Peter Sellers - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SchroCat (talk | contribs) at 18:30, 2 August 2012. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 18:30, 2 August 2012 by SchroCat (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) This article is about the British actor. For the American director, see Peter Sellars.

Peter SellersCBE
Sellers in 1973. Photograph by Allan Warren
Born	Richard Henry Sellers (1925-09-08)8 September 1925
Died	24 July 1980(1980-07-24) (aged 54)
Occupation(s)	Actor, comedian and singer
Years active	1948–1980
Known for	Character actor and improvisation

Richard Henry Sellers's, CBE (8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980), known as Peter Sellers's, was a British film actor, comedian and singer. He is best known for his appearances in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, a number of comic songs that were radio favourites, and for his many film characterisations, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series of films.

Born in Portsmouth, Sellers made his stage debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea, when he was two weeks old . He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres. His first act was as a drummer, and he toured around England as a member of ENSA. He developed his innate mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Reader's wartime Gang Shows, on tours of Britain and the far east. After the war, Sellers made his radio debut in ShowTime, eventually becoming a regular radio performer on a number of other BBC radio shows.

During the early 1950s, Sellers, along with Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, took part in a radio series known as The Goon Show, a collaboration that ended in 1960. His ability to speak in different accents, along with his talent to portray a wide range of comic characters, contributed to his success as a radio personality and screen actor and earned him national and international nominations and awards.

In the 1950s, Sellers began to appear in films and scored some notable success with his roles. He appeared in over fifty films, and he displayed a versatile ability to perform in different film genres. Among these were I'm All Right Jack, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, Being There and the Pink Panther series. In his personal life, Sellers struggled with emotional problems, including depression. His behaviour was often erratic, resulting in turmoil and crises. He was married four times, and had three children from the first two marriages. He died as a result of heart disease in 1980 aged 54. Sellers's performances—as an individual or as a member of The Goons—had an influence on a number of comedians, including Peter Cook, David Schwimmer, Sacha Baron Cohen and the Monty Python and Spinal Tap teams.

Biography

Family background and early life (1925–35)

Blue plaque memorial at Sellers birthplace in Castle Road, Portsmouth

Sellers was born on 8 September 1925, in Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth. His parents were Yorkshire-born William "Bill" Sellers (1900–62) and Agnes Doreen "Peg" (née Marks, 1892–1967); both were variety entertainers, with Peg being one of the Ray Sisters troupe. Although he was christened Richard Henry, his parents always called him Peter, after an elder stillborn brother, apart from whom Sellers was an only child. Peg Sellers was related to the pugilist Daniel Mendoza (1764–1836), a relative Sellers greatly revered, and whose engraving later hung in his office. At one time Sellers planned to have Mendoza's image for his production company's logo.

Sellers was two weeks old when he was carried on stage by Dick Henderson, the headline act at the Kings Theatre in Southsea: the crowd sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and Sellers burst into tears. With both his parents in variety, the family were constantly touring. The theatre commitments caused much upheaval in the young Sellers's life, prompting him to say later, "I really didn't like that period of my life as a kid".

Sellers had a very close relationship with his mother; his friend Spike Milligan considered later that "it really is unhealthy for a grown man to be so needful of his mother". Sellers's agent, Dennis Selinger, recalled his first meeting with Peg and Peter Sellers, noting that "Sellers was an immensely shy young man, inclined to be dominated by his mother, but without resentment or objection".

In 1935, the Sellers family settled in North London, initially in a flat in Muswell Hill. Although Bill Sellers was Protestant and Peg was Jewish, Sellers attended the North London Roman Catholic school St. Aloysius College, run by the Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy. According to his biographer, Roger Lewis, Sellers was intrigued by Catholicism, but soon after entering Catholic school, he "discovered he was a Jew—he was someone on the outside of the mysteries of faith." Later in his life, Sellers was quoted as saying "My father was solid Church of England but my mother was Jewish, Portuguese Jewish, and Jews take the faith of their mother." He became a top student at the school, thus avoiding the physical abuse often administered by the teaching staff for lack of study. Sellers later recalled one such occasion where a teacher scolded the other boys for not studying, saying: "The Jewish boy knows his catechism better than the rest of you!"

