Talk:Kenneth Tynan

National Service
ISTR seeing somewhere that notorious heterosexual Kenneth Tynan managed to get out of National Service by convincing the gullible Army officers that he was gay. Is this true and verifiable or have I confused him with someone else? David | Talk 11:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I am sure Tynan was just having fun. He would, I am sure, never have passed the medical. His lung condition was obvious and I was quite surprised when I saw him play cricket quite well in a fun game. Sport was optional at King Edwards at that time and I suspect that like me he avoided them. G Gardiner86.182.246.195 (talk) 08:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Need help modifying footnote
In the Notes section at the bottom of the page, a source is listed as, "Tynan, Kathleen, The Life of Kevin Tynan, pages 327, 333, as cited in Paul Johnson's The Intellectuals, Chapter 13, Note 54." Obviously, it should say Kenneth Tynan, not Kevin.

While I know how to modify an article's text, apparently modifying the reference section is accomplished differently. When I try to edit the Notes section, the words "Notes" and "References" appear, but the references themselves aren't listed so I don't know how to change them.

Also, I know we're supposed to discuss changes in general, but as this is obviously just a transcription error, I assume it's okay to correct it? I have a copy of the "The Intellectual" in front of me and it quite clearly says Kenneth Tynan, not Kevin, which is not surprising since Kenneth is the man's name.--Pywacket (talk) 19:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My mistake. I was tired. To find the footnote information, click up to the first footnote, then open the page (or that part of the page) for editing, and the footnote should be right there. Since it was my mistake, I'll change it now, but thanks for the notice. And you're right, since it's noncontroversial, if you know how to do it then you can just make that change. Noroton (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Better sources
I notice that one of the most often-quoted sources is Paul Johnson's book Intellectuals. This is not IMO a very reliable source, and it might be better to use a copy of Tynan's actual biography, rather than Johnson's quotes from it. I don't want to portray Tynan as a wonderful guy because in a great many ways he wasn't one, but the Johnson makes it clear in the preface that the point of his book is to criticise left-wing intellectuals by exposing sordid details of their private lives; it's in no way an attempt at reasonably objective biography. As it is, I think that this article isn't wildly anti-Tynan but a polemic against a person is not necessarily the best primary source about that person. I do think that there probably should be room to include Johnson's disapproval of Tynan, seeing as Johnson is (IMO unfortunately) a notable figure. Lexo (talk) 15:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I added the information from Johnson. I think he's a reliable source, and his critical view of Tynan seems based on facts (although criticism is an integral part of WP:NPOV as well). If Johnson or his book can be shown to be unreliable, then we should be removing him as a source, but I don't get that impression based on what I've read about Johnson (or has he been charged with being unreliable in general or being unreliable in that book?). I don't think information purporting to be factual rather than opinion should be taken out just because it comes from Johnson, because I think the Johnson information is important to the article (some of the information is positive, some neutral, quite a bit very negative). I wouldn't have any problem replacing citations from Johnson to some source with more authority, either. If some editor very familiar with sources on the subject would add more to the article, de-emphasizing the information from Johnson, I couldn't object, but I wouldn't want to remove information on the basis of "that sounds too negative". It might be a good idea to add that some of the critical comments are coming from Johnson, whose views of propriety are different from Tynan's. The quotes should certainly be attributed to Johnson in the text. Overall, I think any changes should be based on superior sourcing rather than removing information attributed to Johnson, unless it can be shown to be false, unfair or some tiny-minority view. Otherwise it seems to me we'd just be degrading the article because there's something negative in it, contrary to WP:NPOV. I'm all for letting more/better research improve the article, however it goes. -- Noroton (talk) 17:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Johnson's chapter on him in Intellectuals is definitely not a reliable source, and still less is it free of serious bias. It’s fairly obvious on reading it through that Johnson is keen to make Tynan come out silly, criminally misguided in his opinions about politics, art, people and society, and as a main offender in the “rãdical craze” of the sixties and seventies. It’s also plain that he wants to get back at Tynan on a personal basis. Johnson’s old sense of class complex vs the rich kid Tynan who could afford anything even in his university days, when the two men first met, and who always seemed to strike home with the more exciting ladies, is evident in Johnson’s recount and reckoning. Strausszek (talk) 10:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

'Fuck'
Perhaps I'm misremembering it, but I thought his famous TV quote was in response to being asked what he'd like to see actors do on stage that hadn't already been portayed, and he said "I'd like to see them fuck". I recall reading this in Bernard Levin's book about the 1960s The Pendulum Years. 93.96.236.8 (talk) 19:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I recall the incident and the word was used legitimately, not as a swear word. 86.182.246.195 (talk) 08:40, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Rare Lung Disease
Surely this was alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency - chapter and verse anyone? Moletrouser (talk) 10:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Article provides two mutually incompatible dates for Tynan's divorce
Statement One: "In 1963 Laurence Olivier became the British Royal National Theatre's first artistic director..... Tynan would eventually convince Olivier to play the title role in Shakespeare's Othello, something he had always been reluctant to do. Tynan's marriage ended in divorce the following year, the same year that the Olivier Othello opened at the National Theatre to glowing reviews. It was filmed in 1965."

So this text implies a divorce sometime after 1963 and before the end of 1965.

Statement Two: "After Tynan's divorce he met Kathleen Halton in December 1962." This text implies a divorce during 1962 or before.

