Once we entered the internet age I discovered he’d appeared at a convention several years before and I intended to contact the organisers to see if they could give me contact details…but it was something I never pursued despite coming up with a short film storyline called ‘Trans’.

This was about a big businessman – think Alan Sugar/ Dragon’s Den style – who had trod on everyone on the way up and after losing everything was reduced to a small humble flat for his twilight years, surrounded by photos of when he was someone, rubbing shoulders with politicians and filmstars. His only contact was with a daughter who had taken too many life lessons from him in his prime and found his current predicament of literally thinking he was fading from the world an inconvenience to her busy business life. 

Events several years later would take a random turn. One day I was speaking to Andrew Calverley, who had starred in my film, Black Spot. He’d noticed I was a “friend” of Wyngarde on Facebook (which was actually managed by Peter’s friend, partner and custodian of his reputation and legacy, Tina). I mentioned my wish to make a film with Peter and briefly mentioned Trans. It turned out that Andy and Tina were close friends, and he mentioned me and the idea to Tina.

This all snowballed to me sending a copy of ‘Trans’ to Peter – can’t recall now if I forwarded it to Andy, or directly to Tina, who then passed it to Peter…and then one day I received a letter in the post with very tiny, spidery, hard-to-decipher handwriting. My parents were visiting at the time and I remember opening the letter, wondering who it was from and before interpreting the letter scanned straight to the bottom to see Peter’s signature, which just seemed mad that he was writing to me!

He partly dismissed my idea at the time as a “sketch” (which was a fair comment as it really was just a brief synopsis I’d written for the initial pitch for a funding application) but said he had a piece of his own – a monologue – that he wanted to make and was looking for a cameraman and assistance to make it happen. I think he was proposing I help him with this piece and we could take it from there. Although I had no equipment of my own, I asked my cameraman friend Darren who I’d worked with on several shorts if he’d be up for filming Peter.

So we found ourselves on an August Bank Holiday 2014 at Peter’s flat in Kensington, not far from my day job’s head office to spend the day working on Peter’s piece. I can’t remember if I knew vaguely what the piece was about beforehand – he may have briefly mentioned it – but I hadn’t seen any script. It turned out that he’d really wanted to adapt a particular book, which was based in Shanghai in the late 1930s, of which he had personal experience of the world of diplomats etc from living there as a boy. Unfortunately he’d discovered the rights to turn the book into a film had already been bought, so I think his plan was to do a monologue piece based on the book to pitch himself as the ideal person to play the lead role in the adaptation. This seemed odd to me – HE’S PETER BLOODY WYNGARDE – but perhaps it was his way of really selling that he knew this world and character inside out.

Unfortunately the script we were working from was handwritten by himself and was covered in asides, additions and amendments, which made it a challenge to follow.

It was without a doubt a “challenging” day. I could be wrong but I think we did a 2 camera set up, with one of us also doing the sound, but with no actual direction as Peter was directing himself, I was given the role of “script girl.” The only direction as such was at the end of a take when he’d ask us for our thoughts on his performance. Frustrations kicked in when it transpired the copy of the script he was working from wasn’t the same as the one I was working from which would lead to some issues. I was also, apparently, not very good at reading when Peter either paused for dramatic effect, or was awaiting my prompt. He’d get cross at this and I’d seethe, wondering why I was spending my Bank Holiday being shouted at by a man in his 80s!

Peter was obviously a perfectionist though and his script to him was gospel – it was vitally important that he got EVERY word and nuance down as he’d written it, which was difficult when I was trying to follow his script. And as the day wore on and tiredness kicked in, it became very difficult for a long passage to be completed without something being missed, or on the next attempt being remembered at the cost of another line or aspect, all of which were important. I recall two particular moments where Peter consistently forgot the line “shoot the bugger” which resulted in him becoming so frustrated at himself I was almost scared to mention when he’d missed it. We’d also come to loggerheads over, of all things, prawn balls, where I was paraphrasing “balls” and Peter was misunderstanding – thinking I meant testicles – and wondered where the hell I was getting BALLS from!

But it wasn’t all bad – outside of the filming when we stopped for a much needed break and food at teatime, Peter was absolutely charming and unsurprisingly, an enthralling raconteur – telling us stories of the people he’d worked with, many tales from the world of theatre. It was absolutely gold dust, and I wish now that we’d continued filming. His reminisces of these times, of working in a theatre, television and film world which no longer exists were wonderful and all I could think was that one day, when he’s gone, so will these stories and there are less and less people who were there remaining to document and record them.

We got some fun titbits about working on ‘Flash Gordon’, and then he also dropped the bombshell that the intended sequel was to star him as the lead villain (I’d never twigged that it was Klytus taking Ming’s ring at the end and laughing, I’d always presumed it was Ming who had somehow survived) and that he had the script to the sequel somewhere in the flat. Darren and I looked flabbergasted and wondered where, in Peter’s slightly chaotic home, was this priceless script that we had no idea existed.

He told a story of Christopher Lee approaching him at a studio in more recent times and portentously proclaiming, “We are the last of the few.” Peter strangely seemed to take some umbrage at that remark, when I’ve always felt Lee was completely right.

Peter also spoke quite a lot about Tina, and almost every time we stopped for a break he either called or texted her. Sadly, Darren and I missed her as she was only due back into London the following morning.

What also became apparent during this filming was that Peter could still pull out a mesmerising, full bodied performance and his voice was like polished mahogany with a wonderful purr and timbre. Once again, it frustrated me that he hadn’t had any exposure for years and if people like Lee etc could have some career resurgence in their twilight years, then Peter was more than deserving of a similar treatment.

The rest of the shoot continued in a similar difficult fashion and as the hours passed we were all getting tired and it was becoming more difficult. By the time we’d finished around midnight I was exhausted, fed up and ready to get home; I certainly wasn’t looking forward to a 2-3 hour drive back home at such a late hour. However, there were a couple of things I was determined to get before we left. I asked Peter if he would do a video message for Basil, repeating his Jason King line from the café. He obliged, but fluffed the line both times and then sharply told me he was done with it, so I couldn’t even get the main thing I really wanted, which in my current mood felt like the final straw. I was supposed to get a photo of myself with Peter, but by this point I decided I didn’t want one and just wanted to leave.

Upon my return home I posted the video message on Facebook, tagging Basil but with no description, as surely the piece spoke for itself. But then I received a message from Peter who seemed very cross that I’d talked about the project on Facebook and had blabbed about it. This really surprised me as I hadn’t put anything public about it, apart from this video clip of Peter which had nothing to do with his filmed piece. Infuriated by this I took the clip down and felt that the one thing I had got from that day’s shooting was now contentious.

I was going to be editing the piece for Peter and this became a long winded, frustrating process. The ageing Mac I was using struggled with the HD footage which made the editing extremely time consuming – even when making small adjustments. As we were far apart I would create an edit, face a long winded export of the footage (and hope nothing went wrong at this stage), burn Peter a DVD and post to him. I then had to await his comments and adjustments which I would have to decipher from his handwriting. Sometimes I would receive several letters in succession, chasing me for progress and updates, which I came to resent as I was trying to do this edit in my spare time, around my day job, young family and own projects.

I ended up calling Tina at the flat, who explained to me that when it came to his work, Peter was like “a dog with a bone”. He was obviously just keen and excited to see his performance piece. But as with the shooting, he had exact ideas of what he wanted – i.e. everything(!) – which was virtually impossible when it became clear that somewhere during the shoot, certain passages were either missed, or were included in one take and not the other (these couldn’t be cut together even when going to the other angle).

Eventually he did compromise on certain aspects which couldn’t be pieced together. There was the issue with the stills elements though; there were photos Darren had filmed at the time, but Peter also wanted some other images during certain sections which I had no idea how to source or what he specifically wanted, yet he would text me photos that he’d taken from the TV that he wanted included, which I found rather unorthodox, but as Tina was to explain, Peter and technology were not the greatest of friends. But, of course, bowing to his wishes, I put them in as he requested, even though I felt they were distracting and looked out of place.

One large sequence we realised we were completely missing was the recital of a letter – luckily I had my own sound recording equipment by then, so visited London and recorded this large passage, over which some of the photos Darren filmed would be placed. This was a very long sequence which I felt slowed the piece down – especially as Peter was not visible on screen. However, by now I’d found myself in a better place with the piece and always enjoyed chatting to Peter over the phone. Seeing him again after that was a much more pleasant experience as was recording this audio. As a thank you for all my hard work, he gave me a bottle of red wine which he told me was his personal favourite, and very nice it was too!

Eventually the piece was completed and I sent Peter a bunch of DVD copies of it. I always felt at around 22 minutes it was too long, but it was how Peter wanted it. As one of those rainy day back burner projects I’d always been meaning to go back and re-edit it (now I have a better Mac!) to cut it down more to an essence of the range of his performance, in part for the sad eventuality of today, but it’s one of those things I’ve never got around to.

Despite the issues I’d had in doing this piece, I was even more committed to the idea of Peter having some chance to really shine in a film to show off and remind the world what he was still capable of doing. Working around the physical limitations of his age and condition – no jumping out of an exploding helicopter shouting “Yippe kayay mutherfunsters” – I came up with a topical Operation Yewtree idea, a three-hander; almost a stage play but with flashbacks, and something that would deliberately blur the line between Peter, his acting persona, his public “perceived” persona and the character itself. In my daydream flights of fancy, I hoped if I could get this written with the ticking time-bomb of his age and the inevitable other takes inspired by the Yewtree fall-out eventually surfacing then perhaps we could pitch it to his worldwide fan base to fund it via crowd funding; for a chance to have Peter not just in a cameo in a film, but THE lead role. The role to give him his twilight years moment. A role that if it was to be a swansong would be something to show the world what fools they had been to have not been casting him for all these years “in the wilderness” However, I didn’t have the script, just the skeletal idea. Luckily, I pitched it to my wife’s friend Calie Rydings, a local writer, on the off chance that she would want to collaborate on it.

She did. And she took to it with incredible enthusiasm. Within a few days and weeks Calie whizzed through the first draft of the script and over the coming months we’d refine it further, eventually having a piece which we were both really proud of. With her enthusiasm for research she’d added plenty of thesp and theatre nods and winks which I hoped Peter would appreciate, she’d brilliantly done that blend of fiction and non fiction to where I wasn’t sure what was a piece she’d made up or something she’d found out. We had plenty of flashbacks for each character and medical procedure cutaways which provided a break from the dialogue heavy “main action.” There was a wonderful set up opening scene of an actor living surrounded by past glories; almost harking back to my original ‘Trans’ idea that I pitched to Peter, putting on a front even to his remaining friend. For the finale, Calie had written the most wonderful, literally curtain falling monologue that was incredible and we were both SO desperate just to hear Peter recite those words. If nothing else, I just wanted to have an audio recording of him saying that, for our own satisfaction The script was called ‘Poison The Well’. I sent it to Peter. Unfortunately we heard nothing back. I’d send him the odd text, asking if he’d had chance to read it. I’d get the occasional postcard from him. I’d hear that he had another script to read before mine, but he was so focused on his own writing (he may still have been doing his own take on the adaptation, I wasn’t sure), but that he hadn’t had chance to read it. Perhaps it was presumption on my part, but I guess I’d hoped that after spending many hours working on his project for him, I might have got a free pass to jump the queue in his attentions, but that wasn’t the case. Calie and I were both very proud of the script, but with the topical time bomb still ticking, I felt like I wanted to take it elsewhere while there was still time if Peter didn’t want to do it.

Peter apparently did send me one last letter some time ago but, unfortunately, it was lost in the post, so I’ll never know what that said. I did get one finally call, and I hoped it might be about ‘Poison The Well’, but when I answered I found that he’d dialled the wrong number, as he was asking for Mitzy! [1] Several weeks might have gone by and then I’d get the same Mitzy call again, which became a fun running joke. But then eventually he must have sorted my number from Mitzy’s in his phone and I didn’t hear from him again.

Not long ago I read J.G Ballard’s ‘Empire Of The Sun’ for the first time – as Peter was apparently interned in the same camp as Ballard (though he said he didn’t remember him). I meant to text Peter to say I’d read it and found the world of WWII Shanghai a fascinating and mad sounding time and place. Unfortunately I never did send that text.

Looking back, I guess I hoped in a way our working relationship/ brief friendship could have developed almost into him being the Bela Lugosi to my Ed Wood (without me wearing my wife’s underwear). Yes, I was initially grumpy about that day’s shoot, but I’ve come to look back on it fondly – it’s one hell of a story. But on this day I look back on that performance piece and still feel both sad and frustrated that it can’t be shared for people to see. I know he did various interviews for TV programmes and I believe another documentary on ‘The Prisoner’ since we filmed it, but as far as I’m aware ours was the last piece he did as a performance on camera. I feel sad that he didn’t get his twilight resurgence, though I don’t know how much of that was down to himself; not finding a project that he felt was his own and worthwhile committing to, rather than doing roles for the sake of it. I feel sad I didn’t get to film him in a script we wrote for him. I feel sad that those stories he briefly touched on for that 40 minute break are gone now, though he told me that Tina knew all his stories and is now their keeper. I feel sad that another legend has gone, another that we will not see the likes of again.

At the end of the performance piece I filmed, Peter is talking to a servant off camera and says “Arrive a derci – it’s Italian…for goodbye.” He puts on a hat, gloves, sunglasses and sings, in a tired, old and world weary way, a rather haunting song in Chinese before solemnly ringing a bell. If indeed this is his final performance, somehow it seems quite an apt finale.

Notes: [1]. See earlier post dated, 16th October, 2020

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21st January, 2021

One of the happiest memories I have of Peter was sitting on the balcony of the flat in Earls Terrace one afternoon, and our ‘performing’ the play, Dear Liar, with him in the role of George Bernard Shaw, while I tried my best to perform a rendition of Mrs Patrick Campbell. Peter had, of course, played Shaw opposite Ruth Brinkmann at the English Theatre, Vienna, Austria in 1977 to rave reviews.

Earls Terrace one afternoon, and our ‘performing’ the play, Dear Liar, with him in the role of George Bernard Shaw, while I tried my best to perform a rendition of Mrs Patrick Campbell. Peter had, of course, played Shaw opposite Ruth Brinkmann at the English Theatre, Vienna, Austria in 1977 to rave reviews.

The play recounts the (purportedly) unconsummated affaire de plume between the playwright and actress that lasted for over forty years. As in the much more recent Vita & Virginia, Dear Liar is what might be described as a “epistolary drama”, which involves the actors narrating and then reading aloud the letters exchanged between the characters.

Shaw was a prolific letter-writer, who traded correspondence with such luminaries as G.K. Chaterton, H.G. Welles and Michael Collins (amongst others), but it was Mrs Beatrice Sella Campbell, who proved to be his passion and muse.

At the time that Peter and I read the play, he and Fenella Fielding had been discussing the possibility of bringing the work back to the London stage. It was after we’d spoken of it that afternoon that Peter dug out the script in book form, and we took ourselves out onto the sun-soaked balcony.

While Peter has a worldwide reputation for his acting skills, my own left much to be desired and yet he persevered patiently. To be fair, my impression of Mrs Campbell portraying Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady could be described as adequate, it was the refinement of Campbell’s own elocution that proved to be the stumbling block. Nevertheless, the two of us had great fun, and I can claim to have worked on a play with the great Peter Wyngarde, even if our only audience we had were a couple of butterflies and a rather shy Jay from the adjacent Edwardes Square Gardens.

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12th January, 2021

Recently, I was looking through Peter’s original contracts with Scoton Limited[1] for both ‘Department S’ and ‘Jason King’, and was quite amazed by some of the clauses contained in them.

One of them, which was listed under ‘The Artist’s Warranties’, states that Peter – as the Artist in question – would have to remain both….‘a British Subject and resident in the United Kingdom until fulfilment of this Contract’, and that he was not to ‘leave the United Kingdom until fulfilment of this Contract’ etc. This would mean that, during the period that he was working on the series – i.e. 6 to 8 months, he was forbidden from taking a holiday or even a weekend break outside the country.

Additionally, ‘The Artist shall reside within a reasonable distance of the place where he is required to render his services and keep the producer informed of his whereabouts.’

While this seemed strange at first, it really does stand to sense given the tight schedule the production was working on. Imagine if he was to take a weekend break say in France or Spain, but his return flight was delayed or cancelled – as the star of the show, the entire filming timetable would be seriously disrupted. So jetting off to sunny climes for a few days of fun in the sun was strictly out of the question!

During the early 1970s, Peter had been looking for a holiday/semi-permanent home on the continent, and at one time had looked as far afield as Cyprus. It had been his hope that wherever he eventually chose, his Mother and Stepfather would join him there.

As it was, he had an old friend, Jeanne Ross, who owned and ran a real-estate company with her husband, based in Calpe – a small town between Valencia and Alicante in Spain. She had offered to help him either find a suitable property or, as was to inevitably happen, buy a piece of land and have a bespoke villa built on it.  

Above: The beach at Calpe

On those occasions he flew out there to see how things were progressing on the build, he would stay with Jeanne and her family. His letters to and from her bear witness to the enjoyable times he had out there – especially when he had the time between filming ‘Department S’ and starting work of ‘Jason King’, when he was able to spend several weeks out there.

It’s easy to imagine the life of a big theatre and TV star being glamorous and their being able to come and go as they please, but reading through those contracts suggest that it wasn’t always so. Certainly jetting off on a whim and being back in work on Monday morning, bright and breezy, was a absolute no-no!  

