Margie and I watched NAPOLEON DYNAMITE on pay-per-view last night. For some reason the character of Uncle Rico (played by John Gries) held a bizarre fascination for me. Perhaps it was the fact that Rico reminded me of guys that I'd worked with in Canoga Park - valley dudes with blow dried hair and Tom Selleck moustaches. Back in the day, while working at Metropolis, failed football-jocks with yet another get-rich-quick scheme would pass through the office daily. They all seemed to live in places like Monrovia. Thay all had a special product for sale. Usually something they'd discovered that would suplement their income, and pay for that blissful two weeks in Cabo or Costa Rica... The schemes verged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Selling stock in a Country Club that hadn't been built yet. It was somewhere in the high desert... Not exactly the best place to erect a golf course. There was also phoney Travel Agent credentials being sold as some pyramid scheme, and a hair restoring product (called Flourish) discovered by someone's dad in Israel. My favorite was probably the Personal Trainer selling a garish blue aphrodisiac tincture with the dubious name Rock Hard... That was the name of the aphrodisiac, not the trainer... But back to Uncle Rico. I realized, this morning, that he actually reminded me of the British TV character JASON KING...
Growing up in England, in the early '70's, the Jason King show was the most popular thing on TV. If you were a teenage boy you wanted to be Jason King. If you were a girl, you wanted to be with him. Jason King was like James Bond, only better. He was pure 1970s kitsch - crazy clothes, a bevvy of exotic beauties in tow, and the biggest handlebar moustache ever to grace the small screen. KING was a spin-off from the succesful espionage series DEPARTMENT 'S.' But it was much more bizarre. In the show, Jason was a succesful pulp crime novelist - writing the Mark Caine books. Each week he would be called upon by the British Secret Service to unravel some international crime/mystery. This basicallly consisted of him jumping on private planes, shagging lots of birds in exotic locales, and wearing the most ridiculous menswear that you've ever seen. Jason King pioneered the massive collar, the flared slack, and the tie-knot that was bigger than a fist. I actually remember one wide collar shirt being known as 'the jason king.'
Jason King was played by an Australian heart-throb, Peter Wyngarde. Forget Austin Powers. This guy was the real deal. Not only a gourmet chef, and raconteur - in 1971 - the King show made Wyngarde the most famous man in the U.K. When he arrived once at Heathrow airport, he was mobbed by thousands of female fans. He was voted the sexiest man alive in the British Press. Rumors abound that Wyngarde had been involved with Vivienne Leigh, and numerous of his female co-stars.
The Jason King show only ran for two years. But it bought Wyngarde a jet-set lifestyle much the same as the character he played - a vast country estate, apartments in London and Rome... Still in 1975 disaster struck. Peter Wyngarde was arrested for performing 'Lewd Acts' with a Truck Driver in a Men's Toilet at Gloucester Bus Station. At the time, this scandal was far more explosive than Kevin Spacey being 'caught in the park,' or George Michael entrapped in a Beverly Hills Bathroom. There were no 'Gay TV-Stars' back then. And Wyngarde had been a hetero-heart-throb. He was trashed in the press. The female fans felt disgusted and betrayed... In short Wyngarde's popularity plummeted. Apart from a few B-Movies, and a brief return as a villain in Sherlock Holmes, Wyngarde was never seen again...
It seems strange how times have changed. If Wyngarde was 'outed' more recently, he may well have survived. You probably would've heard of him. Still, I'm guessing that you've neither heard of him or Jason King. As far as I'm aware, the Jason King show is rarely played on U.K. TV - even in re-runs. I'm certain it's never played on U.S. TV (unlike The Avengers, The Prisoner - et al). However, some say Jason King paved the way for The X-Files, with a series of unexplainable and supernatural-tinged crimes... I can't help but think that the 'burying' of Jason King is due, in some part, to the Wyngarde Scandal... All that being said, I'm trying to buy Jason King DVDs on ebay.co.uk... It's extremely rare, and was only released once in 1993...
For those of you who do remember Jason King, I've found a few Wyngarde/Jason King websites... If you're my age, you probably had the shirt, maybe even a King-Style Cravat. I hope you can share a moment sometime this week, and raise a glass to the long lamented Peter Wyngarde... As they say, from the days of Empire... Long live the King... Long live the Jason King...
Visit the Official Peter Wyngarde site
VISIT Jason King's Groovy Pad
