Peter Wyngarde
Encyclopedia
Peter Paul Wyngarde is an Anglo-French actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two British
television series in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Department S
(1969–1970) and Jason King
(1971–1972).
, the son of an English father and a French mother. His father worked for the British Diplomatic Service
, and as a result his childhood was spent in a number of different countries. In 1941, while his parents were away in India, he went to stay with a Swiss
family in Shanghai
. The Japanese Army
took over Shanghai's International Settlement on December 8, 1941, and as a British citizen Goldbert was interned in the Lunghua
concentration camp on April 10, 1943. Conditions in the camp were sometimes harsh. According to J. G. Ballard
's autobiography Miracles of Life
, "Cyril Goldbert, the future Peter Wyngarde" was a fellow internee at Lunghua Camp and "He was four years older than me...". Ballard was born in November 1930 but according to Lunghwa Camp records compiled in 1943, Goldbert was actually born in 1928. His younger siblings, Adolphe Henry and Marion Simeone, were under Swiss protection and this exempt from internment..
As a young man he went into acting and from the mid-1950s had various roles acting in feature film
s, television plays and television series guest appearances. In the late 1960s, he was a regular guest star on many of the popular UK series of the day — many of which were espionage
adventure series — including The Avengers
, The Saint
, The Baron
, The Champions
, The Troubleshooters, Love Story, I Spy and The Man In Room 17
. He also played the rotating guest-star role of the villainous Number Two
in the episode "Checkmate
" of the cult series The Prisoner
. Wyngarde's film work was limited but had a great impact. In 1961, he made the most of his brief scenes as the leering Peter Quint in Jack Clayton
's The Innocents opposite Deborah Kerr
and Pamela Franklin
. The following year he starred in the occult
thriller Night of the Eagle
.
Wyngarde became a British household name through his starring role in the espionage series Department S (1969). His Jason King character often got the girl and as she is about to kiss him, he manages to avoid it, much to the annoyance of co-actor Joel Fabiani
. After that series ended, his character, the suave womaniser Jason King, was spun off
into a new action espionage series entitled Jason King (1971), which ran for one season (26 one-hour episodes). The quirky series was sold overseas and Wyngarde briefly became an international celebrity, memorably being mobbed by female fans in Australia
.
In 1975, he was arrested and convicted for an act of "gross indecency
" in the toilets of Gloucester
bus station, which followed an arrest and caution for similar activities in the toilets at Kennedy Gardens in Birmingham
the previous year. After the first incident, Wyngarde had provided interviews for the Sunday tabloid press (the News of the World
and the Birmingham
based Sunday Mercury
) where he claimed that the arrest was due to a mis-understanding. The second incident severely damaged his reputation, and he claimed he had suffered a "mental aberration" in his defence. Although it caused a scandal, particularly with his audience who largely identified him as ladies' man Jason King, Wyngarde's homosexuality
was actually well known in acting circles, where he was known by the nickname of "Petunia Winegum". From 1956, he had a ten-year-long relationship with fellow actor Alan Bates
.
After losing his TV celebrity status, Wyngarde worked in Austria
, acting and directing at the English Theatre in Vienna
, and also in South Africa
and Germany
. He landed the role of General Klytus in the 1980 film version of Flash Gordon
, though his face was hidden behind a mask for the part.
In 1983, he appeared in the thriller Underground
opposite Raymond Burr
at the Royal Alexandra Theatre
, Toronto
and at the Prince of Wales Theatre
, London
. During the 1980s and 1990s he made a number of TV appearances, including the Doctor Who
serial Planet of Fire
(1984), Hammer House of Mystery & Suspense
(1986), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1994) and the film Tank Malling (1989).
In recent years he has been a regular guest at Memorabilia
, a cult, science fiction and sporting memorabilia fair at the National Exhibition Centre
in Birmingham, England. His most recent television appearance was as a guest of Simon Dee
in the Channel Four one-off revival of his chat show Dee Time in 2003. In 2007, Wyngarde participated in recording featurettes for a reissue of The Prisoner on DVD, including a mock interview segment titled "The Pink Prisoner"; this material was released in the Prisoner DVD set issued in the UK in 2007 and in North America on both DVD and Blu-ray in October 2009.
