He attended Oundle School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining the American Field Service during World War II and later Tootal Ties and Shirts as managing director.

[14][11] After he was born, the family lived in Gloucester Place, Marylebone, then moved to Surrey, where King and his younger brothers, James and Anthony, were raised in Brookhurst Grange, near Ewhurst.

[13] A year later, in 1954, after his father died from a heart attack, Brookhurst Grange was sold and the family moved to Cobbetts, a cottage in nearby Forest Green.

I kept thick notebooks packed with copies of the weekly charts, adverts for new products, pages of predictions of future hits, reviews and comments about current artistes.

With his wages from a job stacking shelves in a supermarket, he made a demo of himself the following year singing "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" and "Fool's Paradise" Eden Kane song with the Ted Taylor Trio, a professional group in Rickmansworth.

Staying mostly in youth hostels, he visited Greece, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and the United States, including Hawaii, where, in June 1964, he met the manager of the Beatles, Brian Epstein.

[20][24] Keen to break into the music business, King contacted Tony Hall of Decca Records, who put him in touch with The Zombies' producers Ken Jones and Joe Roncoroni.

DJ Tony Windsor of Radio London, a pirate station broadcast from the MV Galaxy, was the first to play it, not only once, but three times in a row.

"[44] When they heard he was going to be there, a school band recorded a demo tape for him, and a friend, John Alexander, left the cassette in King's car with a note, "These are Charterhouse boys.

[45][46] Calling themselves Anon, the band consisted at that point of Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Chris Stewart and Mike Rutherford, then all aged 15 to 17.

[51] Genesis left King in 1970 for Tony Stratton Smith's Charisma Records, were joined by Phil Collins and Steve Hackett—and, after another two unsuccessful albums, released Foxtrot (1972) to critical acclaim.

[56] Shortly afterwards King started presenting Good Evening, a weekly television show that ran nationally on ATV at 6:30 pm on Saturdays from October 1967 to 1968.

[62] The arrangement featured in Reservoir Dogs (1992), at least one episode of Ally McBeal, where it provided the music for the Dancing Baby (1998), and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), although King writes that he made no money from the Blue Swede version.

[75] The label's first hit was "Seaside Shuffle" by Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs, followed by King's "Loop di Love", which reached number four, released under the pseudonym Shag.

[76] Other signings included Ricky Wilde, then 11 years old and promoted to fill the gap later taken by Donny Osmond, a potential David Cassidy, Simon Turner,[77] Roy C, the First Class and Lobo.

The label also released King's cover of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1974) under the name Bubblerock, described as a "Grateful Dead"-style country version", which met with the approval of Mick Jagger.

[89] The UK Records New York office on 57th Street was turned into an apartment, and King set about building a new career in writing and broadcasting.

[91] Throughout 1980 and 1981 King presented a radio talk show on New York's WMCA from 10–12 weekday mornings, and regularly reported from the United States on Top of the Pops.

He was also hired by Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun, to write a weekly column, "Bizarre USA", which began in February 1985 and continued for eight years.

King also released his own cover version of "Wild World" as a single, using a similar musical arrangement to "It's a Sin", in an effort to demonstrate his claims.

[110][111] In 2000 Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer of the new Popstars talent show, considered hiring King as anchor of its judging panel, but he turned it down.

[d][117][71][118] King claimed, among other things, that the lack of a statute of limitations in the UK for sex offences meant he had been unable to defend himself adequately because of the many years that had passed.

Vile Pervert: The Musical (2008), available for free download, is a 96-minute film in which King plays all 21 parts and presents his version of events surrounding his prosecution.

[140] In August 2015, King wrote an article for The Spectator magazine concerning Sir Edward Heath, the subject of the now-discredited Operation Midland.

[141] In September that year, King was arrested as part of Operation Ravine, a further investigation into claims of sexual abuse at the Walton Hop disco in the 1970s.

[148][149] On 6 August 2018, Judge Deborah Taylor, saying that Surrey Police had made "numerous, repeated and compounded" errors during the investigation, described the situation as a "debacle".

In her ruling she said "I have concluded that this is a case where even if it were possible to have a fair trial, it is in the rare category where the balance, taking account of the history, the failures and misleading of the Court, is in favour of a stay on the basis that following what has occurred, continuation would undermine public confidence in the administration of justice".

Taylor said that the case against King had been motivated by "concerns about reputational damage to Surrey Police" following the allegations of sexual abuse against Jimmy Savile.

[150] Surrey Police "wholeheartedly apologised" to King, saying: "We deeply regret that despite these efforts we did not meet the required standards to ensure a fair trial.

[152][153][154] In August 2019, Chief Constable Stephens, who had replaced Ephgrave, announced that, in the year since King's acquittal, the Surrey Police success rate for convictions in sex abuse cases had dropped from 20% to "under 4%".