Notes: [1]: Scoton was the production company that made both the ‘Department S’ and ‘Jason King’ series.

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To mark the third anniversary of Peter’s passing – “Thoughts” from friends and fans

I have a funny one which often comes to mind now and again when thinking of Peter… I called him at home one evening and mentioned that I performed regularly at events for a particular charity in Mayfair. The events frequently attracted household names and were quite good fun. I invited Peter to come along to the next one and he seemed interested until I mentioned a certain celebrity that would be there.

At that point, he said, ‘Well, I won’t be going if HE’S there’. At which point, I was howling with laughter and said that I absolutely couldn’t blame him. The actor in question had appeared in a TV show that wasn’t to Peter’s (or my own) liking.

Peter stood up for what he believed in and was of the opinion that your work is a reflection of you as an artist. If one appears in something that is full of prejudice, then would it be fair to say that people may think that by appearing in something of that nature that hold those beliefs also?

Peter Wyngarde was a truly wonderful, wonderful man and his star continues to shine bright in a way that no other star does or ever will again! Adam Coxon – friend

Thinking of you today [15.01.21] Tina. You must have some wonderful memories.They will keep you happy.  Caron Gardner – friend

Remembering one of the most handsome and talented actors to ever grace the screen. My favourite picture of Peter Wyngarde,I have it printed off and framed on a wall in my house. My late mother loved this picture too (for her own personal reasons ). He will not be forgotten,we will always keep him in our hearts x. Stephanie Harpin – fan

Greatly missed. Roger Bayford – fan

Talent & class rolled into one. Truly missed. Vince Ferguson – fan

Gone but not forgotten. Robin Bass – fan

He will always enhance our lives, through his work. Tony Barlow – Fan

A wonderful man, great acting skill. Sexier than Brando, funnier than Hill (Benny).Always missed, an eternal presence. More interesting an actor than Donald Pleasence. Sadly missed, today and every day. Luckiest man on earth to have a love/soul mate/muse such as Tina. Pont Dance Survivors Group – fan

Peter Wyngarde, was one of those actor’s that gave you that warm feeling. His smile was so inviting, you automatically smiled with him. He was a man of great Stature, looked upon by his pears with utmost respect. His like will certainly never be seen again. How I wish i’d had the chance too see and meet him. We remember you Peter, with Much fondness. God bless him! x Dave Clarky – fan

A superb actor who I had the pleasure of meeting twice. Long live the King. Laurence Sumeray – fan

One of the highlights of my life getting to see Peter in the King and I! Long live the King. Ally Sillers

I can see Peter in an episode triumphing over an evil media oligarch who has ties to evil countries…. perhaps with the help of Steed… I just love his performance and character in Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock “tittle for tattle” what a DOLL~! He reminds me so much of my departed wonderful father, Bernard! Daniel Bernard O’Connell – fan

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1st January, 2021

A story about Peter from Thomas Bowington

And that is why he was The King….. taking Mr.Peter Wyngarde to a recording studio in west London in May 2016.

Peter was hired to record a 15 minutes monologue. In his usual fashion he had worked on this complex and rather emotional piece for several weeks. In the script there was barely a word not underlined, circled or a sentence that Peter hadn’t written a directors comment about.

When arriving at the studio and meeting the director and the recording team, Peter was unusually jovial. But as the actual recording was about to begin dear Peter was in a more, what can only gently be described as a rather “assertive” mood.

A lot of this I’d learned was simply to do with nerves. He had such very high demands on others but, as I and those closest to him knew, the highest demands were reserved for himself. Anything less than absolute and total excellence was not tolerated!

There was a special chair in front of the microphone, which was placed on a small table. Peter was not happy with this setup! He really didn’t want the chair nor the microphone place on a table. The microphone should be hanging slightly above him in front of him. I thought here we go, another “classic” Peter Wyngarde, ‘let’s refurbish the whole studio’. However, after a bit of time this was arranged for Peter. There were a lot of pale faces around that studio – some possibly even red.

He did the monologue twice. They decided to use the first take as it had slightly more energy. A few years earlier he could have done this twenty times with plenty of energy!

Now, the reason Peter wanted all the changes was simply because he knew that performing this standing up would give it more vigour and be more natural, especially since the character he played – an actor who was walking around alone on the stage and who knew that he was dying. This was so powerful and deeply moving, and totally different to anything he had played before. Everyone else in the studio, including myself, were utterly overwhelmed and I think most of us in tears as well.

A slightly tense start had turned out to be an afternoon of sheer and profound acting magic! And of course with all the re-arrangements, Peter as always knew what was best and how it all should be done! And not only that, but he had an ace up his sleeve. He had memorised the whole piece and did as a real full-out performance. Actors usually always reads the text when doing audio work. But not Peter Wyngarde! Hence the staggering realism and remarkable quality of his performance!

Everything with dear Peter was a life enriching experience on a level I have never experienced with any other actor, be it work-related or in life. The great wonders, work and wisdom of Wyngarde.

Wishing all Hellfire Club members a safe and happy New Year!

For Peter and Tina always

Thomas Bowington xxx

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20th December, 2020

Peter had a notoriously bad temper, as anyone who knew or worked with him I’m sure would testify. However, the red mist was almost always short-lived, and he rarely if ever carried on once he’d said his piece. I doubt that any of those us who were close to him that managed to avoid a tongue-lashing at one time or another, but while he was capable of using every expletive in the book with some people, he never once swore at me.

When Peter and I had our parting of the ways in the latter half of the Noughties, we exchanged a few barbed comments, all of which were designed to hurt the other as much as possible given the circumstances. We both said some terrible things to each other and, for my part, it’s something I’ve regretted to this day. The thing is that love makes us vulnerable, so the people who are most likely to cause us hurt are those closest to us. Of course, EVERYTHING gets thrown up and raked over during such a tirade. Anyone who doesn’t understand that, or who actually believes that everything that’s said in the heat of an argument is meant, really does need a reality check!

The one thing about Peter in situations like this is that he was always the first to apologise. When we were to make contact again with each other, in his opening letter to me, the very first thing he did was to express his remorselessness at what he’d said – explaining that he must’ve been “out of his mind” and “beyond hope” at my leaving to have uttered such things.

Of course, when someone passes away there are always regrets. While I’ve repeatedly been assured that I did everything possible for Peter during the years we knew each other, and especially during the final 18 months of his life, I still torture myself with thoughts of what more I could’ve and should’ve done for him. Things haven’t been easy since he passed away. Losing a person who had been in the public eye is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I recall sitting with Peter in his private hospital room during the final week of his life, when the lady with the refreshment trolley arrived on the ward. Peter had asked me to get him a copy of The Times. By that point he was confined to bed, and so I laid the paper out in front of him and turned the pages when he nodded. He didn’t read it – he couldn’t – so he just soporifically glanced at each page before slowly inclining his head to move on.

Exactly a week later to the day, news of Peter’s passing was in The Times and the Internet was alive with comment – good and bad; kind and cruel. EVERYBODY had an opinion, well-intentioned or otherwise. All I wanted to do was curl up and die.

I can’t believe that almost 3 years have passed since he went away, during which time I’ve seen the very best of people and also the very worst. While on occasion I’ve been shown the utmost kindness and support by a complete stranger, I’ve also experienced the most abhorrent duplicity and deceit from people I’d once called friends.

The years since Peter went away have been an enormous learning curve for me. I’ve found that the most sincere support and kindness can come from complete strangers, while sometimes those you thought were ‘friends’ are capable of the most abhorrent duplicity and deceitfulness.  

I’ve also come to realise that there are no depths to which some people will sink over money, and there are absolutely no limits to the deceptions, slanders and lies they will peddle in an attempt to deflect attention from their own lack of integrity. While it might be easier to project your own transgressions onto someone else than it is to be honest; reasoning with people that believe their own lies would be impossible!

Peter was a firm believer in what goes around, comes around. I personally look forward to the day when the fools that have jumped on this embittered part’s bandwagon finally realise that they’ve backed the wrong horse.

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12th December, 2020

He was a huge telly-bug who’d lie, not sit, along his Chesterfield sofa, which is where I like to think of him even now. His favourite programmes included the American comedy show, ‘Seinfeld”, and HSBO’s ‘True Detective’. He’d also enjoyed the first series of ‘Broadchurch’; not so keen on the second, and often waxed lyrical about ‘Inspector Montalbano’ and the original Swedish version of Wallander’.

It was of course a monumental disaster when the TV in the lounge gave up the ghost in July of 2017. Given that Peter’s birthday was just around the corner, I offered to buy a new set as a gift. The old one had been a 40″, and it was my initial intent to purchase the same. However, my internet search suggested that it wouldn’t cost much more to upgrade to a 44-inch. I remember Peter’s eyes lighting up like a 5-year old’s on Christmas morning when I mentioned this to him: “Oh, yes. I think I’d like that.”

The really sad thing was that he was taken into hospital during the first week in October, and so he wasn’t able to get the enjoyment out of the new set as I’d hoped. Of course, I was still living at the flat and was there to use the set in the evenings after I arrived home from spending the day on the ward with Peter.

The cost of using a TV in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital was extortionate. We were obliged to pay £25.00 every 72 hours for a pass which, quite unfairly, ran concurrently, so it continued eating up time during the night or when it was switched off during the day. I’d often receive a call after I’d arrived back at the flat in the evening from a panic-stricken Peter, bemoaning the fact that his telly had run out of credit: “Darling, can you ring through and top it up for me?!” The same would happen if he was moved to a different ward; any credit would have to be transferred to the TV attached to his new bed. We could’ve bought a top-of-the-range, Ultra HD television for what we forked out for those blasted passes!

The shows that would often result in our locking horns included ‘Coronation Street’ (no self-respecting Northerner can go more than a day or two without a bit of “Corrie”); Peter LOATHED it, despite the fact that he’d never watched a single episode in his life! As I was quick to point out, ‘Coronation Street’ was TV’s first ever ‘Kitchen Sink’ drama, in the style of John Osborne who’d, of course, got his break at the Royal Court Theatre, which Peter had helped to establish. He, on the other hand, thought that, a-hem, ‘comedian’ (sic), Frankie Boyle, was an absolute genius of satire. Peter’s own sense of humour could often be quite pointed – sometimes cruel – which is probably why he enjoyed watching Boyle so much. Those times when Boyle was appearing on screen proved opportune to clear out the fridge or something equally distracting – anything really to get out of the room!

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4th December, 2020

Peter was nothing if not forthright. If he didn’t like a person, or was unhappy with the conduct of a friend or acquaintance, they knew about it in no uncertain terms. To illustrate the point, here is an excerpt from a letter he sent to a certain ‘Kenny Grice’ (see previous post) when he seemingly crossed the line. He really didn’t care who the recipient of one of these notorious “stinking letters” was – delivered with both barrels AND some!

It’s bizarre therefore to be told by a complete stranger (yes, you read that right!) that Peter was supposedly annoyed at my “repeatedly calling him”. If that had been the case, I can assure you that I’d have been the first person to know about it! But, of course, an empty vessels that make the loudest sound and those with the least knowledge, are often the greatest blatherers.

Peter would often say that hell was other people. Despite he himself falling victim to some truly appalling gossip and falsehoods, he himself would never say anything behind a person’s back that he wasn’t prepared to say to his or her face. But he’d always had a reputation for being a plain-speaker that has sometimes translated in to his being a difficult person to work with. That might’ve been the case in some instances, but he was always able to remain true to himself. One thing he couldn’t be labelled was a coward.

It’s oft been peddled, exclusively I might add by people who neither knew or ever met Peter personally, that he didn’t know his own mind, and that at the end of his life he was somehow manipulated or pushed in directions he didn’t wish to go. This is wholly untrue, and not only that, it’s a malicious slur on the man himself. I can well imagine his reaction if he’d been here to witness such idiocy. 

Peter was as open and honest in his work as he was in ‘real’ life. In 2012, he was invited to give a talk by the National Youth Theatre, in which he spoke about “truth”:

“Dame Edith Evans, who was probably the greatest English-speaking actress in the world, gave some marvellous performances on stage –in comedy and restoration, but especially in Shakespeare.

One of her triumphs was on stage was The Dark Is Light Enough by Christopher Fry. I was privileged to play opposite her in the television production. She had asked me because she’d seen me on TV in several of the performances I’d given in the medium, before I’d made Jason King a worldwide icon (call a spade a spade, I say!), and I hope not because we were neighbours in the country when I had a weaver’s cottage and she lived in the grand manor house.

She often visited, or invited me over, and on one occasion before we started rehearsals, she said, ‘You know about television, Peter. Can I put myself entirely in your hands? I need to learn the technique.’ My answer was, ‘You already have it, Edith. It’s called Truth.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘I know all about that, but where do I put my truth?’

‘Where you’ve always kept it,’ I replied, ‘within YOU. The camera is sure to find it if you’re lying, or playing tricks. It only likes truth, and the ability to say lines as if you’ve only just thought of them – not as if you read them centuries ago, or if they’ve been written for you by someone else.’

‘Yes, but how do I do that when there are so many cameras and technicians about?’ she asked. ‘That’s the technique you must learn in rehearsal, but your director will guide you there.’ And he did, and she gave a magnificent performance which was influenced by the small screen.”

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4th December, 2020

ROYALTIES AND CHARITABLE DONATIONS

Yesterday, I received the first Royalties Statement from Austin-Macaulay for sales of my book between publication (27th February, 2020) and the end of August. As I stated when I first began work on the book, ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers‘, I would be donating any and all royalties to the charities that Peter had passionately supported during his life.I just wanted to let you know that, this morning, I sent cheques for sizeable amounts to the following charitable organisations:

• The National Youth Theatre: https://www.nyt.org.uk/
• The Donkey Sanctuary: https://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/
• Hillside Animal Sanctuary: http://www.hillside.org.uk/

Since the amount received does not include sales from September 1st 2020 onward – (the book has been an almost constant feature in best-seller charts in the weeks from mid-November), I hope that I will be able to make additional donations to charity when the next Royalties Statement arrives in 6 months time.

Given the abhorrent, underhand tactics employed by a certain party in Portsmouth and the gullible miscreants they’ve encouraged to malign and harass Thomas Bowington and I over the past 17 months,* I have requested receipts from each of the organisations named above.

Should any of you wish to make a personal donation to any of the above charities in Peter’s name or your own, you can do so via the links provided.

*I was informed just last week that while hiding behind the username ‘Kenny Grice’, (real name Kevin Thomas) the ringleader of this obsessed and misguided rabble had twice DEMANDED to know what I intended to do with any royalties made by my book.

This individual did not appear to understand that he was not discussing public funds, but my own personal earnings – the destination of which had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with him or his associates. However, such has been the arrogance of these people, none of whom has ever had any personal connection with either Peter or myself, that they actually believe they’re entitled to answers. THEY ARE NOT!

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30th November, 2020.

While Peter had something of a reputation within the film and theatrical world for being “difficult”, he was also a very kind an considerate man who would do all he could to help others achieve their dreams. As mentioned earlier in this column, he often gave lessons free-of-charge to budding young actors and actresses, and would assist them as best he could with travelling expenses and accommodation in London. These traits were evident when he first met fellow actor, Alan Bates.

Another of Peter’s ‘projects’ was a gentleman who I refer to in my book, ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers’ – namely ‘Kenny Grice’. Given the type of person that he was and, quite possibly still is, I decided after consulting with my publisher to give this individual a pseudonym, not least because he has an ex-wife and several children who are completely innocent, and who did not deserve to be dragged through the mire.

Peter had met ‘Grice’ while he was working on a film script, and since the latter fitted the part of the former’s lead character, Peter asked ‘Grice’ if he would help him with his research. He agreed, and soon Peter was introduced to ‘Grice’s’ family, mates and, on occasion, his extremely dodgy lifestyle. Inevitably, Peter became increasingly embroiled with the family, and would end up forwarding money to the soon-to-become ex-wife and the children, in addition to bailing ‘Grice’ out of one disaster after the other.

Unlike any of those persons mentioned earlier in this piece, ‘Grice’ would repeatedly bite the hand that fed him, and yet in spite of being imprisoned twice within less than 4 years, Peter would persist in his attempt to get him clean of drugs so that he could become the father his young children deserved.

While this particular horse would be lead to water many, MANY times over the years, Peter would never fully succeed in making it drink. The most tragic thing about this entire scenario was that Peter would end up losing the family of children that he’d become so fond of. It was an incredibly sad situation. I can only hope for his sake at least, that he did enough to keep those kids from taking the same path to drug addition and crime.

N.B. The person referred to above should not be confused with the crazed internet troll who has adopted ‘Kenny Grice’ as a Username.

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19th November, 2020

As per a couple of my previous posts, I’ve been putting the current lockdown restrictions to good use by going through some old letters and cards that I’d been meaning to sort out for months. While doing so, I came across 9 letters and cards that Peter had sent to me during a trip to France to sort out his recently deceased stepbrother’s affairs.

Paul Edouard Juvert, was the son of Peter’s Mother, Marcheritta, and her second husband, Charles Juvet, and was some 10 years Peter’s junior. On leaving school, he’d joined the French Foreign Legion, rising to the rank of Sergent-Chef (Senior Sergeant). After leaving the Legion in 1960, he went to live in Geneva, Switzerland.