A number of published references state that Wyngarde's real name is Cyril Louis (or Lovis) Goldbert. However, the now-defunct Hellfire Club official website described this as a myth that developed from his jokingly giving his uncle's name, Louis Jouvet
, in an interview in the 1970s.
entitled simply Peter Wyngarde and a single, "La Ronde De L'Amour / The Way I Cry Over You". The album was reissued on CD by the British RPM Records label as When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head. Unusually, Wyngarde did not deliver a set of easy listening
standards but a most unusual collection of spoken word / musical arrangements.
The LP is believed to have been quickly withdrawn after its release, but has gained cult status in the intervening years. Selections are often played on XM Radio
's Internet-only retro-lounge channel 79, On the Rocks. On 13 February 2009 on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, singer Morrissey presented Ross with a signed copy of the album.
Track Listing
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television series in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Department S
Department S
Department S is a United Kingdom spy-fi adventure series produced by ITC Entertainment. The series consists of 28 episodes which originally aired in 1969–1970. It starred Peter Wyngarde as author Jason King , Joel Fabiani as Stewart Sullivan, and Rosemary Nicols as computer expert Annabelle Hurst...
(1969–1970) and Jason King
Jason King (TV series)
Jason King was a British television series produced from 1971 to 1972. Each episode was one hour in duration , and the series had a run of one season of 26 episodes. As well as its native UK, the series was also screened in countries as far afield as Australia, Norway, Argentina and Peru...
(1971–1972).
Biography
He was born Cyril Goldbert in Marseilles, FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the son of an English father and a French mother. His father worked for the British Diplomatic Service
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
, and as a result his childhood was spent in a number of different countries. In 1941, while his parents were away in India, he went to stay with a Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
family in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
. The Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...
took over Shanghai's International Settlement on December 8, 1941, and as a British citizen Goldbert was interned in the Lunghua
Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center
Lunghua Civil Assembly Centre was one of the internment camps eventually established by the Empire of Japan in Shanghai for European and American citizens, who had anyway been resident under Japanese occupation since December 1941. James Graham Ballard was interned in the camp as an adolescent...
concentration camp on April 10, 1943. Conditions in the camp were sometimes harsh. According to J. G. Ballard
J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction...
's autobiography Miracles of Life
Miracles of Life
Miracles of Life is an autobiography written by British writer J. G. Ballard and published in 2008.-Overview:The book describes Ballard's childhood and early teenage years in Shanghai in the 1930s and the early 1940s, when the city is ravaged by the Second Sino-Japanese War and W.W.II...
, "Cyril Goldbert, the future Peter Wyngarde" was a fellow internee at Lunghua Camp and "He was four years older than me...". Ballard was born in November 1930 but according to Lunghwa Camp records compiled in 1943, Goldbert was actually born in 1928. His younger siblings, Adolphe Henry and Marion Simeone, were under Swiss protection and this exempt from internment..
As a young man he went into acting and from the mid-1950s had various roles acting in feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s, television plays and television series guest appearances. In the late 1960s, he was a regular guest star on many of the popular UK series of the day — many of which were espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
adventure series — including The Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
, The Saint
The Saint (TV series)
The Saint was an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It centred on the Leslie Charteris literary character, Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like adventurer with a penchant for disguise. The character may be nicknamed The Saint because the...
, The Baron
The Baron
The Baron is a British television series, made in 1965/66 based on the book series by John Creasey, written under the pseudonym Anthony Morton, and produced by ITC Entertainment. It was the first ITC show without marionettes to be produced entirely in colour...
, The Champions
The Champions
The Champions is a British espionage/science fiction/occult detective fiction adventure series consisting of 30 episodes broadcast on the UK network ITV during 1968–1969, produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment production company...
