Just so you are all clear, like:
Peter Wyngarde's date and place of birth, his birth name, and his parent's nationalities and occupations are all disputed. According to his biography at IMDb,[1] which is not supported by any primary sources but often used in other accounts of his life,[2][3][4] he was born Peter Paul Wyngarde on 23 August 1933 to a French mother at an aunt's home in Marseille, France. In September 2017 Peter Wyngarde gave a detailed interview about his life to the website of his Appreciation Society, where he explained that his British father, a Mr Wyngarde, worked for the British Diplomatic Service in various countries across Asia.[5][3] He is also said to be the nephew of French actor-director Louis Jouvet.
Primary sources indicate a likely different birth name, year of birth and family background.
About Wyngarde's year of birth there is considerable variation. Different sources quote or suggest dates between 1924 and 1933.[note 1] In a 1993 interview Wyngarde claimed not to know his own age.[14]
Wyngarde gave his place of birth as Singapore on a 1960 immigration application,[11][15] although a 1956 Straits Times article about his mother does give Marseille as his birthplace.[13]
Evidence suggests that Wyngarde's original name was Cyril Goldbert and that he changed his name after arriving in the UK in the mid 1940s.[10] Author J. G. Ballard wrote in his memoir (and stated in interviews and private letters[16]) that he and his family knew Wyngarde as Cyril Goldbert in Shanghai during World War II,[6][17] but Wyngarde has denied knowing Ballard.[5]
Peter Wyngarde's mother was Marcheritta "Madge" Goldbert, née Ahin, later Macauley. The Ahins were a Eurasian family living in Singapore in the 1890s.[18] Records indicate that she was a Swiss national and that she re-married in 1947[19] and moved to Malaysia. An article in Singapore's Straits Times in 1956 included her photograph and an interview about her son's acting career.[13] Wyngarde claimed in a 1993 interview that his mother was a racing driver.[14]
On his arrival in the UK in 1945, Cyril Goldbert's next of kin and UK contact is named as Mr H. Goldbert.[20] This is highly likely to be Madge's former husband Henry Goldbert who was living in Liverpool at this time. Henry Goldbert was born in Russia[21] and likely Jewish.[22][original research?] He was British, having become a naturalised British subject in 1919 after living in Singapore since childhood.[21] Biographical statements issued by the official Peter Wyngarde Appreciation Society (PWAS) deny that Henry Goldbert was Wyngarde's father, and state that his father was a British diplomat named Wyngarde.[5] After a diplomatic career in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and India, Wyngarde Senior is said to have become an importer-exporter in London and to have lived in the very upscale address of Eaton Square.[23] There is no record of a Mr Wyngarde Senior in any publicly available vital records, nor in travel and immigration information nor in UK electoral rolls. Henry Goldbert did have some similar aspects to his life: he also travelled extensively in South East Asia, although not as a diplomat but as Second Chief Engineer in the British Merchant Navy, including on the SS Lyemoon in 1942.[24] Peter Wyngarde said in a 2017 interview that when he arrived in the UK in 1945 his father met his ship in Liverpool.[5] It seems likely that this was Henry Goldbert, who was his stated next of kin for the journey and who lived in Liverpool.