Following his death in 1998, Peter was left to arrange and pay for Paul’s funeral. It was a very difficult time for him, not least because he’d lost a brother who he’d been close to, but because he was left to take care of Paul’s concerns either by travelling to Geneva himself, or engaging a Swiss solicitor to deal with the probate – a cost which he had to shoulder alone.

Additionally, Paul had had business interests in France, which Peter was also obliged to wind up. He was to fly out to Marseilles for seven days following the funeral. Despite everything, he would write to me each day, and we’d talk every other day by ‘phone.

Peter would often say to me that I would’ve liked Paul but, sadly, we were never to meet. A visit to London had been planned for the Spring of 1998. Unfortunately, it was just after Christmas of 1997 that Paul’s health took a turn for the worse and he wasn’t able to make it. Not getting to meet him in the flesh was something I’ve always regretted.

On a happier note, whilst Peter was in France, he’d taken time out to look at some of the villas there, as we’d hoped to buy a property together somewhere in Europe. He did spot a really nice place near Mèze (see letter below) called ‘Cryla Vicca’ but, alas, it was just a holiday rental and not for sale. I did fly out there though, and we were able to spend a few days together on the Mediterranean coast. We returned there five years later – this time to Cap d’Age, which was less than 30 miles from Mèze. Happy days.

Above and Below: The letter heads from two of the letters Peter sent to me from France.

[1]: The gullible idiot referred to in the post dated 29th September, 2020, made a number of wild allegations based on what he’d been fed by a supposed “friend” of Peter’s. In fact, this “friend” does not exist and is merely a front – or ‘Sock Puppet’ – for another embittered party. While remaining unconvinced by the truth, this clown and his mob of bullies will trust the bad without a moment’s hesitation.

“It’s far easier to dupe a simpleton who has an agenda than it is to convince him he’s been duped” Peter Wyngarde

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15th November 2020

I was recently going through some letters and other odd and sods, and I came across this card (see below) which I received from Karen – the senior nurse of the Palliative Team at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital – a couple of weeks after Peter passed away.

At the time, I was living back at the flat in Earls Terrace, as Thomas (Bowington) and I were still paying the rent and struggling to empty it. I took the card home with me, but was too upset to do anything with it but to shove it away in a drawer.When I re-read it yesterday and actually took in what was being said to me, I realised that it mentioned you – Peter’s genuine fans, so I thought you might like to see it.

I hope to soon receive news of any royalties my book has earned since publication, and given that I would never attempt to make money from Peter’s name, I intend to donate anything I might receive to charity.

I thought that it would be nice to send something to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to thank them in some small way for their care of Peter during the time he was there. The staff on the Intensive Care Unit where he was admitted following emergency surgery on Christmas Eve 2017, and the two young nurses on the St Mary Abbott Ward where Peter passed away, were faultless in their ministration.

In addition to Peter’s care, they were kindness itself to me as I lived on a permanent basis in Peter’s room during the last week of his life. While Thomas and I were to send the nurses a large bouquet of flowers each to thank them for their selflessness and compassion, I’d like to do something more if I can in Peter’s name. I hope you’ll agree.

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In February of 2017, Peter received a very kind letter from Conservative MP for East Yorkshire, Sir Gregory Knight, who was not only a life-long fan, but also shared a loved of classic cars. Indeed, it was in relation to the latter subject that the Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Historic Vehicles Group (A.P.P.H.V.G.) had written.

It transpired that Sir Greg wished to invite Peter to an event at the Palace of Westminster by the A.P.P.H.V.G.. At the time, however, Peter’s health was really quite bad, and he was attending both the Charing Cross and Chelsea and Westminster hospitals, sometimes up to three times a month. It was decided that he should put the invite on the backburner for a while with the hope that his condition might improve enough to enjoy the day further down the line.

Above – left to right: Left to Right: Rt Hon Sir Greg Knight MP, actor Leslie Phillips, Derek Mathewson and DJ Mike Read.

He was extremely sympathetic to the state of affairs that had befallen the flat in Earls Terrace where Peter had lived from 1958. He listened as I told him how we’d fought tooth and nail to get our voices heard by Kensington and Chelsea Council, the Directorate of Environmental Health and the local MP to no avail. I then emailed him over a copy of the letter we’d received from Lady Borwick’s office.

Although Sir Greg was unable to help us directly, given that the flat was not in his constituency, he did offer to speak with Lady Borwick himself personally, and to ask her to contact us. Three days later, I received a call from her Borick’s office on my mobile, and an appointment was arranged for her Ladyship to visit the flat to speak with us.      

As fate would have it, Lady Borwick lost her seat in parliament in the General Election in June, to the Labour candidate for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, and so we had to start all over again – contacting her office and repeating the entire story over again. At least on that occasion, our complaints had been made a matter of record with all the relevant offices and agencies in the Royal Borough.

Fast forwarding to Christmas of that year, and Peter’s readmittance hospital following emergency surgery on the night of 24th December: I’d spent Xmas Day with my Mum in Lancashire, but had raced back to London by the first available train on Boxing Day morning. When I went over to the flat for the night, I’d collected the mail which had been delivered during my absence, which included just 3 Christmas cards; one each from Fernella Fielding and Vernon Dobtcheff, and the third from Sir Greg. It took them with me, along with my own gifts and card, when I returned to the hospital on the morning of 27th December.  

When Peter passed away in January 2018, I received a very kind letter from Sir Greg who, of course, extended his condolences to me, and enquired whether the funeral had already taken place:

I responded as follows:

Monday, 12th February, 2018 Dear Sir Greg, Thank you for your letter. I hope that you will forgive the delay in my replying, but as I’m sure you’ll appreciate the past month has been both distressing and challenging, so this has been the first opportunity I’ve had to respond to any mail received in the wake of Peter’s passing. He’d been admitted to hospital back in October with a serious stomach infection, but had made enough progress to be discharged from the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to a rehabilitation unit on 18th December. However, he was readmitted on Christmas Eve with what turned out to be a perforated bowel. Given the seriousness of his condition, there was little option but to operate even though the surgeon feared that his heart and kidneys might not stand up to the strain. I called the hospital at 4am on Christmas morning fearing the worst, but was both delighted and relieved to hear that he’d come through the operation and had been taken to the Intensive Care Unit. Indeed, he was doing well enough to be moved from the I.C.U. to a regular ward just a few days later. On 8th January, however, having believed that the worst was over, I was devastated to receive a call from the ward sister who advised that Peter’s kidney function had deteriorated almost overnight, and that he had only days left. I stayed with him at the hospital, day and night from thereon in, and was with him when he passed at 18.51 on 15th January. I was absolutely heartbroken, and have barely stopped crying since. I miss him SO much. His funeral took place at Golders Green Crematorium on Thursday, 25th January. Since he’d always been a very private man, it was decided that only those who’d been close to him, plus three or four family members, would be invited to attend. The main thing was keeping the date and time of the service away from the press. Sharing what I considered to be a very private matter with the rest of the world via the media was excruciating. Peter did receive your lovely Christmas card (I took delivery of it at his flat, and gave it to him at the hospital where it took pride of place on the window sill of his room). I’m sorry that he didn’t have the opportunity to express his gratitude to you in person. Thank you also for your kindness in relation to previous issues relating to building works. Yours Sincerely, Tina

I’m so desperately sad that Peter was unable to join Sir Greg at one of the All Party Parliamentary Historic Vehicles Group events at the Palace of Westminster. I know he would’ve loved it, as would I as his ‘Plus 1’.

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5th October, 2020

Peter would’ve had a wry smile at comments made by Gyles Brandreth in The Telegraph on 10th August, 2018, in which he claimed that Peter’s “wig” had caught fire during a performance of ‘Cyrano de Bergerac‘ back in 1959.

“Peter Wyngarde’s hair caught fire in Cyrano in Bristol,” the former Conservative MP cackled disparagingly. “He was reluctant to pull off his flaming wig lest his audience discover he was bald.” The only flaw in this hilarious(!) anecdote was that Peter, who was just 31-years-old at the time, had a full head of hair!!!

I responded to the story via our ‘Do They Mean Mean Me?” page on this very website which was, in turn, reported on Twitter by professional busybody, Gareth Bevan – A.K.A. ‘Man With A Pencilcase’.

man-with-a-pencilcase @george_cowley·Feb 28 Replying to @GylesB1 @SimonEvans25 and @The_GlobeHello @GylesB1 I think you should see this posted on the internet.

Mr Bevan is no stranger to this kind of infantile behaviour. He once attempted to contact actor, Sam J. Jones, to ask if he “recommended” my book. “Of course he recommends it,” Thomas Bowingdon exclaimed when he read Bevan’s query on Sam’s Twitter feed, “he wrote the f*****g foreword!” Thankfully, Sam had the good sense not to reply.

Back in February 2020, Mr Bevan – a civil servant from the north of England – had leapt on a comment by actress, Madeline Smith, which was in response to a question that had been posted on Facebook (FB) about me.

I first met Ms Smith at Peter’s funeral in January 2018. When, over a year later, she’d replied to the FB user, she hadn’t realised that the person referred to in the post and the individual she’d shared a meal with after the funeral, were one and the same. Alas, by that point in time, Mr Bevan had already scurried off excitedly to re-post Ms Smith’s response on several other FB pages.

Not unsurprisingly, when Madeline retracted her remark and issued a public apology to me, the curmudgeon that had hastily shared her original statement didn’t seem quite so eager to promote her amendment. I have a suspicion that the same will apply to Gyles Brandreth’s abjure below. At least the old Tory was man enough to admit when he was wrong.

“I could find no persuasive authentication for the story, and that, in fact, it appears Wyngarde played Cyrano when he was a lot younger and probably had a perfectly good head of hair”. Gyles Brandreth.

A message from Madeline Smith

Dear Tina, Firstly, I am so desperately sorry for the confusion. The way things were put to me I didn’t realise that you and the lady author were one and the same. You know now that I never meant ANYTHING other than good on your behalf. I asked a perfectly innocent question, but as you know, silly people will do as they will do, and say what they wish to say, and it just reflects appallingly on them. You have to switch off and ignore it all. There are ghastly people and kind people. Concentrate on the good. When I read what these atrocious people had written I thought, ‘Oh dear God!’ I hope that my support will help in some small way to help release you from these vile demons. Until now, I had never been privy to any of this unpleasantness or trolling, or seen nor read anything unkind towards you. I find the internet a source of joy, and am so so sad that these people have nothing better to do with their lives. Peter was an adorable man, and that is all that needs to be said. Your relationship is none of anybody else’s business. You must feel sorry for sad people who want to inflict hurt, and offer it up to God if you are a believer. Peter loved you and nobody can ever take that away. Wishing you the very best now, Tina. Maddy x

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30th October, 2020

Above: As Peter’s Next-of-Kin, I was notified that he’d been re-admitted to the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital (see 020 Number). I was advised to expect a call from Peter himself (see Private Number), who was desperate to speak to me. A phone was subsequently found for him to use.

I of course had spoken with the nurse who’d been assigned to him on the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where he’d been taken after leaving theatre. She said that he’d smiled when she’d told him that I’d called.

Peter was still drowsy at the time and unable to speak after having a breathing tube removed from his throat (see later text below). To say I was relieved when I learned that he was “doing well” would be an understatement, and all I could think about was getting the first train to London on Boxing Day to be with him. From arriving at the hospital on 26th December, I barely left Peter’s side – only returning to the flat to have a shower or to pick something specific up for him. 

I need not describe the pain I felt when I was told by his nurse that recent tests had revealed that Peter was suffering multiple organ failure. It had come as such a shock, since he’d been doing so well following the surgery. While I was determined not to leave him, I still had to fight the urge to start running as far and as fast as I was able.

Although my finding the ‘phone did bring back some painful memories, it was also to remind me of what Peter and I had, it served to reassure me of what will never die no matter how hard others try. I know for certain that if there is a some other place we go to after death, I’ll be able to look Peter in the eye with the knowledge that I did my best.

Notes: [1]. ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers’.

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22nd October, 2020

By Richard Taylor

I first met Peter when he was appearing in Butley at the Metro Theatre on Bourke Street, in Melbourne back in 1971. At the time I was working for Harry H. Miller Productions, the company that was staging the play. Peter and I had a similar sense of humour and so we got along like a house on fire. During his tenure at the theatre he’d often come over to dine with my wife and I at our home in South Yarra.

We kept in touch after he returned to England both by telephone and letter, and when he returned to Australia a couple of years later he stayed with us for a few days. At that time he had plans to buy a house on the Gold Coast, so we helped him as best we could with this venture. Regrettably his plans were to fall through not least because of his mother and stepfather’s reluctance to emigrate with him.

As a Brit, born and bred (I originally hail from Bexleyheath, Kent), my wife and I would visit England semi-regularly and Peter would insist on us staying with him when we visited London. It was during one of those visits around the time of the Millennium, that I first met Tina. It immediately became apparent to me why Peter cared so much for her, as she was and is a very affable, kind and generous lady who Peter often described to me as “having not a bad bone in her body.”

Sadly, the last time I saw Peter was in 2015. By that time my dear wife had passed away and Peter’s health was in severe decline. It was of great comfort to me as I left him for the last time to know that he still had his beloved “soulmate” by his side to care for him. It was Tina of course who informed me of his death in 2018. Due to my own faltering health (I’d only recently undergone heart surgery), I was unable to make the trip to London to attend the funeral, but I was able to speak with Tina that same evening. To say that she was distraught would be an immense understatement.

I have to say that I was absolutely sickened when I learned that Peter’s surviving relatives who had been absent from his life from the mid 1970’s onward, had chosen to deprive him of his dying wish by claiming his estate. I shudder to think of the barrage of profanity that would have poured from mouth as he peered down from on high. The subsequent abuse that has been meted out to Tina, the person he loved most in the world, has just heaped insult upon injury. There cannot possibly be any justification for the witch hunt that has been encouraged against her since Peter’s death.

The latest tactic of inventing phantom personalities to fool a pack of idiots into believing they’re conversing with “Peter’s friends” is wholly repugnant. Furthermore, the suggestion that Peter “detested” Tina and his agent, Thomas Bowington, is ludicrous in the extreme. I can testify that there has never been a more strong-minded or forthright person on the planet than Peter Wyngarde. If he didn’t like a person they would be the first to know about it! To insist that he did not know his own mind is a direct insult to the man, and proves if any more proof were needed, that those behind this smear campaign have absolutely no insight whatsoever into Wyngarde’s life, which is hardly surprising as none of them actually knew him.

I was blessed to have known Peter and I remember with great fondness the times that he spent with my wife and I. He was a splendid raconteur and had the memory of an elephant. I’m so happy that I was able to see him one last time in 2015. Despite his failing health he had lost none of his zest for life or anything of his wicked sense of humour.

God bless you Tina for continuing to stand up for Peter and for remaining the steadfast protector of his legacy.

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16th October, 2020

I don’t know how Peter would’ve coped with the current Covid-19 situation – especially with all the ‘in lockdown’/’out of lockdown’ business. During the time that I was part of his life, he signed up for several night school courses, including a computer class and French Composition. While he could speak French fluently, he wasn’t quite so eloquent when writing in the language. Given the existing state of affairs, these would be two activities that would almost certainly have to be put on the back burner.

Another thing he liked to do occasionally was give private acting lessons. Apart from the work itself, he enjoyed the chatting with younger people and they with him. I recall an incident when he was attending an appointment at Charing Cross Hospital several years ago when he managed to get two random teenagers involved in fixing his “wretched” mobile phone.

Those amongst you who have read my book will recall a lady I mention called Mitzi Kalinsky, whose father had been Peter’s accountant and friend. She had known Peter from birth, as had her own son, Adam. She recalled taking her son to see Peter play The Sheriff of Nottingham in ‘Babes in the Wood’ at the Richmond Theatre in 1985. When Peter – the villain of the piece – took to the stage and was roundly booed as tradition dictated, young Adam leapt up onto his seat and facing down the audience, roared, “No! No! Stop it – don’t boo him!”

Left: Mitzi Kalinski, MA – Sexton of the Jewish Joint Burial Society. Director at A Way With Tax Ltd.

It was only during the final weeks of his life, when both Adam and Mitzi came to the hospital to see Peter, that the Mitzi learned how Peter had allowed her so as a teenager to “have a drive” of his car. Mitzi was, of course, dumbstruck – albeit 30 years too late!

I believe that the reason young people liked Peter so much was because he was really a child at heart. I remember saying to him once when buying a T-shirt with an image of Sylvester the Cat on the front that I was, after all, in my 3rd childhood. “Well, if you’re in your 3rd, I must be in my 7th or 8th!”

He had, of course, missed out on much of his own childhood by being incarcerated in Lung Hau civil assembly centre in china during World War II. He was however, able to make up for lost time by enjoying the company of people like Adam and his God Children.

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8th October, 2020

When Peter and his agent at the time had a parting of the ways in 2005, he feared that he may never work again. It was fortuitous then that Bowington Management was recommended to him by a friend in the business, and so came a new beginning and a friendship that would last until the end of his life.

Thomas Bowington began life in the entertainment industry at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where one of his classmates was Ioan Gruffudd, who went on to star in the successful ITV series, ‘Hornblower’ and Hollywood blockbusters, ‘The Fantastic 4’ and ‘The Professor and the Madman’. Thomas, however, was soon to realise that his talents lay outside of the acting profession, and when the opportunity arose for him to buy the popular Westminster Film Fair, he jumped at the chance.

