Peter Wyngarde Peter Wyngarde Peter Wyngarde (23 August 1927 – 15 January 2018) was a British actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two television series: "Department S" (1969–70) and "Jason King" (1971–72). His flamboyant dress sense and stylish performances led to popular success, and he was considered a style icon in Britain and elsewhere in the early 1970s; Mike Myers credited Wyngarde with inspiring the character Austin Powers. Peter Wyngarde's date and place of birth, his birth name, and his parents' nationalities and occupations are all disputed. According to his own account, he
Richard Jeperson during the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Jason King ("Department S" / "Jason King"), John Steed ("The Avengers") and the Third Doctor ("Doctor Who"). As such, he shares many character traits with them - a flamboyant dress sense, upper-class tastes and sensibilities combined with a youthful appreciation of the 'trendy' aspects of 1970s culture, a chivalrous and patriotic nature, and a healthy disdain for most representations of establishment authority. The stories in which he appears also parody / homage these telefantasy shows, and frequently examine 1970s British culture and society through this lens. In the story "Swellhead", set in