Early experiences of performance (1935–39)

Accompanying his family on the variety show circuit, Sellers learned stagecraft, which proved valuable later. However, he grew up with conflicting influences from his parents and developed mixed feelings about show business. His father doubted that Peter would achieve much in the entertainment field, even suggesting that his son's talents were only enough to become a road sweeper, while Sellers's mother encouraged him continually.

While at St Aloysius College, Sellers began to develop his improvisational skills. Sellers and his closest friend at the time, Bryan Connon, both enjoyed listening to early radio comedy shows and Connon remembers that "Peter got endless pleasure imitating the people in Monday Night at Eight. He had a gift for improvising dialogue. Sketches, too. I'd be the 'straight man', the 'feed', ... I'd cue Peter and he'd do all the radio personalities and chuck in a few voices of his own invention as well."

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, St Aloysius College was evacuated to Cambridgeshire, but Peg did not allow Sellers to go, a decision which ended his formal education at fourteen. Early in 1940 Peg decided to move to the north Devon town of Ilfracombe, where her brother managed the Victoria Palace Theatre; Sellers got his first job at the theatre aged fifteen, starting as a caretaker. He was steadily promoted, becoming a box office clerk, usher, assistant stage manager and lighting operator. He was also offered some small acting parts. Working backstage gave him a chance to see serious actors at work, such as Paul Scofield. He also became close friends with Derek Altman, and together they launched Sellers's first stage act under the name "Altman and Sellers," where they played ukuleles, sang, and told jokes. They also both enjoyed reading detective stories by Dashiell Hammett, and were inspired to start their own detective agency, although "their enterprise ended abruptly when a potential client ripped Sellers's fake moustache off."

During his regular job backstage at the theatre, Sellers began practising on a set of drums that belonged to the band Joe Daniels and his Hot Shots. Daniels noticed his efforts and gave him practical instructions. Sellers's biographer Ed Sikov wrote that "drumming suited him. Banging in time Pete could envelop himself in a world of near-total abstraction, all in the context of a great deal of noise." Spike Milligan later noted that Sellers was very proficient on the drums and might have remained a jazz drummer, if his mimicry and improvisation skills had not been so good.

Second World War (1939–45)

As the Second World War progressed, Sellers continued to develop his drumming skills, and he joined a series of bands to tour, including those of Oscar Rabin, Henry Hall and Waldini, as well as his father's quartet, before he left and joined a band from Blackpool. In the latter two of these bands, Sellers was a member of Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), the organisation that provided entertainment for British forces and factory workers during the war. Sellers would also perform comedy routines at these concerts, including impersonations of George Formby, with Sellers accompanying his own singing on ukulele.

In September 1943 he joined the Royal Air Force, although it is unclear whether he volunteered or was enlisted; his mother tried to have him disqualified on medical grounds, but failed. Although Sellers wished to become a pilot, his poor eyesight meant he was restricted to ground staff duties only. He found the duties dull, and auditioned for Squadron Leader Ralph Reader's RAF Gang Show entertainment troupe: Reader accepted him and Sellers toured the UK before being the troupe was transferred to India. His tour also included Ceylon and Burma, although the duration of his stay in Asia is unknown and its length may have been exaggerated by Sellers himself. He also served in Germany and France after the war.

Another Gang Show player, actor David Lodge, became friends with Sellers and described his role in the show, saying "Peter on the drums was one of the best performers ever. 'Drumming Man' was how he was billed. He closed the show. To see him do his jazz numbers was a show in itself, throwing up the sticks, catching them. Nothing could have followed him!" Occasionally Sellers impersonated his superiors by bluffing his way into the Officers' Mess using mimicry and make-up. Lodge clearly remembers the first time he witnessed Sellers impersonating an officer, after he pulled a squadron leader's uniform out of the props. The band's trumpeter first tried to stop him: "I noticed his walk had even gotten years older, and carried an authority I never imagined Peter could muster. He threw open the door of the men's bunkhouse and waited a second before he entered—even then he had a great sense of timing ... Then he walked down the centre, eyeing them with quiet pride ... imitating impeccably the tones of a man unused to having his authority questioned."