Thomas Bowington began life in the entertainment industry at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where one of his classmates was Ioan Gruffudd, who went on to star in the successful ITV series, ‘Hornblower’ and Hollywood blockbusters, ‘The Fantastic 4’, and ‘The Professor and the Madman’. Thomas, however, was soon to realise that his talents lay outside of the acting profession, and when the opportunity arose for him to buy the popular Westminster Film Fair, he jumped at the chance.

Above: Peter and Thomas

Some of the first names on his books were ‘Bond Girls’ Caron Garder and Madeline Smith, followed in short order by Vernon Dobtcheff,  Derren Nesbitt, Julian Glover, David Warner and Jane Merrow. He now counts amongst his personal friends the likes of Sir Ian McKellern and Sir Patrick Stewart.

Thomas had been a huge Peter Wyngarde for decades, and so he was delighted when the actor contacted him in 2008. Despite his various health conditions, Peter was eager to get out to some of the events that Thomas was involved with, which included ComiCon at the NEC in Birmingham, where he’d enjoy meeting fans and old colleagues alike.

Thereafter, Thomas was to find numerous projects for Peter, which included his collaborating with explorative performer, artist, and stage and film designer, Marie Gabriella Blunck on Samuel Beckett’s play A Piece of Monologue, which Blunckused in her critically acclaimed exhibition at the Barbican in London.

He’d also work with creative artist, Graham Roos, on his album ‘Quest’, with Peter and actress, Fenella Fielding, performing a track called ‘Night Dragon’.

He also narrated an episode of the long-running series ‘Timeshift’ entitled, ‘How To Be Sherlock Holmes: The Many Faces Of A Master Detective’ for the BBC.

Peter was to make a guest appearance at the British Film Institute (BFI) in London during their two-month long season of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trangender+ (LGBT+) cinema to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act. The seminal play, ‘South’ was screened and afterwards, took part in a Q & A session in front of a live audience.

2016 and ’17 would mark the 35th Anniversary and 50th Anniversary of ‘Flash Gordon’ and ‘The Prisoner’, respectively, and so Peter would make an appearance at events marking both. He’d also take to the small screen in Channel 4s documentary series, ‘It Was Alright In The 60s’

One thing that Thomas brought into Peter’s life that he’d genuinely enjoy was the opportunity to appear at conventions and film fairs across the UK. Although the travelling would often be gruelling for him, he loved chatting fans – some of whom had made their way from Europe and North America to meet him. During the time that he attended these events, Thomas never ONCE took a penny piece from Peter as was his right as an agent and manager. He always passed on the entire fee, whatever it might be, to the actor.

When we attended the ‘Fall In – The Prisoner at 50’ celebrations at Portmeirion in September 2017, the organisers – Network – was to take over two months to forward payments to the actors for their appearances. Thomas was to pay Peter on the day from his own pocket to ensure that he wouldn’t be forced to wait.  

Thomas had been hard at work making bookings for Peter long into 2018. He was due to play a judge in the long-running BBC1 drama series, ‘Silent Witness’, and to appear as a guest on Radio 4’s, ‘Desert Island Discs.’ We were all to head out to California in the spring where Peter would be a VIP guest at a large film fair there. Additionally, Thomas had been looking at suitable locations in London for Peter’s first ever one-man shown. Peter’s idea for the opening was to have a completely blacked out stage and auditorium, when suddenly the audience would hear Peter repeatedly growling the word, “RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPEEEEE!” through the PA, until finally the lights were to go up and he’d be standing on stage. Whatever would the papers have said?!

Tragically, none of the above was to come to fruition since Peter would pass away on 15th January, 2017. Thomas Bowington above anyone else, had given him hope and a last hoorah, however small it might’ve been. Peter died believing that there was something left for him to do, which made him incredibly happy. That, for me, was priceless.  

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25th September, 2020

Although Peter was a super confident giant on stage, the moment he stepped out of the limelight he was a very different person. As hard as it may be for fans to believe, he was actually a very shy man who hated being around people he didn’t know or feel comfortable with. He was also very respectful around women; he never swore in front of “a lady” or behaved in any way that might be described as disrespectful.

I remember an incident in the mid-1990 when he decided that he wanted to take an Advanced Driving Course, given that he’d just purchased a powerful new sports car. At that time, there was a branch of the British School of Motoring on High Street Kensington, were we called in one afternoon en route back from Waitrose. The assistant that greeted us was a rather plump lady who promised to make so enquires on Peter’s behalf. We were instructed to come back towards the end of that week.

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19th September, 2020

There are many things in life that are fact, and there are many that are fiction. The rest, as they say, is just opinion. There is one problem, however, and that’s when some people begin to believe that their opinions are facts and that everyone else is wrong!

The difference between fact and opinion is that the latter can change over time while a fact remains constant; it does not change from person to person, and can be proven with evidence. Nevertheless, there are some individuals that cannot help but fall into the trap of confusing one with the other. Of course in those instances there will inevitably be amount of arrogance thrown in there for good measure, or perhaps an agenda to colour the water. In those cases opinion can quickly become an outright lie, and there is no more dangerous a liar than the one that believes he’s telling the truth.

You might remember in Pixar’s 2015 film ‘Inside Out’ how Joy, while riding the “Train of Thought” with her imaginary friend Bing Bong, manages to knock over a stack of boxes – one of which is carrying ‘Facts’, and the other, ‘Opinions’. When the contents of both these crates end up strewn across the floor, Joy finds herself with a dilemma: how will she ever return them to their rightful place when they look so alike?  

Above: Joy and Bing-Bong attempt to sort Fact from Opinion

“Don’t worry,” Bing Bong tells her as he begins to toss both lots into the same box – some people will never notice the difference!

During his career, Peter was often to find himself the subject of opinions that would ultimately be marketed as fact. Not unsurprisingly, many of those opinions have now become so ingrained in the public’s psyche that some individuals cannot, or will not, consider any alternative.

When I’m asked about this type of behaviour in relation to Peter’s life and career, I’m put in mind of the notorious conspiracy theorist, Bart Sibrel, who was once knocked on his ignoble behind by astronaut, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin.  

As many of you may know, Sibrel fervently believes that the NASA Moon landings of the late Sixties and early Seventies were faked. So strong is his opinion (for that is all it is) that he once accosted the Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot outside a Hollywood hotel to demand that Aldrin swear on the Bible that he did actually land on the Moon. When Aldrin refused to do so, Sibrel was to launch a barrage of abuse and accusations at the 72-year old – labelling him not only a liar, but a coward to boot. It was then that the self-important windbag was to suddenly find himself on his rear.

I have to admit that I’ve never cheered so loudly or so enthusiastically as I did when Buzz punched Sibrel in the muzzle. For me, he had struck a blow for everyone that has found themselves the victim of a similarly deluded bully.

Regardless of whether Aldrin had been to the Moon or not, no one in their right mind could possibly label that man a “coward”. Before joining the Space Programme, he had occupied two of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. Not only was he a decorated fighter pilot, but had also been a test pilot with the United States Air Force. But as is usually the case, it’s those that have achieved the least in their own lives that are the first to point an accusing finger at others. Such behaviour brings me to the somewhat new phenomena of Denialism.

Denialism is both an extension and an escalation of denial, which is one of the many ways that human beings have developed over time to delude not only others, but ourselves. An example of Denialism is the means by which some people refuse to accept that someone else is speaking the truth   

At root, denial and denialism are simply a subset of the many ways humans have developed the language of deception. Denial can be as simple as refusing to accept that someone else is speaking truthfully, but it can also manifest as something far more dangerous. That is when a new “truth” has been created by the Denialist which can, in some instances, create an environment of hate and suspicion that leads to victimisation.  

For some people, it’s easier to call another person a liar than it is for them to consider the possibility that they themselves might be wrong. Sadly, Peter was to fall victim to arrogance, confused opinion and Denialism throughout his life, as those of us that were closest to him continue to do now.

At least now when things get tough and the lunatics again threaten to overrun the asylum, I just smile and think of Colonel Edwin Aldrin. Thank you Buzz!

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11th September, 2020

Following the sad passing yesterday of legendary actress, Dame Diana Rigg, I’m sure you won’t be surprised o hear that the most popular pages on this website over the past 24 hours have been those devoted to the Avengers episodes, ‘A Touch of Brimstone’ and ‘Epic’ – both of which Peter guest-starred in opposite Ms Rigg.

It’s strange how circles begin to form at times like this. For instance, Peter would regularly play Bridge with Ms Rigg when she had lived near to him in West London. She, in turn, was a close friend of actor, Vernon Dobtcheff, who shared the screen with Peter in ITV’s production of Tennessee Williams, ‘Camino Real‘.

When Peter was faced with a personal crisis in September of 1975, Dobtcheff was the only friend to contact him with a kind word. He was to be the only close friend aside from Thomas Bowington and myself to attend Peter’s funeral in January of 2018. Mr Dobtcheff has been a good mate of Thomas’s for many years, and is also on the books of Bowington Management

“True friends say good things behind your back, and bad things to your face.” Anon

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7th September, 2020

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned, but WordPress, the company that hosts this website, has several interesting and useful tool that includes a Statistics page that not only gives details on where in the world every visitor is from, but how many people have visited a particular page.

Following the release of the Flash Gordon 4K boxset recently, there was a flurry of interest in those pages devoted to the film. Likewise, we had a large amount of interest shown in The Saint episode, ‘The Man Who Liked Lions’ when it was shown on ITV4 a couple of weeks ago.

It would appear that Jason King is currently being shown in the Ukraine, given the number of hits we’ve had on the JK-related pages, and we’ve also had over 200 people from Japan visit the ‘site in the last few days, although I’m yet to discover what’s going on there.

Since I moved to Chester back in March, I often think about how much Peter would’ve loved it here. He spent almost a year in Rep in York during the late 1940s, and loved the history of the place.

When we were driving to Portmeirion at the end of September 2017, he asked if our route would take us through Chester which, unfortunately, it didn’t. We agreed that when he was feeling better we’d have a weekend there but, sadly, things were to take a turn for the worse with him health wise, and it was only a few days after we returned from ‘The Village’ that Peter was taken into hospital. He was never to see his home again.

There had been a plan for him to attend an event in Hollywood during the spring of 2018, which he was greatly looking forward to. Several of Thomas (Bowington’s) other clients were due to attend but Peter, who the organisers had been desperate to have on their guest list for years, would be the star turn.

Both Thomas and I were, of course, also to make the trip to California, and Peter was determined to get himself well and fit for the event. It was so desperately sad that he was unable to make it.

A work colleague of mine recently found a programme from one of Peter’s plays at the Theatre Royal, York, which he gifted to me, and asked if he’d ever performed at any of the theatres in Chester, to which the answer was no. The nearest he ever got was in either Liverpool or Llandudo, North Wales.

While I’ve already mentioned Portmerion earlier in this article, I thought I’d recount an amusing story about Derren Nesbitt, who was also attending the 50th Anniversary of the Prisoner in ‘The Village’.

All of us were staying in the main hotel, when one morning I was on way to get some breakfast for Peter, when I bumped into Derren and his lovely wife, Miranda in the corridor. They were kind enough to ask how Peter was, and then Derren said to me: “I bet you don’t know who I am.”

I said that I did, and recounted to him a story about how my Mum had seen him back former hometown of St Helens back in the early 1970s, where he was appearing at the Theatre Royal. The thing she remembered most about him was that he was wearing purple boots.

“Purple boots?” Miranda exclaimed.

“Oh, come on,” Derren retorted, “everyone wore purple boots in the 70s!”

Well quite. 

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1st September, 2020

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24th August, 2020

Just recently, a review of my book was posted online which contained the following enquiry from the lady concerned: “I finished reading this book some time ago. But looking at some of the reviews it has taken me a while to get my thoughts together. What became immediately obvious is the fact that the reviews were from men in the majority. Which made me wonder – why? A great deal of the comments were quite nasty. Bitching and catty. If someone disliked the man that much, why bother reading his book, I wonder? There was a lot of fault picking about Tina (Bates as I knew her, having been in the fan club since she set it up) and her relationship with Peter. Do these men have other information and knowledge of Peter that they weren’t letting on? “

This passage, of course, refers to some of the dross that appeared on the Internet following the publication of said book – all of it penned by either disgruntled former members of the Official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society who, having been barred for their puerile or abusive behaviour sought to exact revenge, or by those to whom the book held up a mirror and they did not like what they saw in it; again, prompting thoughts of retribution.

And to answer the lady’s question, no, none of these men have any “information or knowledge of Peter they’re not letting on,” since none of them knew or ever met him. Basically, it’s all a lot of hot air!

That now clearly established, the point regarding why some individuals seemingly cannot stay away from people and subjects that they profess to dislike, is something that I myself have often pondered. Why would anyone wish to spend endless hours sowing discord and attempting to ruin the enjoyment of others, rather than perusing something more constructive with their time? Well, that’s the $60,000 question!

I have to say that, over the years, the Official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society Facebook page has seen its own fair share of ignoramuses and time-wasters. However, with the experience I’ve gained over the years, and with the aid of FB’s improved security tools, such half-wits have been shown the door far more effectively than in the past. Where I’d once ran a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule, certain people would perceive this as a licence to continue with their infantile games. These day, I simple ban them without notice. Sadly, some juvenile individuals refuse to go quietly, hence the kind of response referred to above. The most alarming thing about this kind of incomprehensible behaviour is that the people responsible are not schoolgirls bickering over which member of One Direction is the better looking. They are, in fact, MIDDLE-AGED (and often older) men and women who really should know better. It does make me wonder what their friends and family would think of them if they knew what they get up to when they’re online.

Only recently, I spotted the following review of the ‘Life After Flash’ DVD on Amazon, which illustrates the confusion the rest of us feel when we encounter the kind of people described previously. While this particular gentleman is obviously no fan of actor, Sam J. Jones, or of the film, ‘Flash Gordon’, he STILL went out and purchased the aforementioned disc – seemingly for the sole purpose of complaining about it:

“Flash was lame in 1980 and it’s still lame today. It was a B film at best and I do not understand this hero worship of Sam Jones. This is purely a circle-jerk geek-off, narrated and commented on by a bunch of wanna be denizens who haunt any Comic Con. Why Sam has to pray to Jesus before he engages in his racket of selling over-priced signatures and photo ops to desperate nerds is beyond me.

Seriously, just look at this brief list of films from 1980 and you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about: The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, Airplane!, Friday the 13th, Raging Bull, The Elephant Man and even Caddyshack. Flash is a turd in a punch bowl and I do not find the Sam Jones worship remotely interesting.”

While everyone entitled to his or her opinion, why in the name of all that’s holy would someone spend £14.99 on a DVD that they’ve already decided they going to hate?

As our American cousins would say, “Go figure!”

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17th August, 2020

Sadly, this isn’t the first time that I’ve had to address the topic of Peter’s biographical information nor, I suspect, will it be the last. And so here I go again – having to explain to those that should really have the intelligence to understand – how many of the details concerning Peter’s life have become so confused.

Back in the day, should a budding young actor be fortunate enough to find himself professional representation, his or her agent would not only encourage a change of name if he felt it necessary, but would often pen a ‘biography’ expounding the glamorous life his client had supposedly enjoyed up to that point.

Take Errol Flynn for instance. Who could forget about his adventures on the high seas as he made his way by boat to America from his native Tasmania. And then, of course, there was Marlon Brando, who claimed early on in his career to have been born in exotic Egypt, when in fact he was born and bred in Omaha, Nebraska.

And, of course, it wasn’t only Peter who would change his name to something that was a little more aesthetically pleasing. Take John Wayne, for instance, who had previously had the less than macho name of Marion Morrison, while Cary Grant had once been Archibald Leach. Sofia Loren was born, Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone, Henry Darrow was formally Enrique Tomás Delgado Jiménez, and Kirk Douglas – Issur Danielovitch Demsky.  

There was absolutely nothing that Peter said or did that was different to any number of other actors of his generation, and yet he is repeatedly singled out? Anyone who cannot understand the has no business writing about actors!

With regard to the confusion regarding Peter’s DAY of birth: this is due to his choosing to use his mother’s birthday – 23th August – as opposed to his own 28th August. It was as simple as that.

As a result of my determination to respect Peter’s prerogative to hold true to the biography that had been written for him back in the 1940’s, I myself have been pilloried and labelled. I would ask those detractors: what would THEY do under the same circumstances – defy and embarrass Peter by contradicting him? How would THEY respond if he had been one of THEIR loved-ones? I will not apologise for remaining loyal to Peter, and I haven’t a single regret for resolutely defending him, regardless of what others might think or believe. If I had that time over again, I’d do exactly the same thing.

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12th August, 2020

The long-awaited Flash Gordon 40th Anniversary BluRay boxset was finally released this week, and for the first time since he passed away over two-and-a-half years ago, I was able to bring myself to watch a film with Peter in it.

The set included on disc 4 of 5, the full-length documentary, ‘Life After Flash’, which was produced over the course of several years by Sam J. Jones, and directed by Lisa Downs. Peter was interviewed for the programme in July 2016 but, sadly, didn’t live to see its original release on DVD/Blu-Ray in March 2019.

Needless to say, I was surprised but delighted to see a snippet of Peter, Sam and me chatting together in happier times. These two men were as different as chalk and cheese, and yet got on famously, with both sharing an interest in keeping fit (they used to visit the gym together while filming Flash Gordon), and both were firearms experts – Sam having trained to use a rifle while in the US Marines.

