Sinclair and Wilde are The Persuaders!
English aristocrat, Lord Brett Sinclair, with interests raging from art collecting to motor racing. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and has spent his life licking the jam from it.
American playboy, Danny Wilde, born in the New York slums and using sheer nerve has climbed his way up to financial success. He wastes his talent drifting round the world gambling and womanising.
A Riviera meeting with retired Judge Fulton changes their lives. They are coerced by the Judge into becoming his agents for justice - The Persuaders!
I loved The Persuaders! as a youngster. With it’s unique John Barry theme coupled with those split screen titles, this was one hip show. Roger Moore as Brett was already well known to me as The Saint, and Tony Curtis was perfect as his wise cracking partner.
Over the years I’ve picked up the odd memento from this classic series.
I remember getting the theme music on this John Barry record, one of the first L.P.’s I ever got.
I was chuffed when Countdown comic, published by Polystyle announced it was going to feature a full colour strip, beginning in issue 35 dated October 16 1971.
The series had started in September 17, 1971 so Countdown was very quick off the mark.
The strip continued to feature when Countdown became TV Action, although not always in colour.
The series even made the front cover of the final edition of TV Action issue 132 dated August 26, 1973
Polystyle produced a Persuaders Annual ( with a missing exclamation mark ! ). This was an excellent publication with loads of dedicated articles on the show. Century 21 Merchandising shares the copyright with Polystyle for this publication, which is dated 1972.
Polystyle (without Century 21) produced a summer special during 1972 which to my mind was a little disappointing as most of the articles in it were just fillers dealing with motor racing and helicopters. There was a couple of pin up pictures of Danny and Brett along with a centre spread showing scenes from the series.
A set of picture cards were produced by the Dutch company Monty in 1971. The back of the wrapper states that there are apparently 96 in the set along with an album. The British set has a copyright credit to Century 21 Ltd.
I picked up the three Pan paperbacks which had adaptations of some of the TV episodes.
In the eighties with the advent of video, I picked up several of the Persuaders! compilations that comprised of two episodes being edited together to create a theatrical feature. There were four films - London Conspiracy, Mission Monte Carlo, The Switch, and Sporting Chance.
This is the Channel 5 version of Sporting Chance from 1986
These are some Front of House stills for the theatrical release of Mission Monte Carlo.
In 1992 ITC released several of the proper episodes on video. This is the cover. Although it’s ITC they annoyingly don’t use the proper logo and miss out that exclamation mark!
One of the big signature things about the Persuaders! was the cars - Danny’s red Ferrari Dino 246 GT and Brett’s Bahama Yellow Aston Martin DBS with V8 wheels and markings.
In 2002, Corgi released a lovely die cast model of the DBS along with a resin figure of Brett.
I'm still waiting for Danny's Ferrari!
So there you have it, some of the items in my small collection of Persuaders! memorabilia.
