Patrick Wymark

Patrick Wymark was a British theater actor who carried his extensive Shakespearean work into television beginning in the mid-1950s. He appeared as Montano on BBC's 1955 production of "Othello," and in 1963, he took on the role of Touchstone in "As You Like It," with Vanessa Redgrave as Rosalind. After several years performing the work of "The Bard," Wymark took up another English icon, Winston Churchill, providing his voice for the documentaries "The Finest Hours" and "A King's Story," both narrated by Orson Welles, and appearing as the World War II-era prime minister in the Sophia Loren-starring drama "Operation Crossbow" in Wymark's own finest year, 1965. His other productions that year included the part of Catherine Deneuve's landlord in Roman Polanski's psychological thriller "Repulsion" and a starring role in the first of three seasons on the hour-long British television drama "The Power Game." Wymark's John Wilder was born out of the drama "The Plane Makers," and, in addition to gaining knighthood for the spin-off series "The Power Game," Wilder moved from a man of leisure to a man of corporate takeover, a businessman with a mission, and a character viewers loved to hate. Due to Wymark's death from a heart attack, at just 44, "The Power Game"'s life, too, was cut short. Another key film role came as Colonel Wyatt Turner in the 1968 Anglo-American action adventure, "Where Eagles Dare," a Nazis vs. Brits epic which starred fellow Englishman Richard Burton and lone American Clint Eastwood.