Of course, when I called him back in 2019, Sam was more than happy to write the foreword for my book, and also to related several anecdotes about Peter’s on-set shenanigans which I was able to use.

I do believe that the interview Peter did for this documentary is the closest that fans will ever come to witnessing the real Peter Wyngarde. He was extremely candid, and displayed many of the attributes that had become so familiar to me over the 30 years I knew him. Certainly, he was to show no reluctance in using profanity, or in sharing the fact that he was obliged to wear a jockstrap under the Klytus costume!

Below is a card that Peter gave to me in 2015 of Pablo Picasso’s ‘Grand Nu Fauteuil Rouge’:

On the reverse he wrote: ‘This was done of me by Pablo near the end of his life when I was supposed to be painted by Salvador Dali who didn’t and ended up giving me a dilemma. He asked me if I’d drape my cock over the arm of the chair but I refused. He said he’d put it in anyway.’

This, and the kind of candour observed in the ‘Life After Flash’ documentary referred to above, typifies the sort of personality traits (in this instance, humour) that I hoped to bring to my book but, alas, it would go clean over the head of one self-appointed ‘critic’ who, out of arrogance or spite (probably both!), would write that HE believed I was suffering from “Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Erotomania.” Little wonder he chose to conceal his identity behind a Username!

“Those that know the least often know it the loudest.” Peter Wyngarde

Call me old fashioned, but I’d always saw the purpose of a biography was to enlighten a reader by offering a taste of that subject’s nuances. In this instance, our pseudo-psychologist – though lacking even the most rudimentary understanding of Peter – was obviously far more interested in point-scoring than he was in reading and understanding.  

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6th August, 2020

Peter was a keen letter-writer who, apart from the occasional email, would always write longhand using a fountain pen.

From an early age, he kept a record of every letter he wrote – the earliest being copied verbatim by hand and then, latterly, he’d photocopy each one and file it away. Over the course of his lifetime, he wrote over 2,000 letters. Sadly towards the end of his life he was no longer able to hold a pen without suffering pain in his fingers, and so he lost the ability to write lengthy letters, and his once beautiful copperplate script became more of a scrawl. 

He bought his first Blackberry in 2012, and although he’d never fully master the wretched thing, he did learn to text reasonably well, although his messages would often require decoding! The fact that I was able to download all his texts proved to be incredibly useful, not least because he’d frequently ask me when he’d done this or that, whereupon I’d look back at his messages to find the exact date. Those texts were to become an invaluable aide du memoir when I was writing my book – ‘Peter Wyngarde: A Life Amongst Strangers’.

Looking back now, I’m grateful that I had the foresight to keep a record of all those messages which would otherwise have been lost. When Peter passed away, I printed all 2,000+ out and put them into files which I look back on from time to time.

In addition to the texts, I have several thousand handwritten letters and cards from Peter, which are incredibly precious to me. Whenever we were apart, he’s write every day – sometimes two or three times a day.

Given the huge success of my book, it was recently suggested that I publish all Peter’s letters as a follow-up, but I could never do that in view of the person nature of many of them. Even in death, I believe that people are entitled to privacy.

Below are some of the original texts that I used in my book

Below can be found on Page 425

‘Got your note this morn and am devastated. It felt as if u were upset about something and you’ve capitulated – abandoning me. I feel left out. please tell me this is not so. And u really needing to accept this German offer. We are soul mates and must never be separated for too long. ‘Ken’* is part of the family. I told u he goes way back and if you’d seen what he’s been thru  your heart wld go out to him as, only yours cld.On top of that his bitch wife managed to put everything in her name so he has nothing so her lover can move in.’ 4 November, 2014

**“Ken” = ‘Kenny Grice’. Pseudonym for an individual that had a significant role in my book. It was decided after discussions with my publisher to use an alias for this person since he has a partner and several grown up children who we did not wish to identify or embarrass. The name ‘Kenny Grice’ was chosen at random.

Below can be found on Page 438

‘Because, Little Bear. we are one in spite of psychological temporary embellishments, contradictions, impossible misunderstanding.gruelling, infuriating differences because there is nothing we can do about it,  as it’s the will of whosoever fixes these things to accept as graciously as possible! Just bear in mind it is rare as hell and not plain sailing but we have been chosen and should be thankful though it can be hard work which is part of the deal I’m afraid. That’s it! Accept it or I don’t know what or where – another planet? Sleep tight and thanks for helping me out with Paul French . I need to tell him what Mike Hodges advised but I’ve never sent an email as I’d like to not a clue mainly ‘cause I haven’t registered with my pc since I don’t know when on account of being in hospital for six months  .Really can’t wait after uve had a good rest and not before please so saying you’ve been on an exhausting shoot and u need a well earned respite meantime loads of xxxxxxxxxxxx. Thought I d add my stupidity at completely misunderstanding the Q and A!’ 30 November 2015 – 12.59

Below can be found on Page 449

‘I thought email was the point? I was. Been interviewed all afternoon by a fan purporting to be a film interviewer for mag called film retro but really a photographer using thomas to get to meet me. Crashing bore I showed my contempt which washed over him like yer showing me how to bring back the light on this keyboard”he he!” Don’t look now but I think you’re innumeracy  is showing. Must be the black eye how is it? Only kidding Just using my baby bear as a boxing bag over that waste of a whole afternoon. Ignore please . I’m still trying to obliterate the memory and attacking u and above all kicking myself for being. So used and hating taking it out on u. There’s a nasty side to me that hates to be taken for a ride by the mediocre.’ 28 November, 2016 – 18.58

Below can be found on Page 14

‘Bless you and bless Lucy**. She’s a clever gal.She knows if she doesn’t get better she won’t be enjoying bed/b’ast so she’s pulled her socks up and is on the way to her normal healthy self. I told u she wld. It’s a fabulous day here Perhaps u cld persuade her to do a few trips here as a sort of weekend towards recovery? You’ll have to get her to bring her normal seed as I won’t have her diet.    –I fully understand now yer persistence in defending me against the hoi poloy of evil shitters and believe me am so very grateful. The world ain’t full of sweet smelling people but instead are a pack of small minded worms; drilling away; hurting and mauling reputations as best they can .Thank god for u my own Joan of Orleans. I just about and enjoy the sun and await Lucy’s imminent arrival. ta ta xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx’ 7 June, 2017 – 15.04

**Lucy was a pet Cockatiel

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31 July, 2020

A couple of days ago, I happened upon an online forum on which a heated debate about Peter’s album was taking place. While one particular lady was to wax lyrical both about the disc and the artist that recorded it, a second person (Username,‘em diar’), while voicing outraged at this female “fawning over a man who made a comedy song about what fun it is to rape woman of various ethnic backgrounds, without a trace of irony,” would himself go on to abuse her with, “Fuck off luv. Haven’t you got chores?” The words ‘Pot’, ‘Kettle’ and ‘Black’ suddenly sprang to mind.

Alas, such hypocrisy is not uncommon on the ‘net these days nor, it would seem, is the culture of believing that the more abuse one throws at another party, the more right one becomes. While I’m all for people having an opinion, quite often these days people tend to confuse their belief with fact.

As the aforementioned ‘discussion’ rumbled on, with each party becoming increasingly incensed, our potty-mouthed friend ‘em diar’ suddenly declared while appraising the track, ‘Rape’, that Peter had sunk to the level of lampooning the Holocaust, and to illustrate his side of the argument, he posted the offending verse:

In Germany it isn’t always remembered,

What with Liszt, Wagner and Tannhauser,

The Rape is synonymous with whips, bunkers and Mauser.

Which makes it all comparatively kinky –

With gas thrown in to get rid of the stinky!

I imagine it would be clear to most people that the segment in question, rather than making light of the Holocaust as asserted, is in fact referring to the rather sleazy reputation of Berlin both prior to the Nazi era, and after the Second World War. Germany’s capital during those times was notorious for its brothels, fetish clubs and Burlesque joints; the whips were more the province of the dominatrix than the concentration camp guard.

“There are many types of rape,” Peter once said. “There’s the rape of countries, of cultures and of minds. It’s telling that some people’s minds are so limited that they can only conceive of one type.”

Well, quite!

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22 July, 2020

To begin this new page, I’d just like to thank you for visiting this website, and for your interest in Peter Wyngarde.

With the 40th Anniversary of Flash Gordon coming up at the end of the year, there is plenty for both Wyngardian’s and fans of the cult classic to look forward to during the coming months.

News that the film is to shown again in selected cinemas around the UK reminded me of its original release back in 1980, when the main attraction for me personally was the soundtrack which had, of course, been written and performed by Queen.

I’d been a fan of the band since I first saw them perform ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ on ‘Crackerjack’ (CRACK-ER-JACK!) in 1974, and by the time the soundtrack was was released in early December 1980, I’d already seen the band perform live 8 times. I latterly went on to see them on stage a further 22 times in the UK and across Europe.

During their 1982 European tour, I went over to Germany to see them play at the Westfallenhalle in Dortmund, Germany, and was delighted when they opened the set with the ‘Flash Gordon’ theme[1] Little did I know then that I’d end up so indelibly tied to Peter Wyngarde – the actor who’d given life to one of Sci-Fi’s most popular characters, General Klytus, and that I’d also become acquainted with Sam J. Jones (Flash Gordon and Melody Anderson (Dale Arden).

I can remember like it was yesterday, the Friday evening in December that I went to “pictures” to see the film for the first time. I saw it around 20 more times thereafter, as my friend and I would go into the cinema first thing on a Saturday morning; sit through the Pearl & Dean adverts, “forthcoming release” trailers and ‘B’ flick (the topic of which, if I remember rightly, was racecourse bookies(!?!), and then the main feature itself. Once the film ended and everyone else began to leave, we’d conceal ourselves under the seats until the next “house”, when we’d re-emerge and do the whole thing over again. Happy days!

Fans of the film had to wait almost two years for it to be released on video[2], after seeing it go through the lengthy process back then of being issued for rental only then, 12 months later, going onto ‘Sell-Through’. As it was, I couldn’t wait that long, and so I bought a rental copy for the princely sum of £32.00, which was a veritable fortune given that I’d only left school in 1980 and was only earning a pittance.

I still have the soundtrack on limited edition yellow vinyl, although I did invest in a CD version a couple of years back. Like many other fans, I’m very much looking forward to both the Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray 40th Anniversary Box Set and John Walsh’s book, which is due to be published on October 27th.

We played ‘Flash’s Theme’ at the end of Peter’s funeral at Golders Green Crematorium on Thursday, 25th January, 2018. The thread that’s had run through the last 40 years had finally come full circle.

Notes: [1]. I also saw them at Elland Road, Leeds, on 29th May, and at the Milton Keynes Bowl on 5th June, 1982. [2]. In the olden day, a film would be released on video around 12 months after the cinematic release, and then it would take a further years for it to go on general sale.

Pen and ink drawing by Ray Mayers

Pen and Ink drawing by AdrockHoward

Peter as Count Dracula by Ray Mayers

Acrylic painting of Peter by zenovoximagery

Peter as Lol Gallio in the Bulman episode, ‘I Met A Man Who Wasn’t There’ by Luanne Sharman

Jason King by Ian Baker

Peter in oils – artist unknown

Peter by Brett Summers

By actor, Calum Cormack

General Klytus – artist unknown

Jason King by John Fisher

Peter as Dracula by Zeroequalstwo

‘General Klytus Reaper’ by TheVillainX

By Robert JE Simpson

Pencil drawing of a young P.W. – artist unknown

Jason King by Hognatius

Jason by Reynard Toombs

The team from Department S – unknown artist

General Klytus by Tony Trujillo

King Abrahaim by Luanne Sharman

Peter by Lisa Allen

Jason King by Ste1bro

Jason by Sinisa Predanovic

General Klytus – artist unknown

Jason King by Craig Hughes

Dr. John Hallam by Luanne Sharman

General Klytus by Liam Brazier

Peter as Dracula by Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins

Jason King by Luanne Sharman

General Klytus by Carbon-Betamax

Jason by Craig Hughes

General Klytus by Mercury Rapids

Jason by Jim Moir (A.K.A. Vic Reeves)

General Klytus by Phillip Prendergast

Jason by Luanne Sharman

Klytus by Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins

Jason by Lisa Allen

Klytus by SoulStryder

Peter – in the Manga style, by Luanne Sharman

Klytus by Verminas-Dungeon-Doodles

Jason by Elisabeth Vock

Klytus By Tony Kelly

By Luanne Sharman

Klytus – artist Unknown

Send us your art…

By visiting this page and reading the articles below, it should be understood that much that has been written about Peter in the press is inaccurate. However, you may come to understand how many of the bizarre myths about him began…

Peter Wyngarde’s wayward life exposes the true cost of being a ‘cult actor’

By Simon Heffer -18th May, 2025

The iconoclastic star of one of the most enjoyable TV series of the 1960s kept his most bizarre performance for real life

When one hears the words “cult actor”, one reacts with caution. Such performers tend to be either enigmatic or infuriating. The odd one, however, lives up to the ideal: being a true original, capable of creating something remarkable.

Peter Wyngarde who died in 2018, unequivocally falls into that category. His biography suggests he was far more bizarre than anyone he played on screen. Since Wyngarde was a serious fantasist, it is hard to pin down exactly who he was or from where he came. One of the few reliable claims he ever made was that he was “50 per cent vegetarian and 100 per cent bisexual”.

In the late 1960s, Wyngarde became hugely famous, in Britain at least. He starred in one of the most enjoyable television series of the era, Department S, and in its less-successful spin-off, Jason King named after the character he played. In an era of peacockery, he became a leader of fashion, at least for many provincials who seldom set foot in London to discern what was really going on.

It is thought that Wyngarde was born Cyril Goldbert in Marseille, in 1927, though he may have been born in Singapore. His claim that his father was a British diplomat is unsupported by any record, and his mother was not, as he insisted, related to a grand family in France. His father was, in fact, a merchant seaman of Ukrainian heritage, his mother Eurasian.

Wyngarde was in the international settlement in Shanghai when the Japanese invaded in 1941, and he endured four brutal years in an internment camp. This is verified by the testimony of J G Ballard, who was interned alongside him. Wyngarde claimed never to have known Ballard; Ballard recalled him doing amateur dramatics in the camp.

What happened next is unclear. Most probably, Wyngarde, now 18, sailed to England on his liberation and arrived in Liverpool around Christmas 1945. Other accounts have him landing at Southampton, where he was met personally by King George VI; or checking into a Swiss sanatorium to recover his health. In any case, by the late 1940s, he was in England, calling himself Wyngarde, after his real father – Goldbert, he said, had been his stepfather. In fact, Wyngarde senior, a luxury watch dealer who lived in Belgravia, was a figment of the imagination.

Wyngarde managed to get some theatrical roles and from the mid-1950s was a regular on TV. His breakthrough was playing Peter the Painter in the 1960 film The Siege of Sidney Street, and he capitalised on this the following year, playing Peter Quint in The Innocents, an adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.

Throughout the 1960s, Wyngarde was a favourite of Lew Grade’s production company ITC and appeared in several of its series – The Saint, The Champions, The Baron and The Prisoner. In 1968, he was given a starring vehicle of his own. Department S was about a unit of Interpol that solved cases no other police force could, thanks to the genius of Jason King – a novelist seconded to the department who used the cases as plots for his fiction.

Wyngarde stood out from his two co-stars, Joel Fabiani and Rosemary Nicols, not merely because of his flamboyant dress and the elaborate hair that made him unrecognisable from previous roles, but also because of his unflappable English-gentleman demeanour. Department S had superb scripts by writers such as Terry Nation and Philip Broadley; Wyngarde got all the best lines.

It ran for 28 episodes. Despite its excellence – or perhaps because of its peculiarly British humour – it did not sell in America, which spelt the end for any ITC production. Yet, luckily for Wyngarde, Lady Grade loved his character, and persuaded her husband to make the spin-off series. Far more lightweight than Department S, and more cheaply made, Jason King saw Wyngarde become an ever-more comic turn. He also, in the words of Cyril Frankel, one of his directors, started to believe his own publicity, and became impossible to work with.

His prosecution for an indecent act at a bus station in 1975 helped derail a once brilliant career, though Wyngarde still found work from time to time until the 1990s. His series are often shown on repeat channels, and if you want a taste of cult, they are unmissable.

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Why Peter Wyngarde is the king of Cult TV

By Sue Wilkinson – 25th October, 2025

Choices, choices. I have discovered Freeview channel Rewind and am like a kid in a sweetshop. I don’t know what to enjoy first.

Dame Judi Dench and her late husband Michael Williams in the oh, so bittersweet A Fine Romance or Nigel Havers perfectly cast in the lead role of The Charmer?

Let’s go for Department S – about a trio of agents working for a branch of Interpol who investigate the cases no one else wants or are willing to tackle.

The series is a cross between The Champions, The Avengers and The Saint and stars Joel Fabiani as team leader Stewart Sullivan; Rosemary Nicols as computer expert Annabelle Hurst – her computer is called Aunty; Dennis Alaba Peters as head of the department Sir Curtis Seretse and, saving the best til last Peter Wyngarde as writer-cum-sleuth Jason King.

The enigmatic Wyngarde – it’s neigh impossible to get the same answer to the same question – stole the series. His impact was such that he was given the eponymous spin-off show Jason King.