, The Troubleshooters, Love Story, I Spy and The Man In Room 17
The Man In Room 17/The Fellows (Late of Room 17)
The Man in Room 17 is a British television series which ran for two seasons in the mid-1960s, produced by the Northern ITV franchise, Granada Television...
. He also played the rotating guest-star role of the villainous Number Two
Number Two (The Prisoner)
Number Two was the title of the chief administrator of The Village in the 1967-68 British television series The Prisoner. More than 17 different actors appeared as holders of the office during the 17-episode series .The first...
in the episode "Checkmate
Checkmate (The Prisoner)
Checkmate is the ninth episode of the television series The Prisoner; as its title suggests, the plot centres around a game of chess in which the pieces are humans, directed by a mysterious "man with a stick". The chess game has been described as a metaphor for life itself, albeit a somewhat...
" of the cult series The Prisoner
The Prisoner
The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
. Wyngarde's film work was limited but had a great impact. In 1961, he made the most of his brief scenes as the leering Peter Quint in Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.-Career:A native of East Sussex, Clayton started his career as a child actor on the 1929 film Dark Red Roses...
's The Innocents opposite Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
and Pamela Franklin
Pamela Franklin
Pamela Franklin is a British actress who appeared in feature films from 1961 until 1976, and on American television throughout the 1970s.-Early life and career as a child actress:...
. The following year he starred in the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
thriller Night of the Eagle
Night of the Eagle
Night of the Eagle is a 1962 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers. The script by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and George Baxt was based upon the 1943 Fritz Leiber novel Conjure Wife. The film was retitled Burn, Witch, Burn! for the US market .-Synopsis:Norman Taylor , a...
.
Wyngarde became a British household name through his starring role in the espionage series Department S (1969). His Jason King character often got the girl and as she is about to kiss him, he manages to avoid it, much to the annoyance of co-actor Joel Fabiani
Joel Fabiani
Joel Fabiani is an American film and television actor.Fabiani was born in Watsonville, California. He co-starred in the British espionage series Department S as Stewart Sullivan in 1969-1970...
. After that series ended, his character, the suave womaniser Jason King, was spun off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
into a new action espionage series entitled Jason King (1971), which ran for one season (26 one-hour episodes). The quirky series was sold overseas and Wyngarde briefly became an international celebrity, memorably being mobbed by female fans in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
In 1975, he was arrested and convicted for an act of "gross indecency
Gross indecency
Gross indecency is a UK and Canadian legal term of art which was used in the definition of the following criminal offences:*Gross indecency between men, contrary to section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 and later contrary to section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956.*Indecency with a...
" in the toilets of Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
bus station, which followed an arrest and caution for similar activities in the toilets at Kennedy Gardens in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
the previous year. After the first incident, Wyngarde had provided interviews for the Sunday tabloid press (the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
and the Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
based Sunday Mercury
Sunday Mercury
Sunday Mercury is a Sunday tabloid published in Birmingham, UK, and owned by Trinity Mirror.The first editor was John Turner Fearon , who left the Dublin-based Freeman's Journal to take up the position...
) where he claimed that the arrest was due to a mis-understanding. The second incident severely damaged his reputation, and he claimed he had suffered a "mental aberration" in his defence. Although it caused a scandal, particularly with his audience who largely identified him as ladies' man Jason King, Wyngarde's homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
was actually well known in acting circles, where he was known by the nickname of "Petunia Winegum". From 1956, he had a ten-year-long relationship with fellow actor Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
.
After losing his TV celebrity status, Wyngarde worked in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, acting and directing at the English Theatre in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and also in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. He landed the role of General Klytus in the 1980 film version of Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon (film)
Flash Gordon is a 1980 British/American science fiction film, based on the comic strip of the same name created by Alex Raymond. The film was directed by Mike Hodges and produced and presented by Dino De Laurentiis. It stars Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Topol, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton, Brian...
, though his face was hidden behind a mask for the part.