Early post-war career and The Goon Show (1946–55)

In 1946 Sellers performed his final show with ENSA, Jack and the Beanstalk at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris, before being posted back to England to work at the Air Ministry. He was demobilised later the same year. On resuming his theatrical career, Sellers had difficulty in securing bookings and work was sporadic. He was fired after one performance of a stand-up comedy routine in Peterborough, but the headline act, Welsh vocalist Dorothy Squires, took pity on him and persuaded the management to reinstate him. Sellers was also continuing his drumming and was billed on his appearance at the Aldershot Hippodrome as "Britain's answer to Gene Krupa". In March 1948, Sellers gained a slot at the Windmill Theatre in London which predominantly staged revue acts: he provided the comedy turns in between the nude shows on offer. He undertook a six-week run at the theatre, earning £30 a week.

In 1948 Sellers wrote to the BBC, and was subsequently auditioned. As a result he made his television debut on 18 March 1948 in New To You, with an act that was largely based on impressions; he was well received and returned to appear the following week. Frustrated with the slow development of his career, Sellers telephoned BBC radio producer Roy Speer, pretending to be Kenneth Horne, star of the radio show Much Binding in the Marsh. Speer called Sellers a "cheeky young sod" for his efforts, but he was given an audition as a result, which initially led to a brief appearance on 1 July 1948 on ShowTime and subsequently to his work on Ray's a Laugh with comedian Ted Ray. By the end of October 1948 Sellers was a regular radio performer, appearing in Starlight Hour, The Gang Show, Henry Hall's Guest Night and It's Fine To Be Young.

In December 1948 the BBC Third Programme broadcast the comedy series Third Division, which starred, among others, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Sellers. One evening Sellers and Bentine visited the Hackney Empire, where Secombe was performing, and Bentine introduced Sellers to Spike Milligan. The four would meet up at Grafton's public house near Victoria, where the owner, Jimmy Grafton was also a BBC script writer; the four comedians dubbed him KOGVOS (Keeper of Goons and Voice of Sanity) and he went on to edit some of the first Goon Shows.

In 1949 Sellers had started to date Anne Howe, an Australian actress who had been living and working in London for some time. The couple were introduced by Sellers's agent in late 1949, and Sellers proposed to her in April 1950. The couple married at Caxton Hall in London on 15 September 1951, and their son, Michael, was born on 2 April 1954, with a daughter, Sarah, following in 1958.

Sellers was first involved in film work in 1950, when he dubbed the voice of Alfonso Bedoya in The Black Rose. He continued to work with Secombe, Bentine and Milligan; from their first meeting the four tried to interest the BBC in their work, but it was not until 3 February 1951 that, as "the Goons", they made a trial tape for BBC producer Pat Dixon, which was eventually accepted. The first Goon Show was broadcast on 28 May 1951 under the name Crazy People—against the wishes of the Goons themselves. Sellers appeared in every episode of The Goons; the last programme of the ten-series run was broadcast on 28 January 1960. Starting with a listener base of 370,000, the show eventually reached up to seven million people in Britain, and was described by one newspaper as "probably the most influential comedy show of all time".

I'm All Right Jack and early years in film (1956–59)

Sellers continued his attempts to move into films, taking a number of small parts before being offered a bigger role in the 1955 Ealing Comedy The Ladykillers as Harry Robinson, the teddy boy. Sellers played opposite Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom and Cecil Parker and this was seen to be his "first good role" by biographer Peter Evans. The Ladykillers was a success in both Britain and the US and it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 29th Academy Awards. No further film work was available for Sellers immediately after the film, so, in 1956, The Goons ran three series on Britain's new television station, ITV; the series were The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d, A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred. Film producer Michael Relph was impressed with one of Sellers's portrayals of an elderly character in Idiot Weekly, he cast the 32-year-old actor as a 68-year-old projectionist in The Smallest Show on Earth.

Sellers's difficulties in improving his film career and increasing problems in his personal life prompted him to seek periodic consultations with astrologer Maurice Woodruff, who held considerable sway over his later career. After a chance meeting with a North American Indian spirit guide in the 1950s, Sellers became convinced that the music hall comedian Dan Leno, who died in 1904, haunted him and guided him into making career and life decisions.