As a teenager, I adored him. While my school contemporaries pinned portraits of Donny Osmond and David Cassidy to their bedroom walls mine was adorned with pictures of two men. They were Roger Moore in The Persuaders and Peter Wyngarde as Jason King sitting on a throne.

Watching Department S again in the past few weeks reminded me why I loved it – mostly because of the wonderful Wyngarde.

Department S consists of 28 episodes and originally aired in 1969 and 1970.

Everything about it is exotic – the settings including the Costa Del Sol, Rome, Paris and the South of France. I preferred the episodes in foggy London town – when you come from a Yorkshire mining village Farnham is foreign.

The characters live in fashionably-furnished apartments – never flats – drive flash cars, drink champagne, stay in five-star hotels, sit on restaurant terraces overlooking the sea and dine on oysters.

The plots involve blackmail, brainwashing, mysterious disappearances, robbery, spies and murder over a mirror.

Guest stars included Anthony Hopkins, Peter Bowles, Jean Marsh, Tony Selby, Anton Rodgers, Donald Houston and Alexandra Bastedo.

Casting a shadow over them all is Wyngarde – he has the best lines out of dialogue that is at best clunky or, may be, he delivers them best.

He is at times languid at others flash and flamboyant, camp, dashing, charismatic, rakish, suave, sexy, outrageous, humorous, self-effacing, serious and always immaculately turned out.

His hair bouffant, his moustache droopy and sporting a wardrobe of wide-lapelled, three-piece tailored suits, ties, cravats, furbelows and open-necked shirts in bright colours including purple, orange and yellow. No one wore or tied a scarf.

He is flash flamboyant, camp, dashing charismatic, rakish, suave, sexy, outrageous like Wyngarde.

The way he turned his shirt cuffs over the bottom of his jacket sleeves became a fashion statement. I still wear mine like that to this day.

He, also, always had a cigarette dangling loosely from his fingers – as Jim Carrey said in The Mask … smokin’.

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Jason King still reigns, just less of a woman’s man

TV HERO Jason King was the epitome of the dilettante dandy in the 1970s, breaking crime rings and hearts with equal gusto.

By Marco Giannangeli – 28 March, 2015

For some, his famous breakfast quip “a bit too early for coffee… I think I’ll have Scotch”, will for ever hold memories of a bygone, more carefree era.

Actor Peter Wyngarde, who played the suave author-cum-spy in Department S and Jason King between 1969 and 1972, was once mobbed by 30,000 hysterical Australian women at Sydney airport, although his career stalled in 1975 when he was fined for gross indecency in a bus station toilet.

Now the wavy locks of hair are gone, the moustache is duly trimmed and the clothes, said by Hollywood star Mike Myers to have inspired the Austin Powers look, are somewhat tamer.

Still, at 86, Wyngarde was the star attraction yesterday as he signed autographs at the London Film Memorabilia Convention.

He still had a gaggle of adoring female fans clamouring to speak to him.

He once admitted: “Jason King had champagne and strawberries for breakfast, just as I did myself. Yet when I think about it now, I’m amazed I’m still here.”

Life was not always so lush, however. As the son of a diplomat he grew up in different countries and was in Shanghai when the Japanese invaded during the Second World War. Author JG Ballard was a fellow prisoner of the Japanese at Shanghai’s Lunghua civilian internment camp in 1943.

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An International Man of Mystery

Written by Andrew Stuttaford – 17th February, 2018.

A few weeks ago, a British actor died at the grand old age of 90 (probably). Peter Wyngarde’s death was accompanied by wryly affectionate obituaries and, among Brits of a certain age, a certain sadness: For a brief iridescent moment, one of the zanier icons of their youth had shone. Now he was gone.

According to an early-1970s survey, 40,000 Australian women chose Wyngarde as the man to whom they would have liked to lose their virginity. He was voted Britain’s best-dressed male personality, admittedly no great feat, in 1970 and then again in 1971. Mobbed by tens of thousands of women — how many virgins is unknown — on his arrival in Sydney, he took three days in hospital to recover.

Despite an “amorous” crowd, held back by 50 policemen, there was a gentler conclusion to Wyngarde’s opening of a menswear store in Plymouth, a city in the more sedate southwest of England. A writer for the website Hellfire Hall, “part of the official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society,” recalled that Wyngarde, “wearing a grey speckled suit with a mauve shirt and matching tie, tried on several garments#…#before settling for a black leather jacket and an aubergine-colored suit.” (Aubergine is British English for eggplant.)

This might be the moment to mention that Wyngarde, or rather Jason King, the character and self-caricature (“a romantic extension of myself” he once said) he played on television as the Sixties seeped into the Seventies, was the inspiration for Austin Powers. An old episode, or even a still, is all it takes to understand why.

Wyngarde reached this peak after appearances on the stage, in a film or two, and, increasingly, in television drama. The Sixties being the Sixties, he gravitated towards roles in telly-time treats designed for a Britain beguiled by James Bond. He showed up in The Prisoner, The Saint, and (most notably as the Hellfire Club’s John Cleverly Cartney) The Avengers. The latter two were part of a stable of not-always-so-serious action and adventure shows produced by ITC, a company run by a wily British TV mogul with an eye on the American market.

ITC enlisted Wyngarde (he signed his contract on a napkin over a meal) in Department S, a new series about three agents working for a crack Interpol unit. There was a former G-man and a female computer expert, and then there was King, best-selling crime writer, ladies’ man, charismatic, eccentric, flamboyant, witty, ingenious. His moustache was dramatic. His tailoring was epic. His fights didn’t always work out too well, but his shrewd, knowing performance stole the show, and in Jason King he was given his own.

For 26 gloriously ludicrous episodes in 1971–72, King spent a great deal of time peacocking across what was, to poorly traveled Britons held back by low incomes, high taxes, and tough currency controls, an impossibly glamorous Europe. A tax exile (of course), King lived in Paris (of course) and sauntered through capers involving typical caper casts, including double agents, a Bulgarian master criminal, Soviets, exotic aristocrats, and shifty British intelligence operators. There were casinos. There was skiing. More light-hearted than Department S, Jason King parodied a genre that was already close to parody. It was an exercise in absurdist high camp, winking at an audience unaware of how far the joke really went.

King drove a Bentley S2 Continental coupe. He smoked Sobranie Imperials, a brand far longer than its stubby proletarian equivalents, and enjoyed Champagne and strawberries for breakfast, as, apparently, did Wyngarde. Then again, it might be “a bit too early for coffee.#…#I think I’ll have Scotch.”

King’s gait was a self-satisfied prance. His hair was bouffant, with a cascade behind, a waterfall over the ears, and an exclave on his regularly exposed chest. Sideburns erupted off an angular face, and Zapata lived on in his moustache. And the clothes! The suits, Wyngarde advised, were inspired by an 18th-century riding jacket, lapels so broad they waved hello to his shoulders, the ends of their sleeves concealed by the cuffs of his shirts, folded back with artful nonchalance, a trademark.

He smoked Sobranie Imperials, a brand far longer than its stubby proletarian equivalents, and enjoyed Champagne and strawberries for breakfast.

King’s big-knotted wide ties were often — just as on that day in Plymouth — the same color as his shirts, another trademark. His boots were snakeskin, his dressing gowns silk, his foulards silk, his cravats silk, his voice silk. His coats were sweeping, his caftans evoked decadence in Tangier rather than a grubby pilgrimage along the hippie trail, and his tight leather outfit was worn with obvious and unashamed delight.

Wyngarde fell short of the matinee-idol standard (ITC’s boss grumbled about his failure to look like The Saint’s Roger Moore), but women, sometimes in hot pants, sometimes in less, sometimes in more, didn’t seem to mind as they succumbed, not always one by one, to King’s louche charms. A medallion swung and so did King, a Lothario, but despite the occasional appalling comment (a habit he shared, like so many others, with Wyngarde), no Weinstein.

Nearly a decade after Jason King had ended its run, readers of the X-Men comic books discovered that the original name of the villainous mutant Mastermind, a member of another Hellfire Club who looked — how can I put it — somewhat familiar was Jason Wyngarde, evidence — as if any were needed — of how tricky it was to work out where Wyngarde ended and King began. To judge by some unflattering comments from one or two of his colleagues, Wyngarde may have not found it too easy to do so himself. He even “lent” King his clothes, and with them, much of his style: “I was inclined to be a bit of a dandy, I used to go to the tailor with my designs,” he confessed later, surprising nobody.

On the show itself, King’s adventures were interwoven with those of Mark Caine, his fictional creation and alter ego: In its first episode, King, the author, pitches a Mark Caine adventure to an American TV producer. The fictional Caine is played by the fictional King and the fictional King by the real — that adjective will have to do for now – Wyngarde playing Wyngarde as Wyngarde wanted Peter Wyngarde to be seen by his fans.

The X-Men’s Mastermind had the ability to project illusions, to make people see what he wanted them to see.

In 1970, capitalizing on the success of Department S, Wyngarde released an LP, modestly called Peter Wyngarde. RCA had told him he could do what he liked. Fools! What the record company got was what Wyngarde’s obituarist in the London Times describes as a “revoltingly seedy album ”a bizarre and pretentious collection of songs, more spoken than sung, and, in its saner moments, designed (we must hope) as a not entirely serious showpiece of what a Jason King (who gets a shout-out at its nadir) might relax to or seduce to:

Do go in
No, the lights haven’t fused – it’s candlelight.
Now what would you like to drink — I’ve started on Champagne.
That is a beautiful dress! Do sit down
No, not over there – it’s too far away.
Come over here, it’s closer to everything.

Other tracks veered onto far more dangerous ground, most notoriously the supposedly jokey, undeniably very creepy “Rape,” about which the less said the better. RCA pulled the album after its first pressing. Decades later it was reissued by an independent label under the title “When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head.”

By then, sex had done rather more than that: In 1975, Wyngarde was found guilty of committing an act of “gross indecency” with a truck driver in a provincial British bus station. This followed an official warning for something similar the previous year. Wyngarde blamed a “mental aberration” (the first incident had been a “misunderstanding”). He received a token fine, but the spell was broken. His career never recovered. Prejudice played its part, but the scandal had shattered an image inextricably connected to that of King’s globe-trotting Casanova. Making matters worse, within a year or so, the bleakness of late-1970s Britain, and the fashions that came with it, had reduced King to an embarrassing memory too recent for nostalgia to rescue. Wyngarde’s mannered style of acting only reinforced the impression that time had passed him by. A battle with alcohol and a reputation for being “difficult” won’t have helped either. His best-known role after his fall was in Flash Gordon, where he played the sinister General Klytus face hidden behind a golden mask.

The bleakness of late-1970s Britain, and the fashions that came with it, had reduced King to an embarrassing memory too recent for nostalgia to rescue.

But Wyngarde’s mask was subtler, a flickering, layered creation. Sometimes it wasn’t even there at all. If he hid, this King’s Road magnifico, known (some say; along with so much else in Wyngarde’s biography, there is a debate about this) in some showbiz circles as “Petunia Winegum,” hid in a way still possible before the Internet’s panopticon gaze, not quite in plain sight, but not far from it either. There are hints in Department S and Jason King that all was not as it seemed (and even more so in that infamous LP), although the reality may have been less clear-cut than newspaper headlines and men’s-room walls after Wyngarde’s conviction liked to suggest. We will never know for sure: Thus there was a marriage in the 1950s, and something seems to have happened with Vivien Leigh, Scarlett O’Hara no less. Years later, when there was no longer any need to pretend, there was still a touch of King in the way Wyngarde described past encounters with the opposite sex, perhaps even with an approximation of accuracy. Who’s to say? The mask was allowed to slip only so far. It had, after all, been the work of a lifetime, a product of necessity, fantasy, and ambition.

The early sections of Wyngarde’s Wikipedia entry (at least as I write) are evidence of a wild reimagination at work: “Peter Wyngarde’s date and place of birth, his birth name, and his parents’ nationalities and occupations are all disputed.” Well, yes. He was born between 1924 and 1933 in either Marseilles or Singapore (probably in Singapore in 1927, although Wyngarde preferred to cite Marseilles in 1933). His father was not a diplomat named Wyngarde, but Henry Goldbert, a naturalized Brit from Ukraine, who seems to have been a merchant seaman, at least for a while. His mother was either a French or a Swiss national and may have been Eurasian. Wyngarde said she looked like Claudette Colbert and was a racing driver. Then again, Wyngarde also claimed that he was a nephew of the French actor Louis Jouvet (he wasn’t), that he’d studied for a few months at Oxford (he hadn’t), and that Peter Wyngarde was the name he was born with (Cyril Goldbert just wouldn’t do).

It is true that he was interned by the Japanese during the later stages of the Second World War in a camp near Shanghai. The British writer J. G. Ballard, a rather more highly regarded teller of tales, was also there (an experience that inspired his Empire of the Sun) and remembered him (as Goldbert) from those years. For his part, Wyngarde said that he had no memory of Ballard. Maybe it was too awkward to admit to the connection: Ballard had known him while the mask was first being assembled. Goldbert, unlike Ballard (who was interned with his parents), was alone. It was there that he turned to acting and not, I suspect, only in the camp’s makeshift theater. His performances included a version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in which he played every part.

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Is that really Jason King, the suavest man on TV?

21 March 2010

ONCE he was an international sex symbol, regularly mobbed by screaming girls and boasting a clutch of ‘best-dressed man’ awards.

But when Seventies television star Peter Wyngarde was spotted out shopping near his West London home last week – clad in knitted hat, camouflage jacket, wrinkly leather trousers and scruffy trainers – it was clear his fashion sense had deserted him a long time ago.

Wyngarde – now 76 – made his name playing a suave crime author and investigator with a penchant for groovy chicks in the cult adventure shows Department S and Jason King.

With his flamboyant suits, bouffant hair and lush moustache he soon became one of the best known characters on television.

He once said: ‘I decided Jason King was going to be an extension of me. I was inclined to be a bit of a dandy – I used to go to the tailor with my designs.’

Wyngarde’s camp style was later adopted by the comic Mike Myers as the basis for his own spoof-sleuth creation, Austin Powers. But Wyngarde’s career ran off the rails in October 1975 when he was fined £75 for gross indecency, under his real name Cyril Louis Goldbert.

And it emerged in a 2007 biography of actor Alan Bates that Wyngarde had been living a double life. Wyngarde was married briefly in his 20s, but had an affair with Bates that is said to have lasted ten years. Their relationship is believed to have begun in 1956, after Bates made his debut in Look Back In Anger at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

After his arrest, Wyngarde did stage work in South Africa and Austria, before making an appear- ance as a masked villain in the 1980 movie Flash Gordon.

He blamed ‘small-minded people’ for ruining his TV and film career, and admitted in an interview in 1993 that he developed a drink problem.

‘Jason King had champagne and strawberries for breakfast, just as I did myself,’ he said.

‘I drank myself to a standstill. When I think about it now, I’m amazed I’m still here.’

As a child, Wyngarde was interned by the Japanese in a prisoner of war camp – the same camp where Empire Of The Sun author J.G. Ballard was held.

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Cult TV star Peter Wyngarde’s snakeskin jacket sells at auction

27th March, 2020

A snakeskin jacket and a “best dressed man” award were among the items belonging to 1970s TV star Peter Wyngarde to sell at auction.

The actor, who starred in ITV’s Department S and the spin-off Jason King, died aged 90 in January 2018.

The sale was conducted online, presided over by auctioneer Andrew Stowe in his Bristol living room, because of coronavirus distancing restrictions.

He said it was a rare “white glove” sale, meaning all lots sold.

The auction fetched more than £35,000, with the sartorial award – given to Wyngarde in 1970 – selling for £2,200.

Wyngarde’s dress sense is said to have inspired Mike Myers’ comic creation Austin Powers.

The actor also appeared in Flash Gordon and Dr Who.

Mr Stowe, from East Bristol Auctions, said: “It was a wonderful auction and I hope some of the lots have put smiles on faces – something we all very much need right now.

He added: “This auction was conducted from a laptop on my dining room table – quite different to the usual auction room setting, but we sold every single lot in the sale.

“I think this may have been the first live auction ever conducted from an auctioneer’s living room.”

A pair of prop glasses used in Wyngarde’s television series sold for £700 and a personal edition of his banned 1970 album When Sex Leers its Inquisitive Head, sold for £600.

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Sense of occasion suits the Peter Wyngarde estate sale perfectly

Peter Wyngarde would surely have appreciated the drama that accompanied the auction of his estate – held with the country in the grip of coronavirus.

The flamboyant actor’s collection was offered at East Bristol Auctions on March 26, with more than 350 lots from his estate, comprised of items from his private residence in Kensington, as well as props and costumes from a long career.

Auctioneer Andy Stowe said: “The rostrum was my dining room table, with the dog asleep at my feet. I was operating the software entirely myself, which was surprisingly easy. I felt more like a Youtuber than an auctioneer, but it was a really great experience – and one I’m sure we’ll be repeating soon. We had lots of new bidders in this auction, and the feedback we’ve had has been completely lovely.

“Both our sales last week were actually fantastic – which is wonderful given the circumstances.”

Wyngarde (1927-2018) appeared in most 1960s-70s ‘cult’ programmes including Doctor Who and The Avengers and took leading roles in his own shows Jason King and Department S.

