Time keeps on slipping into the future...

I am far behind on entries to all my blogs (Daily Space, Space and Marine Exploration, Dated Death Movies, Movie Education Undone, You Fly Girl), and even further behind on my websites, The Thunder Child, Ghost Guns Virginia, The Solitary Cyclist, and Winged Victory (aka You Fly, Girl).

So today, for the first time in a while, I am pleased to report new stuff at The Thunder Child.

http://thethunderchild.com

Michael Sinclair sent me a program book from the latest WorldCon, Nippon 2007. I've written up some coverage of it and it is now there, as is more of Michael's reminiscences about fandom during the 70s and 80s - "Say Da to Moscow" and "Hotel Horrors."

I've been watching a TV show called Jason King, from 1970-1972. Features an actor I like - Peter Wyngarde. The shows are ... bizarre...as is a CD I bought called "When Sex Rears Its Inquisitive Head" - also by Wyndgarde. There's a spoken "song" on there called "Rape" which is just the weirdest thing I've ever heard...Wyngade doing all sorts of accents as he talks about rape in poetry form...I just held my head in my hands and laughed in astonishment...but the rest of its interesting...bizarre.... kind of like those records by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy...although I have to say I liked Nimoy's album and loved the Bilbo Baggins song!

Anyway...there's much of interest in the Peter Wyngarde saga...so much so that I think it'd be worthy of a book...except I dont' have the time or the contacts to write one. Simply put, he was a major star in England up until 1973, until he got caught in a public toilet with another guy. And this ended his career there and then. Oh, he'd show up intermittently as a guest star on a tv show once every 3 or 4 years...but that's it.

And I can't help but wonder why. I know the same thing happened to John Gielgud in the 1930s...but that was the 1930s...and his career had hardly a blip. Homosexuality was illegal in England until 1967 so why should Wyngarde, in 1973, have suffered more than Gielgud? Except that Wyngarde was regarded by much of the public as a straight sex symbol, and to discover that he was gay...

(Whereas, in private life, all the actors knew. Apparently he had a relationship with Alan Bates for quite some time...)

Why couldn't Wyngarde's career get back on track? Was he so disliked by all his acting peers that no one would help him? (The story about Bates and Wyngarde implied Wyngarde was very controlling and "bad" for Bates - but it doesn't go into details.)

Anyway, the series is interesting. Most of the episodes don't "work" - the endings are anticlimactic - but probably more "true to life" than other adventure shows - King often calls in the cops and it is they who simply arrest the crooks in the final scene, instead of having a knock-down, drag-out. And he is sooooo self-absorbed...

Ah, well, I've got to stop watching this show and start reading the stack of books I've got to review...