Sellers released his first album in 1958, The Best of Sellers's', a collection of sketches and comic songs, the latter of which were undertaken in a variety of comic characters. The record reached number 3 in the UK Albums Chart; it was produced by George Martin and released on Parlophone. The same year, Sellers made his first film with John and Roy Boulting, the 1958 comedy Carlton-Browne of the F.O., in which he played a supporting role for the film's lead, Terry-Thomas. Before the film had been released, the Boultings, with Sellers and Terry-Thomas in the cast, started filming I'm All Right Jack. When he first saw the script, Sellers turned the role down, asking "Where are the funny lines?" After a week of discussion and persuasion he agreed to take the role of Fred Kite, a shop steward; Sellers prepared for the role by watching footage of union officials, but was still unsure whether his characterisation would be humorous until his screen test was met with laughter and spontaneous applause from the crew. Sellers won the Best British Actor at the 13th British Academy Film Awards for his portrayal of Kite; the film became the biggest box office hit in Britain of 1960.

In between Carlton-Browne of the F.O. and I'm All Right Jack, Sellers also starred in The Mouse That Roared; he played three leading and distinct roles: the elderly queen, the ambitious Prime Minister and the innocent and clumsy farm boy selected to lead an invasion of the United States. After completing I'm All Right Jack, Sellers returned to record a new series of The Goon Show. Over the course of two weekends he took his 16mm cine camera to Totteridge Lane in London and filmed himself, Spike Milligan, Mario Fabrizi, Leo McKern and Richard Lester. Lester also helped with the editing and the result was The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, an eleven-minute short film which was only meant for showing amongst friends. Instead the film was screened at the 1959 Edinburgh and San Francisco film festivals, winning the award for best fiction short in the latter festival. The film was then nominated for an Academy Award for Short Subject (Live Action) at the 1960 Academy Awards. In 1959 Sellers released his second album, Songs For Swinging Sellers's', which, like his first record, also reached number 3 in the UK Albums Chart.

The Millionairess, Lolita, The Pink Panther and divorce (1960–63)

In 1960 Sellers portrayed an Indian doctor, Dr. Ahmed el Kabir, in the romantic comedy The Millionairess. The film was based on a George Bernard Shaw play of the same name; Sellers was not interested in taking the role until he learnt that his glamorous co-star was to be Sophia Loren. When asked about Loren, he explained to reporters "I don't normally act with romantic, glamorous women ... she's a lot different from Harry Secombe." Sellers and Loren developed a close relationship during filming, with Sellers declaring his love for her, even in front of his wife; Sellers went as far as to wake his son at 3am to ask "Do you think I should divorce your mummy?"

The film inspired the George Martin-produced novelty hit single with Sellers and Loren Goodness Gracious Me, which reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart in November 1960. A follow-up single by the couple, Bangers and Mash, reached number 22 in the UK chart. The songs were included on an album released by the couple, Peter & Sophia, which reached number 5 in the UK Albums Chart.In 1961 Sellers made his directorial debut with Mr. Topaze, a film in which he also starred. The film, which was based on the Marcel Pagnol play Topaze, was met with an unenthusiastic response from its audiences, and Sellers rarely referred to it again.

That year he starred in Only Two Can Play, a film based on the novel That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis. He was nominated for the Best British Actor award at the 16th British Academy Film Awards for his role as John Lewis, a frustrated Welsh librarian.

Later in 1962, Stanley Kubrick asked Sellers to play the role of Clare Quilty in Lolita, opposite James Mason and Shelley Winters. Kubrick had seen Sellers's in The Battle of the Sexes and listened to the album The Best of Sellers's', and was impressed by the range of characters Sellers portrayed. Sellers was nervous about taking it on, feeling that the part of a flamboyant American television playwright was beyond his ability, mainly because Quilty was, in Sellers's words, "a fantastic nightmare, part homosexual, part drug addict, part sadist". Kubrick eventually succeeded in persuading him; he did not think his portrayal had been plausible until people came up to him afterwards and told him they felt he had been believable. According to Alexander Walker, working on Lolita was "the first time he tasted what it was like to work creatively during shooting, not just in the preproduction run-up." Kubrick had American jazz producer Norman Granz record Sellers's portions of the script for Sellers to listen to, so he could study the voice and develop confidence. Writing in The Sunday Times, Dilys Powell noted that Sellers gave "a firework performance, funny, malicious, only once for a few seconds overreaching itself, and in the murder scene which is both prologue and epilogue achieving the macabre in comedy."