He later went through difficult times in his life but the fondness with which he must be regarded was obvious from the interest from bidders, with a white-glove sell-out auction resulting. Stowe added: “We had lots of celebrity interest in this sale with several of the buyers being well-known presenters, actors and pop stars. It had an amazing celebrity reaction on social media.”

Highlights included a guitar signed by his good friend Freddie Mercury (which sold for £720), several of his trademark sunglasses and silk handkerchiefs, as well as items he collected and displayed in his apartment. These include several autographs from people he admired – most notably Clark Gable and Tony Hancock – as well as his collection of taxidermy and artwork.

Pictured top and below are five highlights we have singled out. All results given are hammer prices. East Bristol’s buyer’s premium on top is 18%.

Concert posters for some of the earliest appearances by well-known bands have taken keen interest from bidders in recent months (such as our Pick of the Week in ATG No 2435, a poster advertising an early gig by The Who at the short-lived Blue Moon club in Cheltenham, sold for £11,500 at Gardiner Houlgate’s auction).

Sold at a mid-estimate £2200 to a Beatles collector as part of the Wyngarde auction was an original 1960s Beatles poster, from their concert at the Abergavenny Town Hall Ballroom on June 22, 1963. It measured 2ft 5in x 20in (74 x 50cm) and was printed by Arthurs Press Ltd, Stroud. Wyngarde was an acquaintance of the band.

Pictured here is Wyngarde’s personally owned copy of his self-titled 1970 album on vinyl. The centrefold features a message from Jason King (Wyngarde’s character from the 1970s television series of the same name). Estimated at £100-200, it sold for £320.

A lot of personality

One of the best sellers was an item highly appropriate given Wyngarde’s sartorial elegance: his original John Stephen Fashion Award ‘Best Dressed Personality’ hallmarked silver trophy. The trophy in the form of Beau Brummell, complete with monocle and top hat, has hallmarks for Carrington & Co, London, 1970.

The (39cm) tall award was given to Wyngarde in the summer of 1970 by Miss Radio Luxembourg. The votes for him, cast by listeners of Radio Luxembourg and readers of FAB 208 (a magazine), were far in excess of his rivals Cliff Richard and footballing legend George Best. Photographs of Wyngarde with the award have featured in many publications.

Stowe described it as “probably the best piece of Wyngarde memorabilia in the sale”. Estimated at £300-500, it sold for £2200.

This is hiss-tory

Wyngarde’s love of fashion included an array of 1960s-70s garments which can be viewed as gorgeous or ghastly depending on your viewpoint. The buyer of this snakeskin jacket was certainly delighted. Stowe said: “He is a a huge fan and UK collector – he is very happy with his purchase, and will be proudly displaying it in his living room (he got in touch with me on Twitter!).”

The original screen matched prop/costume snakeskin jacket was worn by Wyngarde for Department S (1969) and Jason King (1971). It had no maker’s label and was probably custom-made for the actor. Included in the lot, estimated at £200-300, was an original vintage publicity photograph showing Wyngarde in this very jacket.

It sold for £880.

Here comes the sunglasses

Another high price came for a pair of screen matched sunglasses, as worn by Peter Wyngarde as Jason King in both Department S and Jason King.

This a pair of Oliver Goldsmith glasses, with lightly tinted lenses and distinctive inlaid stars to each arm, was worn by Wyngarde in several episodes of the series, as well as his personal life. They featured prominently in several episodes including A Deadly Line In Digits (as part of King’s disguise), and are first seen in the Department S episode The Trojan Tanker.

Estimated at £80-120, the glasses sold for £700. Stowe said: “These were the most iconic pair of glasses we had from Wyngarde – they appeared in lots of episodes of Department S and Jason King, as well as loads of publicity photos. I was surprised they went for so much, but not surprised they got that much interest.”

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Peter Wyngarde memorabilia snapped up at auction

Snakeskin jacket among items belonging to cult star who played Jason King from 1969

26th March, 2020

A snakeskin jacket, silk kaftan smoking gown and chunky golden rings once sported by the fictional television writer turned sleuth Jason King have been sold at auction.

The items were among a trove of memorabilia that belonged to the late cult star Peter Wyngarde, who played the bushily moustached King from 1969 to 1971.

In 1970 Wyngarde was declared Britain’s best-dressed male personality and new parents across the nation named their children Jason after his character. His look became something of a national joke as fashions changed and Wyngarde’s star waned. Mike Myers has said King was an inspiration for Austin Powers.

Wyngarde died in 2018 aged approximately 90 – his life story is shrouded in mystery – and more than 250 items were auctioned online by East Bristol Auctions.

The auction turned out to be a “white glove sale”, when every lot goes. Unusually, there were no bidders from overseas, but several unnamed British actors and pop stars snapped up pieces.

Wyngarde’s “best-dressed personality 1970” trophy attracted the keenest bidding, selling for £2,200. He beat Cliff Richard and George Best to the award that year.

A mirror in the form of King in psychedelic duo-tone pattern was sold for £420. The actor’s personal teddy bear went for £700.

A number of vintage scarves that Wyngarde wore as King were on offer, as were plenty of sunglasses and a pair of cowboy boots crafted by the century-old Mallorcan company Tony Mora. 

An original vintage Medico Medalist smoking tobacco pipe, which the catalogue said was “very likely a prop that Wyngarde used”, was also up for grabs.

A signed photo from Vivien Leigh went under the hammer, as did a costume necklace that Wyngarde wore in the Lenny Henry Show blaxploitation movie sketch Nathan Gunn in the 1990s.

Wyngarde also had some rare Beatles memorabilia, including an original poster from the band’s Abergavenny Town Hall Ballroom performance in 1963.

Another intriguing item was described as “an incredible set of believed unheard Robin Gibb song lyrics, presumed to have been written for actor Peter Wyngarde”. The song in question, I Will Surrender, comes with the note: “Words and music by Robin Gibb, 1970.”

Wyngarde went on to play the chief of the secret police, Klytus, in the 1980 movie Flash Gordon, and the silk neckscarf he wore at the New York premiere was up for sale, as was a guitar apparently signed by Freddie Mercury. Queen performed the film’s title track.

By the time he appeared in Flash Gordon, Wyngarde had been through difficult times. In 1975, he was found guilty of gross indecency  in a bus station toilet. Newspapers reported that he was summoned under his real name of Cyril Louis Goldbert. A tabloid later reported that his mop of hair was thinning and covered in a flat cap.

Poignantly, an “original vintage Ray Marston Wig Studio-made wig/toupee” was on sale. The catalogue said: “The toupee of usual form, with a fine mesh base. Supplied within its original box, addressed to Wyngarde at his personal residence. A rare item from the Peter Wyngarde estate.” It went for £170.

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Jason King actor Peter Wyngarde was even better onstage

Taken from the The Borehamwood and Elstree Times – 12th July, 2020. Written by Paul Welsh MBE is a Borehamwood writer and historian of Elstree Studios.

Welcome once again to our ramble down Memory Lane, via Dead Men’s Gulch and Young Lovers’ Point. I hope you are all ok and while still obeying the rules can now venture out into this strange new world. No doubt in a couple of years time they will make a movie about this very strange era and word on the grapevine is Zac Efron wants to play me! Look him up and you will see we could be doubles.

Alas I had a fall the other day, landing on and smashing a 1960s glass topped wooden table in my lounge. Luckily the glass shards flattened rather than went into my body and I did not hit my head. I take this as a sign from the grim reaper that he enjoys this column.

I have just been reading a book about the late actor Peter Wyngarde, who those of you of a certain age or like cult television will remember starring in Jason King and Dept S, which were shot at Elstree Studios. He was certainly a larger than life character but a great actor. Overall his stage work was probably more impressive than his screen appearances, but sadly that vanishes with the generation that saw it. For instance I never saw Laurence Olivier on stage. He is described as the greatest actor of the last century. It is very hard to decide from his screen appearances. I wish I could have met him.

I was invited to his memorial service to represent Elstree Studios at, I think, Westminster Abbey with the Studio Managing Director the late great Andrew Mitchell. We were given ‘front row seats’ facing the aisle the great and the good would process down. If you don’t believe me I still have a BBC video that shows us, which I must get transferred to that new fangled device called a DVD. It was the hottest ticket in town and everybody was there, from the widow of Boris Karloff to a young Ken Branagh, who was stupidly called the new Olivier. Who the hell wants to be labelled a new anybody?

I have digressed again from Peter. I met him twice in the late 1990s at Elstree Studios. He was among the guests I organised for the reopening of Elstree Studios in 1996 along with Liz Fraser, Nigel Hawthorne, Christopher Lee, Sylvia Syms, Ron Moody, Pat Coombs, William Lucas and others. He then asked for a private meeting at the studio. Well that is a story for another day. I thought he was was a great actor and a nice chap.

Well, until next time take care until we next walk down Memory Lane.

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Cult Movie: 1960s British horror Night Of The Eagle is ‘a seriously spooky treat’

27 December, 2019

WHEN it comes to delivering shocks on the silver screen, I’ve always been a fan of the old ‘less is more’ maxim. Give me the sound of a clock chiming in a moody night-time scene or a gnarly finger nailed hand emerging from a dusty old coffin over a gruesome, no holds barred modern gore fest any day.

In terms of what makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, it’ll always be the carefully created mood of unease rather than the needless blood bath that does it for me.

The king of such understated mood movies was director Jacques Tourneur. The films the Frenchman made for RKO Pictures in the 1940s with producer Val Lewton embody that world of dreamlike wooziness and creeping dread and are rightly revered as cult classics today. Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie and The Leopard Man are low budget films that are high on mood and atmosphere.

Outside of Night Of The Demon, Tourneur’s own masterful slice of macabre mood magic which he directed in 1957, very few films of that type were ever made in England. Night Of The Eagle is a rare exception.

Released in 1962, it was directed by Sydney Hayers and starred the great Peter Wyngarde, in his first starring role, and Janet Blair in a tale of everyday witchcraft in an English university. TV’s future Jason King Wyngarde is Norman Taylor, a young psychology professor who is rising through the academic ranks at an alarming speed. Blair played his loyal wife, Tansy, who has been making that rise to success happen by indulging in a little black magic in the home.

Shot in crisp black and white and made for a minuscule budget, the effects are small but the mood is mighty. Tansy learnt her skills while the couple lived out in Africa and there’s something believable about the small items of magic like dead spiders, graveyard earth and little dolls she secretes about the home.

The trouble is, other members of the academic community are also practicing witches and, when Norman is set up in sex scandal with a young student, the battle for power commences.

Hayers, a jobbing director with mostly TV credits to his name, shoots all this intrigue with a bold, almost dreamlike style, and watching the arrogant Norman start to reassess his attitude to the dark arts as the film progresses is fascinating. He starts out a true non-believer and winds up quite the opposite as the forces of darkness – and an ominous stone eagle that sits over the university – start to take over.

Wyngarde is, as always, stylish and brilliantly aloof throughout and Blair is terrific as the devoted wife who’s dabbling in the dark arts.

The slow-burning script from Twilight Zone regulars Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont is low on action but it’s worth sticking with as the mood it creates is truly unique. It may not be up there with Tourneur’s finest work but it’s still a seriously spooky treat all the same.

For more about Peter and the press…

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

Broadcast: Saturday, 3rd August 1957

Character: Andrea Bokolas

The Story

He flew from Athens to Salonika on May 7, 1948, and he made it known that he wanted to see Markos. A Greek journalist, Gregorios Staktopoulos (the character was renamed, Andrea Bakolas, for the sake of this drama, and played by Peter Wyngarde), told him he could fix him a trip to “the mountains” to fulfil has ambition.

Above: Peter as Andreas Bokolas

Eight days later, Polk’s body was found in shallow water in the harbour. It was fully clothed; hands and feet still bound. At the harbourmaster’s office, the American Consul in Salonika identified the body.

On the night of May 8 the Greek took Polk to a jetty. They got into a boat (according to Staktopoulos’s evidence at the trial) with two other men.

They rode far out into the bay. Polk allowed himself to be blindfolded and his hands and feet tied. A moment of two later he was shot by a man sitting directly behind him. Still alive, Polk was dumped into the bay. The autopsy report stated that death was by drowning.

Eight days later, Polk’s body was found in shallow water in the harbour. It was fully clothed; hands and feet still bound. At the harbourmaster’s office, the American Consul in Salonika identified the body.

Polk’s death became headline news in America. Two weeks before, he had attacked the Greek government. He received a threatening letter because of it.

Above: Peter with Helen Misener as Madam Bakolas – Andrea’s mother.

And in America, the Overseas Writers’ group of newspapermen raised several thousand dollars to finance a full investigation into Polk’s death in the name of “free speech” and future protection for foreign correspondents. The newspapermen appointed a distinguished American lawyer. General William Donovan, to represent them at the trial. He made certain the trial would be a civil one and not a court martial, thus ensuring the Press could report it fully.

By October 1, 1948, Gregorios Staktopoulos had been apprehended. He made several long statements. He told me how he was a Communist and had been expelled. This, he explained, had been a fake expulsion to enable him to work more freely as a journalist and also to be more useful to the cause.

He met Polk in a restaurant where Helen Mamas, another correspondent for an American agency, had introduced them. This involved her in the case, but she quickly proved her innocence. It’s her story (the character was renamed, Helen Zotos, for the sake of this drama, and played by Faith Domergue) that has been made into the film.

Staktopoulos met Polk later in a darkened street and went into a café where they discussed ways of meeting Markos. The next evening, Staktopoulos said in his evidence, he received a phone call telling him to take Polk to a rowing boat which would be at a certain jetty between 9pm and midnight.

Just after 10pm, the boat arrived. Polk, carrying only what looked like a roll of paper, walked towards it and Staktopoulos followed. They got into the boat and the Greek journalist said he recognised the boatman to be Adam Mouzenidis, a well-known Communist leader.

Mouzenidis rowed them across the bay to another café, where Staktopoulos thought he would be put ashore. Instead, two more men got into the boat. Staktopoulos recognised one as Vasvanas, another noted Communist. Mouzenidis gave up the rowing seat and placed himself in the bulwark behind Polk, and Staktopoulos. Vasvanas rowed out to sea.

Mouzenidea broke the silence – “Tell Polk we must cover his eyes so he cannot see where we are going to take him,” he said in Greek to Staktopoulos. Polk agreed, and was blindfolded.

Above: Peter with Eric Pohlmann as Major Macridis

The trial was held in April 1949. Vasvanas and Mouzenidis were found guilty and sentenced to death in their absence. It’s since thought that they both dies whilst fighting for Markos.

Gregorios Staktopoulos was convicted on one count of complicity in the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Doubt as to whether or not he knew Polk was to be killed saved him from the death sentence. He was released in 1961.

Foreign correspondents had seen that the murder of a colleague had been avenged.

After the Official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society transferred onto the Internet in 1999, Peter would write an annual message to his fans each Christmas. Here are those stories and messages that I still had on file. Enjoy!

1999 Peter’s Christmas Message

Dear All,

I saw the new Martin Pope adaptation of ‘The Turn Of The Screw” on television (ITV – December 26th, 1999) and found it quite wonderful. It was much nearer to Henry James intent.

One of the things that drives me crazy are those women lugging bags like those heavyweight punching-bags some of us release our pent-up spleen over.

These women are the victims of my punch-bag after a shopping spree. They charge through anyone and everyone at break-neck speed, shattering all and sundry in their path. I’m sure they’re the same breed who lacerate your hands when they bump into you in the supermarket.

Only yesterday, after doing my shopping, I was walking back with two bags full. After a few jassles with what I call ‘The Gunboats’ – women who can neither turn right or left to let you pass when they can see you’re burdened down, because they’re built Dreadnoughts, steaming ahead.

Those huge battleships with twin cannons, relentless as they bear down on the enemy. I’m sure it’s the size of those two cannons that prevent them from turning!

So you get home with those special farmhouse eggs totally destroyed; any bottle like the inside of a Thermos Flask, to say nothing of bruised peaches and limp lettuce! How I envy those African women who carry their shopping on their heads! I must practice for my future safety…!

So, as this is the season of good cheer and good will towards mankind and, I’m glad to say, womankind, I have made a resolution: When my groceries have been completely destroyed by one of these stear-ahead “Battleships”, I usually swear under my breath. From now on, I resolve to swear outwardly, as loudly as I can!

Now, a note of serious appreciation:

Tina, as some of you may know, hasn’t been very well this year. I am glad to say that she has now completely recovered. Nevertheless, she has never stinted for a moment from the Hellfire Club Website. Her devotion and dedication is amazing. And it is to her I would like to dedicate all the love and good-will this season, and what the New Year brings.

I’m sure that you all realise that without her, I would have nothing. So let us join together and wish her, as I wish you all, a very Happy Christmas, and a wonderful 2004.

Peter

Notes: [1]. ‘Rope’ was a BBC production of Patrick Hamilton’s 1929 play, in which Peter played Charles Granillio. It was broadcast on BBC 1 on January 8th, 1950. [2]. ‘Coronation Street’ – Britain’s most successful “soap opera”. Granada Television, 1960 – present day. [3]. Popular London-based television/film magazine. [4]. Jack Clayton: director of the 1961 film, ‘The Innocents’ in which Peter played the evil spectre, Peter Quint.

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2000 Peter’s Christmas Message

A Modern Ghost Story for Christmas: The other day, I was approached by a young black guy who had been staring at me for some time. “I know you, don’t I?” he asked, in his inimitable London accent. He was in his early twenties, and made Gaultier jeans look like last Sunday’s style magazine supplement; it wasn’t so much that he was feeling the width, as the width was all him!

