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
1970s in television for many years considered the longest-running police show in the history of American television. However, crime shows often came under fire during the 1970s from various groups decrying the programs' often-violent content and demanded that companies pull their ads from such programs. 1977 saw the debut of "CHiPs", an action-packed police show where the cops very seldom drew their guns. One year earlier, "Quincy, M.E.", a mystery-crime show centered around an inquisitive medical examiner who often immersed himself in contemporary hot-button issues, had bowed on NBC. A science-fiction trend accelerated as the 1970s decade progressed. A number of sci-fi shows,