@boyculturedotcom Today, August 23, was the 97th anniversary of the birth of Peter Wyngarde (1927-2018), a British actor best remembered as the campily adventurous Jason King on 2 British shows. More interestingly, he played a Polish soldier named Jan Wicziewsky on a November 24, 1959, ITV play of the week in the UK called "South." Set in the U.S. as the Civil War is about to break out, it features him as a clearly gay and tortured character. His scenes — in which his character pines for handsome soldier Eric MacClure (Graydon Gould, who died at 82 in 2020) — are remarkably obvious for the time period. Note: The teen to whom he semi-confessed was played by Karl Lanchbury, who is alive at 80. A critic at the time wrote, "I do NOT see anything attractive in the agonies and ecstasies of a pervert, especially in close-up in my living room. This is not prudishness. There are some indecencies in life that are best left covered up." One of the first queer representations on TV anywhere, there are no dramatic U.S. precedents for it. #peterwyngarde #gay #queer #lgbtq #boyculture ♬ original sound - Matthew Rettenmund/BoyCulture
ABOVE: Check out these snippets of South, a truly trail-blazing drama aired on British TV in 1959. (Kenton Coe wrote an opera on the same story called Sud that was reviewed by the NYT.)
BELOW: Keep reading for an Olympic OnlyFans collab, Israel pushing it, Marsha P. Johnson's b'day and more ...