Staring back, I couldn’t say I recognised him. “You into Reggae?” he went on. It was one of those days when a traffic jam could make the difference between me making my appointment or my being hopelessly late. My car was just around the corner, and the traffic was already piling up. But it was too late. I could tell from his determined expression that he was about to root me out. If I answer his question with a “Yes”, I surmised, we’d have had to go into it; if I said “No”, he’ll have doubtless find another subject. So I said, “Yes. I like Reggae very much.” “That’s it then,” he cried. “I’ve seen you down the Vesper!” 

This was my second chance, but I blew it. “I’ve never heard of the Vesper!”, I replied. “The Vesperr,” he went on. “In Brixton. I KNEW I’d seen you!” This seemed to satisfy him, as he actually made a half-turn – actually, more of a dance step, or at least a variation of one. It appeared to be a sort of an expression of success. “Yeah!” he went on. “You’re the brother with the piece!” By this point, I’d already started to pop one of those herbal sweets in my mouth, which was a habit I’d acquired when I was feeling nervous, now that I’d given up smoking cigarettes. However, with the word “piece”, I almost choked. In spite of my very short haircut, I knew he wasn’t referring to a wig, but a handgun! A chance meeting had turned into a social issue and a possible moral confrontation…

After patting me on the back – a little too enthusiastically for my comfort, he proceeded to shake my hand vigorously, culminating in the mandatory Jamaican greeting, bringing our knuckles together: “You the man! You the juice!”

“Hold on! Hold on!” I called out, trying to extricate myself from his enveloping greeting. “I’ve told you, I’ve never been to the Vesper!” And then realizing I was in the middle of the street, whispered in his ear, “I don’t carry a ‘piece’ – not even a banana!” (I still don’t know why I said that. Perhaps it was some sort of bizarre association with a Kenneth Williams sketch I’d once seen about a bank robbery). Anyway, after that, he looked rather gloomily at me in disbelief; the eyes that had once looked on with such joy now turned to opaque suspicion.

“Where are you from?” he inquired.

“I think you’ve made a mistake…”

“You’re from Jamaica!” (I’ve met many Jamaicans with varying skin colours. When I go to St. Lucia, I stay with a family of third-generation Jamaicans, and they’re more Anglo-Saxon in manner and appearance than many ex-pats now living here in Britain). “No,” I responded. “But I have been there. Maybe that’s where we met!”

“Never been!” he mumbled. “How about Birmingham?”

“Well, I’ve been there, too…”

“Nah! I left there when I was a kid. I live in Brixton now…”

This was becoming complicated, and the clock was ticking. “Look,” I said, “I’m late for an appointment. You’ve mistaken me for someone else. Let’s leave it at that. Goodbye, good luck, and please excuse me.” And with that, I attempted to cross the main road to my car. But in spite of the noise of the traffic, I heard him sigh: “Yeah, man. Whatever.” This time, he did turn on his heel and move off.

Maybe it was the volume of the traffic, or perhaps it was the thought of being mistaken for someone who was in the habit of carrying a “piece” that had slowed me down, I don’t know, but when I finally arrived at my car and started up the engine, there was a knock at the window. It was my interrogator again.

“Are you on the Internet?” he asked. “The Hellfire Club!” Again, his inflection had no question – it was a statement! All I could do was nod, wish him a Merry Christmas, and drive off.

I caught him waving in the driving mirror as I moved off into the traffic; the smile had returned, leaving me to wonder who was in fact my gun-carrying doppelganger…?

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year,

Peter

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2002 Peter’s Christmas Message

With all the doom and gloom, I’ve decided to become a Member of Parliament! My party will be called the Happy Few Party, or H.F.P. for short. Will you join? 

The principal motive being:

1. To abolish all Weapons of Mass Destruction.
2. To make London the artistic capitol of the world. The financial rewards will go into the artistic qualities which are restricted through lack of funds. Throughout all the creative avenues; painting, theatre, films, poetry and writing etc. Paris will be our example, when it was the artistic capitol of Europe.
3. War put an end to that. 

The Impressionists were a small group of painters to start with, and look what influence they’ve had – a small Serault fetched £1,000,000 last week at Christies. We’d never be in debt! Our government wouldn’t bleed motorists dry or tax the populous out of sight. Councils would be forced to stop all the gobbledegook; architects stop destroying; no traffic wardens; etc.etc.etc. Creativity would be a priority, as it was in the Seventies. Can you imagine how they’d react if our party was elected? They’re already looking for something to replace the Euro! 

Have a lovely, wonderful Christmas, and let’s look forward to a H.F.P. New Year and peace in our time.Yours, as always, 

Peter.

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2003 Peter’s Christmas Message

Dear All,

One of the things that drives me crazy are those women lugging bags like those heavyweight punching-bags some of us release our pent-up spleen over.

These women are the victims of my punch-bag after a shopping spree. They charge through anyone and everyone at break-neck speed, shattering all and sundry in their path. I’m sure they’re the same breed who lacerate your hands when they bump into you in the supermarket.

Only yesterday, after doing my shopping, I was walking back with two bags full. After a few jassles with what I call ‘The Gunboats’ – women who can neither turn right or left to let you pass when they can see you’re burdened down, because they’re built Dreadnoughts, steaming ahead.

Those huge battleships with twin cannons, relentless as they bear down on the enemy. I’m sure it’s the size of those two cannons that prevent them from turning!

So you get home with those special farmhouse eggs totally destroyed; any bottle like the inside of a Thermos Flask, to say nothing of bruised peaches and limp lettuce! How I envy those African women who carry their shopping on their heads! I must practice for my future safety…!

So, as this is the season of good cheer and good will towards mankind and, I’m glad to say, womankind, I have made a resolution: When my groceries have been completely destroyed by one of these stear-ahead “Battleships”, I usually swear under my breath. From now on, I resolve to swear outwardly, as loudly as I can!

Now, a note of serious appreciation:

Tina, as some of you may know, hasn’t been very well this year. I am glad to say that she has now completely recovered. Nevertheless, she has never stinted for a moment from the Hellfire Club Website. Her devotion and dedication is amazing. And it is to her I would like to dedicate all the love and good-will this season, and what the New Year brings.

I’m sure that you all realise that without her, I would have nothing. So let us join together and wish her, as I wish you all, a very Happy Christmas, and a wonderful 2004.

Peter

Click below for more of Peter’s contributions to the Appreciation Society Magazine

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.”

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.

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.

Annette Andre, who was a friend of Peter Wyngarde, and remains a friend of Tina Wyngarde-Hopkins

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dependable sounding-board and, increasingly, his soulmate. To those who have been content to view Wyngarde as a two-dimensional figure on a TV screen, or merely as the subject of media gossip, this book will come as a revelation – and no doubt a startling one, as it will shatter many long-held myths and preconceptions. And yet in spite of her closeness to the subject, the author has refused to place him on a pedestal: her exploration of his life and career is as honest as it is eye-opening. While she does not shy away from Wyngarde’s more difficult characteristics and painful life experiences, the thread running through the book is a story of love and devotion that is deeply touching and ultimately heart-wrenching. “This is an intimate biography that is elegantly crafted, intensively researched, and presented with the utmost honour.” Steven Berkoff.

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• Hardcover: 524 pages
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd. (27 Feb. 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1528951638
• ISBN-13: 978-1528951630
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Excellent quality black cotton T-shirt, featuring a psychedelic image of Peter as Jason King. The background is made up of the words ‘MEMBER OF THE OFFICIAL PETER WYNGARDE APPRECIATION SOCIETY’

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

During his life, Peter had a huge amount of interests and hobbies. Here are just a few of his favourite things…

Fencing Kit: Peter had always been a keen Fencer, with both Sabre and Foil, and fought at the famous Green Club.

Vivien Leigh: He appeared with Ms Leigh in Duel of Angels, and still describes her as “The love of my life”.

Tennis Rackets: He would play Tennis daily on the private courts at the rear of his home in London. One of his favourite pastimes later in life was watching matches from around the world.

Water Skis: He began skiing on snow in the early Seventies, and became quite proficient and so, latterly, he decided to try his hand at water skiing, with mixed results!

Bust of Beethoven and Beatles Albums: Peter had an eclectic taste in music – from Jazz to Pop. His favourite genre of music, however, was Classical. I knew when he was about to get up in the morning as the radio would be turned on, and the sound of Classic FM would fill the flat.

Lion: He loved animals, and watched any and all wildlife programmes on TV.

Car: Peter had had a life-long love of cars, and has owned many classics, including Triumphs, a TVR, a Bentley Continental and a Bristol.

Fresh Veg and Fruit: It was a little-known fact, but Peter was a fabulous cook, and said that he finds cooking “therapeutic”. He’d always eaten healthily.

Dog: He’d owned dogs all his life – his most recent were an Afghan Hound called Yuseff, and two Corgi’s named Cassio and Pipistrello – the latter because “he looked like a bat”.

Jewellery: Early in his career, Peter collected both wrist watches and clocks.

Flowers: He was inundated with flowers at the height of his fame, so always had bouquets of them around the house. His favourites were roses, so I’d buy him a bunch most weeks from a flower seller on the High Street, Kensington.

Below are all 28 issues of the Official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society magazine.

Although the Official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society was formed in early 1990, the first of its magazines was only published in January 1992

The newsletters and their contents were issued as follows…

Above: The original ad in TV Zone for the newly-formed Appreciation Society – January 1992

Issue Number 1 – January 1993: Hellfire Club Introduction; Biography; Jason King profile; Video Listing; The Prisoner; Peter Wyngarde Fact File; Quiz; Film list; Television credits; ‘The Pied Piper of Hambledown’ (review).

Issue Number 2 – April 1993: Editorial; The Siege of Sidney Street (Review); Department S episode guide; Video news; Jason King novel (review); Competition; Peter Wyngarde facts; Klytus (Profile).

Issue Number 3 – July 1993: Editorial; ‘The Innocents’ (Review); Letters; Theatre list; Archive interview; ‘The Good Woman of Setzuan’ (Review); Noticeboard; ‘Tank Malling’ (Review); Jason King Episode Guide.

Issue Number 4 – October 1993: Editorial; ‘Epic’ (Reviewed); Archive Interview; Focus on… Jason King; Noticeboard; Portrait of a Superstar by David Bailey; Anne Sharpe Interview; Peter Wyngarde Album (Review); ‘A Fish Out Of Water’ (Review); Circus Krone; Shots In The Dark Festival.

Issue Number 5 – January 1994: Editorial: Number 2 (Profile); What The Papers Said;Night of the Eagle (Review); Jason King – First Viewing; Interview with Peter; Butley; Noticeboard; Archive interview; A Red, Red Rose Forever (Review).

Issue Number 6 – April 1994: Editorial; The Three Gables; The Man Who Liked Lions (Review); Plays and Players; Questionnaire; Editor (Interview); Noticeboard; A Touch of Brimstone (Review); Letters; Department S Press Release; The Constance Missal (Review); Fashion Profile; Archive Interview.

Issue Number 7 – Summer 1994: Editorial; The Invisible Man (Review); Archive interview; Alexander the Great; Questionnaire results; In Praise of a Genius; Duel of Angels; As Easy as A.B.C. (review);Noticeboard.

Issue Number 8 – Autumn 1994: Editorial; News and Reviews; And The Wall Came Tumbling Down (Review); Breadwinner; Joel Fabiani (Tribute); Soup Of The Day (Review); The Bones Of Byron Blaine (Fashion); Noticeboard.

Issue Number 9 – Winter 1995: Editorial; News and Reviews; Jason King quiz; A Story by Peter Wyngarde; Fashion profile; Why Peter?; ITC Home Video (Statement); Peter Wyngarde Album; Archive interview; Clothes For A Wonderful Author; Memorable Scenes; Noticeboard.

Issue Number 10 – Spring 1995: Editorial; News and Reviews; Archive interview; In On The Act (Profile); Checkmate; Quiz; Memorable Scenes; Members questions; Noticeboard.

Issue Number 11 – Summer 1995: Editorial; News and Reviews; The Three Gables (Review); The King and I; The Many Faces of Peter Wyngarde; Fiction; Memorable Scenes; Interview with Emma Peel; Interview with Stewart Kirby; Archive interview; Noticeboard.

Issue Number 12 – Autumn 1995: Editorial: News and Reviews; Interview with Sir John Cartney: Langdale Pike: Memorable Scenes: What The Papers Said; Who is Jason King?; Planet of Fire: Fiction; Bravo (Profile); Wyngarde Island; Noticeboard; Peter Wyngarde interview.

Issue Number 16 – Autumn 1996: Editorial; News and Reviews; Underground; Six Days – Script to Screen; The Super-fans (Part 1); Death on Arrival; Noticeboard.

Issue Number 17 – Winter 1997: Editorial; News and Reviews; The Two Ronnies Christmas Show; One of Our Aircraft is Empty (review); Archive interviews; The Super-fans (Part 2); Pebble Mill interview transcript; Meeting Peter; Death on Arrival.

Issue Number 18 – Spring 1997: Editorial; News and Reviews; Waxwork; The Illustrious Client; Cyril Frankel; Flash Gordon; Truth Game; Quiz; Photo’ Gallery; The Super-fans (Part 3); Fiction.

Issue Number 19 – Summer 1997: Editorial; News and Reviews; The Man Who Liked Lions; Peter Mania!; South; The Superfans (Part 4); Members Questions; Checkmate: Views on The illustrious Client; Archive interview; Fiction; Paisley Wheelchair Experience.

Issue Number 20 – Autumn 1997:  Editorial; News and Reviews; The Emperors New Clothes; Rosemary Nicols interview; The Jason King Story; Peter’s tour of Australia – 1970; Peter’s Greatest Roles; Saint Joan; Peter in his own words; Peter’s youngest fan?; Archive interview; Fiction.

Issue Number 21 – Winter 1998 (Department S Anniversary Issue): Editorial; News and Reviews; Foreword from Peter; Personnel Files; Episode Guide; The Cast; Happy Birthday Jason!; Archive interview; Department S Fashion; Let’s Hear It For The Boys!; Making of The Treasure Of The Costa Del Sol; The men behind Department S.

Issue Number 22 – Spring 1998:  Editorial; News and Reviews; Making of The Siege of Sidney Street; Members questions; Mother Adam; Peter’s favourite recipes; Wyngarde collectables; Letters; Locations; Fiction; Darkness at Noon.

Issue Number 23 – Summer 1998:  Editorial; News and Reviews; Peter – beauty competition judge; Love Her To Death; A Deadly Line in Digits (Review); members Soapbox; A Day in the Life of Peter Wyngarde; Archive interview; Letters; Austin Powers; Taming of the Shrew; The Legions of Ammak (Review).

Issue Number 24 – Autumn 1998:  Editorial; News and Reviews; The King and I – 30th Anniversary; Members questions; Making of Planet of Fire; The X Men; Peter’s tribute to Alan Meachan.

Issue Number 25 – Winter 1999: Editorial; News and Reviews; Night Conspirators (Review); Making of Alexander the Great; Present Laughter (Review); Fashion; Archive interview; Fiction; Members questions.

Issue Number 26 – Spring 1999: Editorial; News and Reviews; Wait Until Dark (Review); Archive interview; Making of Night of the Eagle; The Duel (Review); Peter in advertising; Members questions.

Issue Number 27 – Summer 1999: Editorial; News and Reviews; Archive interview; Number 2 (Profile); The Enchanted (Review); Members questions; Fashion gallery.

Issue Number 28 – Autumn 1999 (Final Issue): Editorial; News and Reviews; Farewell letter from Peter; Dracula; Story of Elstree Studios; The Salt Land; Esso World Theatre; Widows of Jaffa; Members letters and questions; All That Glisters (Review).

Special Issue: Biography; Fact File; Screen, Television and Stage Listings; Complete Department S and Jason King Episode Guide; Video Update; Trivia.

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Peter would often contribute to the Newsletter, either by writing articles, answering fans questions, or by sending ‘Thank You’ notes for birthday or Christmas cards and gifts (see below).

In October 1999, the Society transferred onto the Internet, where we opened the Hellfire Club website.

The move online was an instant success, as we began to attract Wyngarde fans from countries as far afield as Chile and Iran, Hong Kong and Turkey.

We soon became known as THE authority on all things Wyngardian, and through our letter/email campaigns, we managed to get many of Peter’s best-loved performances released on video and, latterly, DVD.

Over the years, several well-known personalities, including Dame Diana Rigg, Joel Fabiani, Ann Sharpe* and Anne Frost** (and many others) accepted Honorary Membership of the Society.

Peter was extremely proud of his Appreciation Society, and often spoke of it in interviews and to colleagues. In fact, he was quoted as saying in a magazine article in 2002: “Through my amazing appreciation society, Tina has become the guardian of my career and reputation.” [Also see ‘TV Zone’ ITC Special #13 – June 1994]

Over the years, several well-known personalities, including Dame Diana Rigg, Joel Fabiani, Ann Sharpe* and Anne Frost** (and many others) accepted Honorary Membership of the Society.

*Wife of producer, Monty Berman; played Nicola Harvester in ‘Jason King.

**Sister of producer and script writer, Dennis Spooner.

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Below: Two handwritten “Thank You” notes from Peter to his fans via the Appreciation Society newsletter for birthday and Christmas gifts.

Click below for more fan-related material…