In 1983, he appeared in the thriller Underground
Underground (play)
Underground, a thriller written by Michael Sloane and produced at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto and following a UK tour, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London, opening on 4 July 1983....
opposite Raymond Burr
Raymond Burr
Raymond William Stacey Burr was a Canadian actor, primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. His early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television and in film, usually as the villain...
at the Royal Alexandra Theatre
Royal Alexandra Theatre
The Royal Alexandra Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada located near King and Simcoe Streets. Built in 1907, the Royal Alex is the oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre in North America.-History:...
, Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and at the Prince of Wales Theatre
Prince of Wales Theatre
The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. During the 1980s and 1990s he made a number of TV appearances, including the Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
serial Planet of Fire
Planet of Fire
Planet of Fire is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from 23 February to 2 March 1984...
(1984), Hammer House of Mystery & Suspense
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
(1986), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1994) and the film Tank Malling (1989).
In recent years he has been a regular guest at Memorabilia
Memorabilia (event)
Memorabilia is a fan convention event held in the United Kingdom since 1994 for fans and collectors of movie, television and sporting memorabilia. The event takes place twice a year at the NEC Birmingham, attracting over 30,000 visitors and about 250 traders...
, a cult, science fiction and sporting memorabilia fair at the National Exhibition Centre
National Exhibition Centre
The National Exhibition Centre is an exhibition centre in Birmingham, England. It is near junction 6 of the M42 motorway, and is adjacent to Birmingham International Airport and Birmingham International railway station. It has 20 interconnected halls, set in grounds of 628 acres making it the...
in Birmingham, England. His most recent television appearance was as a guest of Simon Dee
Simon Dee
Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd , better known by his stage name Simon Dee, was a British television interviewer and radio disc jockey who hosted a twice-weekly BBC TV chat show, Dee Time in the late 1960s...
in the Channel Four one-off revival of his chat show Dee Time in 2003. In 2007, Wyngarde participated in recording featurettes for a reissue of The Prisoner on DVD, including a mock interview segment titled "The Pink Prisoner"; this material was released in the Prisoner DVD set issued in the UK in 2007 and in North America on both DVD and Blu-ray in October 2009.
A number of published references state that Wyngarde's real name is Cyril Louis (or Lovis) Goldbert. However, the now-defunct Hellfire Club official website described this as a myth that developed from his jokingly giving his uncle's name, Louis Jouvet
Louis Jouvet
Louis Jouvet was a renowned French actor, director, and theatre director.- Life :Overcoming speech impediments and sometimes paralyzing stage fright as a young man, Jouvet's first important association was with Jacques Copeau's Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, beginning in 1913...
, in an interview in the 1970s.
In other media
- In the X-MenUncanny X-MenUncanny X-Men, first published as The X-Men, is the flagship Marvel Comics comic book series for the X-Men franchise. It is the mainstream continuity featuring the adventures of the eponymous group of mutant superheroes...
comics, the character of Jason Wyngarde (aka MastermindMastermind (Jason Wyngarde)Mastermind is a Marvel Comics supervillain, an adversary of the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, he first appeared in X-Men #4 . He was given his "real name", Jason Wyngarde, by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.The original Mastermind was a mutant with the power to...
) was partially inspired by Jason King and Peter Wyngarde. Mastermind had first appeared in the 1960s, but took on the appearance and identity of Jason Wyngarde in the build-up to the X-Men's first confrontation with the Hellfire ClubHellfire Club (comics)The Hellfire Club is a fictional society within the Marvel Comics Universe that often comes into confrontation with the mutant superhero team, the X-Men...
in the late 1970s. - Wyngarde had played the leader of another Hellfire club in "A Touch of Brimstone", an episode of the popular TV series The AvengersThe Avengers (TV series)The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
starring Patrick MacneePatrick MacneePatrick Macnee is an English actor, best known for his role as the secret agent John Steed in the series The Avengers.-Early life:...
and Diana RiggDiana RiggDame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
who appeared in a leather costume that Jean GreyJean GreyJean Grey-Summers is a fictional comic book superheroine appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. She has been known under the aliases Marvel Girl, Phoenix, and Dark Phoenix and is best known as one of five original members of the X-Men, for her relationship with Cyclops, and for her...
would adopt as the Hellfire Club's Black Queen. - He also played at least two roles in the British TV series The Saint starring Roger Moore. Most notably, he was the "Man Who Liked Lions" and he appeared in skin-darkening make-up in the episode "The Gadic Collection".
