Vale: Peter Wyngarde
UK actor, best known for Department S and spin-off Jason King, has died.
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UK actor Peter Wyngarde, best known for Department S and spin-off Jason King, has died aged 90.
Wyngarde became a British household name through his starring role in the espionage series Department S in 1969. His Jason King character often got the girl and as she is about to kiss him, he manages to avoid it. Jason King was spun off into a new action espionage series in 1971, which ran for one season. The series led Wyngarde to briefly become an international celebrity, being mobbed by female fans in Australia. Wyngarde was in a long-term relationship with actor Alan Bates, but kept it secret while he portrayed the ultimate ladies’ man to the public.
His agent Thomas Bowington told the Press Association: “He was one of the most unique, original and creative actors that I have ever seen. As a man, there were few things in life he didn’t know.
“As a person he was the most exceptional person I met in my life and a great mentor and teacher.”
TV credits include The Comic Strip Presents, Bulman, A Tale Of Two Cities, Doctor Who, The Avengers, The Prisoner, I Spy, The Saint, The Baron, Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Ben Gunn, and South.
Film roles included Klytus in Flash Gordon, Norman Taylor in Night Of The Eagle and Peter Quint in The Innocents.
Source: The Mirror
One Response
Wonderful actor with a great, deep vocal cadence. His career was sadly impacted badly by some legal unpleasantness in the 1970s but I recall well his great performances in Flash Gordon, as a terrorist in The Siege of Sidney Street and as a religious zealot in the Doctor Who story Planet of Fire.
Strangely I never saw his work in Jason King / Department S for which he was best known.
He also released a memorable song which can be found on some of the prominent video sites even the title of which would be too dubious to reproduce here! To say it was politically incorrect would be a significant understatement.