Peter Wyngarde

Peter Wyngarde was a British actor whose flamboyant screen presence and extravagant personal style made him one of the most recognisable television personalities in Britain during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He is best remembered for playing the louche, bestselling novelist-turned-sleuth Jason King in the spy-fi series Department S (1969) and its spin-off Jason King (1971), a character he openly modelled on himself -- complete with elaborate moustache, decadent tailoring, and a Bentley. Wyngarde's striking appearance and deliberately provocative manner made him a style icon whose influence on British camp aesthetics was widely acknowledged. Much of his early biography -- his birthplace (he claimed Marseille; his death certificate says Singapore), his birth name (likely Cyril Goldbert, only confirmed when he appeared in court under it in 1975), and his father's occupation (he claimed a diplomat; records point to a Ukrainian-born merchant seaman) -- was a self-constructed mythology that biographers have since been unable to verify. What is well documented is his decade-long relationship with actor Alan Bates, which began in the late 1950s, and his 1975 conviction for gross indecency, after which his career never recovered. He died in January 2018.