They cannot both be correct. Can someone else please work out which (if either) is right? Nandt1 (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The second one is footnoted to Paul Johnson. I added it under my old account name in January 2007. I don't think I can find the book easily now to check it again. The first statement doesn't have a footnote. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like I probably misread Johnson (possibly Johnson got it wrong, but more likely I did). According to Kenneth Tynan: A Life by Dominic Shellard, p 295, (Google Books version here ), Tynan and Elaine were separated; they were officially divorced on May 12, 1964, and at some point before August of that year, Tynan was with Kathleen Halton, who left her husband for him. It took some time for Halton to divorce her husband (divorce proceedings didn't begin until 1965). Tynan and Halton were living together for some time before their marriage in 1967. I'll change the article. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The New York Times and other sources also confirm '64 for the divorce, '67 for his second marriage. Here's the edit. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

This is possibly an artifact of the British divorce law of the time. Two rulings, called respectively decree nisi and decree absolute, were involved. A lapse of time was mandated between the two. Tasty monster (=TS ) 04:38, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Trying to clarify identity of Tynan's father
The article has been saying that: (1) KT was born to Peter Tynan and Letitia Rose Tynan; and (2) in 1948 KT learnt the true identity of his father, who was really Sir Peter Peacock and had been leading a double life. I assume this means that Peter Tynan was an alias of Peter Peacock? Rather than that Peacock and Peter Tynan were two different individuals and that Peacock had fathered Tynan through an adulterous affair with Mrs. T. Can we get clarification? Nandt1 (talk) 02:51, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

So I have dug into sources a bit more myself, and it seems clear that the alias hypothesis above is correct, so I have edited the article to make that meaning come through more transparently than it did in the previous text. Nandt1 (talk) 03:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Was Tynan's mother aware of his father's true identity & bigamy?
One wonders whether or not Tynan's mum realized that Ken Tynan's father "Peter Tynan" (i.e., Sir Peter Peacock) had another name and another family. Was she in on the secret and colluding to deceive Ken, or did the truth that emerged on Peacock's death come as just as great a shock to her too? Anyone know about that aspect? Nandt1 (talk) 03:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)Nandt1 (talk) 13:13, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

So, to answer my own question, here is Benedict Nightingale in his NYT review of Kathleen Tynan's study of her husband:

"Tynan claimed he learned of his illegitimacy only after his father's death in 1948. Certainly, he seemed bitterly upset by the news at the time; he refused to forgive his mother for concealing the truth, and he more or less ignored her until her old age, when she succumbed to senile dementia and wandered the streets with a sign reading, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going to those who love me. Kathleen Tynan suspects he learned the truth about the elusive and somewhat sinister Sir Peter at a much younger age and suppressed it."

Seems to settle the matter. Nandt1 (talk) 01:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Article Contradicts Information given in Rolf Hochhuth Article
In this article it seems that Tynan was a supporter of the Hochhuth play "Soldiers" and wanted it to be put on at the national Theatre. The article on Hothhuth states:

"Controversy arose in Britain in 1967 when the mooted premiere at Britain's National Theatre was cancelled, due to the intervention of the National Theatre board, despite the support for the play of Laurence Olivier, under pressure from his wife, and Kenneth Tynan."

Which version of events is correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.161.205.242 (talk) 11:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Land Mine?
While Tynan refers (in "The Deathbed Interview") to the device that so nearly killed him as a land mine, I think this is an understandable confusion on the part of a 13-year-old. The Luftwaffe dropped large contact sea mines by parachute in some of their raids on Briish cities, Birmingham included, and I imagine this is what he was actually referring to. Moletrouser (talk) 11:38, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they were sea mines but we always called them land mines. I saw a row of 12 terrace houses flattened by one, probably in Main Street, Birmingham. I was trying to get to King Edwards School, Camp Hill but had to deviate to avoid an unexploded bomb in Stratford Road. The school was damaged and we were not able to use it for several months. In 1941 I joined Tynan at King Edwards, Edgbaston. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.182.246.195 (talk) 08:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Debating
Tynan's first appearance in the school's Senior Debating Society was a fiasco as he did not have time to use the excessive number of quotations he had prepared. He learned fast and became the very best. In one debate he proposed the motion, 'This House believes in the value of insincerity' and to prove his point voted against the motion. That debate was probably in 1946 when he was at Oxford and he had returned to school to take part in the Old Boys versus the School debate. I was at Cambridge when he was a member of the Oxford team for the Oxford and Cambridge Debate at the Cambridge Union. I warned the Cambridge debaters what they had to face but they did not believe me. The motion was 'In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock; in the opinion of this house it would have been better if Plymouth Rock had landed on the Pilgrim Fathers.' His performance was astounding though what he said had little to do with the motion. Years later he was asked to debate with Gilbert Harding at the Cambridge Union and the debate was broadcast. The motion was in support of modern British Youth and the BBC's intention had been that Harding would attack youth and Tynan would defend them, Tynan got together with Harding in a London pub and suggested they swap. Tynan spoke third and his speech was identical with the one he had given before. When Harding got up to speak he said, 'Well how does one follow that?' Until then I had not realised that all Tynan's speeches were memorised. He was a very good actor and was a brilliant 'Lincoln' in a school performance of John Drinkwater's play. Oxford did not give Tynan a First!!!! Prejudice? His mastery of words was surely unsurpassable. G Gardiner86.182.246.195 (talk) 09:24, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Ideology
If his sexual habits belong, surely his strongly held political views should be included. For instance, his vigorous support for Fidel Castro. Nicmart (talk) 00:53, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Bull-fighting
Wasn't he a devotee of the odious practice of bull-fighting? This throws an even worse light on his character. Esedowns (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2023 (UTC)