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 things in the world you just can't do, and one was "smile wider than Donny and Marie"). Many prime-time programs of the 1970s were helmed by independent producers, often in association with a major Hollywood studio. A particularly successful independent producer at the dawn of the decade was Quinn Martin, who produced such crime shows as "The Streets of San Francisco", "Cannon", and "Dan August" (a one-season cop series starring an up-and-coming Burt Reynolds that would find greater popularity after its star had hit it big at the cinema). Martin's success would fade during the latter half of the decade,