- Wyngarde's Jason King persona was also the model for the journalist character Montgomery Berman - the name itself a twist on Department SDepartment SDepartment S is a United Kingdom spy-fi adventure series produced by ITC Entertainment. The series consists of 28 episodes which originally aired in 1969–1970. It starred Peter Wyngarde as author Jason King , Joel Fabiani as Stewart Sullivan, and Rosemary Nicols as computer expert Annabelle Hurst...
series creator Monty BermanMonty BermanNestor Montague Berman was a British cinematographer and film and television producer.-Early career:...
- in the 2011 novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain GoatTobacco-Stained Mountain GoatTobacco-Stained Mountain Goat is a science fiction/noir novel by Australian author Andrez Bergen. It is set in a post-apocalyptic, near-future Melbourne, Australia. It features cover art and some illustrations by American artist Scott Campbell, and was first published through Another Sky Press in...
. - West End producer Marc SindenMarc SindenMarc Sinden is an English theatre producer, documentary director and actor. His father is the actor Sir Donald Sinden.-Theatre:...
, interviewed in the Daily MailDaily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
in 1994 said: "Truth was, in the mid-70s, just after I left drama school, I based my 'look' on Jason King - hell, I even smoked the same cigarettes as him! They were Sobranie ImperialsSobranie (cigarette)The Sobranie cigarette brand is one of the oldest tobacco brands in the world. Sobranie of London was established in 1879 by the Redstone family, when cigarettes had just become fashionable in Europe. Several generations of the Redstone family blended this tobacco from a secret formula.The...
and incredibly hard to find, so I used to get them delivered to me by Fortnum & MasonFortnum & MasonFortnum & Mason, often shortened to just "Fortnum's" is a department store, situated in central London, with two other branches in Japan. Its headquarters is located at 181 Piccadilly, where it was established in 1707 by William Fortnum and Hugh Mason...
. Then in 1983 I co-starred in a play with Peter Wyngarde and Raymond BurrRaymond BurrRaymond William Stacey Burr was a Canadian actor, primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. His early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television and in film, usually as the villain...
. It was called UndergroundUnderground (play)Underground, a thriller written by Michael Sloane and produced at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto and following a UK tour, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London, opening on 4 July 1983....
and we were in the West EndWest End theatreWest End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
after touring the UK and Canada. Peter wrote a filthy inscription to me on a packet of my Sobranies and we have been friends ever since. He still has incredible style."
Music
In 1970, Wyngarde recorded an album for RCA VictorRCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
entitled simply Peter Wyngarde and a single, "La Ronde De L'Amour / The Way I Cry Over You". The album was reissued on CD by the British RPM Records label as When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head. Unusually, Wyngarde did not deliver a set of easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
standards but a most unusual collection of spoken word / musical arrangements.
The LP is believed to have been quickly withdrawn after its release, but has gained cult status in the intervening years. Selections are often played on XM Radio
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
's Internet-only retro-lounge channel 79, On the Rocks. On 13 February 2009 on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, singer Morrissey presented Ross with a signed copy of the album.
Track Listing
- "Come In"
- "You Wonder how these Things Begin"
- "Rape"
- "La Ronde de L'amour"
- "Jenny Kissed Me"
- "Way I Cry over You"
- "Unknown Citizen"
- "It's when I Touch You"
- "Hippie and the Skinhead"
- "Try to Remember to Forget (Riviera Cowboy)"
- "Jenny Kissed Me and it Was..."
- "Widdecombe Fair"
- "Neville Thumbcatch"
- "Once Again (Flight Number Ten)"
- "Pay No Attention"
- "April"