Unlike most of his earlier well-rehearsed film roles, Sellers was encouraged by Kubrick to improvise throughout the filming in order to exhaust all the possibilities of his character. In order to capture Sellers in the shortest number of takes, Kubrick often used as many as three cameras. Kubrick later described the filming process: "When Peter was called to the set he would usually arrive walking very slowly and staring morosely ... As work progressed, he would begin to respond to something or other in the scene, his mood would visibly brighten and we would begin to have fun. Improvisational ideas began to click and the rehearsal started to feel good. On many of these occasions, I think, Peter reached what can only be described as a state of comic ecstasy." Kubrick gave him a free licence to break the rules and, as Sellers's biographer Alexander Walker notes, Sellers "indulged in his liking for setting himself problems, encouraged by Kubrick to explore the outer limits of the comédie noire—and sometimes, he felt, go over them—in a way that appealed to the macabre imagination of himself and his director." Oswald Morris, the film's cinematographer, further commented that, "the most interesting scenes were the ones with Peter Sellers, which were total improvisations." Because of this experience, Sellers later claimed that his relationship with Kubrick became one of the most rewarding of his career.

Sellers's behaviour towards his family worsened in 1962; according to his son Michael, at one point Sellers talked to him and his sister Sarah and "asked us who we love more, our mother or him. Sarah, to keep the peace, said, 'I love you both equally'. I said, 'No, I love my mum.' He threw the two of us out and said he never wanted to see us again." At the end of 1962 his marriage to Anne finally broke down, and in October Sellers's father Bill died, aged sixty-two. After the death, Sellers decided to leave England after he had filmed the main roles in Heavens Above! and The Wrong Arm of the Law. Having completed them, Sellers was approached by director Blake Edwards who offered him the lead role in The Pink Panther; Sellers's first international filming engagement.

Edwards' last minute offer for the role of Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau was prompted by the decision of Peter Ustinov to suddenly back out of the film; Edwards later recalled his feelings as "desperately unhappy and ready to kill, but as fate would have it, I got Mr. Sellers instead of Mr. Ustinov—thank God!" The film starred David Niven in the principal role, with two other actors—Capucine and Claudia Cardinale—in more prominent roles than Sellers, but Sellers's performance was "his first memorable performance as a visual screen comic in the Chaplin-Keaton tradition and class", according to biographer Peter Evans. Although the Clouseau character was in the script, Sellers created the personality. While flying to Rome for filming, he used the time alone to devise the character and appearance which included the costume, accent, make-up, moustache and trench coat. Sellers described the character's personality he would portray:

I'll play Clouseau with great dignity, because he thinks of himself as one of the world's best detectives. Even when he comes a cropper, he must pick himself up with that notion intact. The original script makes him out to be a complete idiot. I think a forgivable vanity would humanize him and make him kind of touching. It's as if filmgoers are kept one fall ahead of him.

The Pink Panther was not released until January 1964, when it received only a lukewarm reception from the critics, although Penelope Gilliatt, writing in The Observer, considered that "Sellers's part is played with a flawless sense of mistiming". She went on to say that his performance "is one of the most delicate studies in accident-proneness since the silents". Despite the reaction of some critics, Sellers was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy at the 22nd Golden Globe Awards, and for a Best British Actor award at the 18th British Academy Film Awards.

Dr. Strangelove, health problems, a second marriage and Casino Royale (1964–69)

Group Captain Mandrake

President Merkin Muffley

Dr. Strangelove

In 1963, Stanley Kubrick cast Sellers to appear in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and asked Sellers to play four roles: US President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake of the RAF and Major TJ 'King' Kong. Sellers was initially hesitant about taking on the task, but Kubrick convinced him that there was no better actor that could play the parts. Kubrick commented later that the idea of having Sellers in so many of the film's key roles was that "everywhere you turn there is some version of Peter Sellers holding the fate of the world in his hands".

Sellers was concerned about the role of Kong, feeling that he had not managed to understand the characterisation or imitate the Texan voice. Kubrick asked the screenwriter Terry Southern to record a tape of Kong's lines spoken in his natural accent. Using Southern's tape, Sellers managed to get the accent right, and started shooting the scenes in the airplane, which Kubrick thought were good. After the first day's shooting, Sellers sprained his ankle while leaving a restaurant and could not work in the cramped cockpit set. Kubrick was forced to re-cast the part with Slim Pickens as Kong.

The three roles Sellers undertook were all distinct, "variegated, complex and refined", and critic Alexander Walker considered that these roles "showed his genius at full stretch". Sellers played Muffley as a bland, placid intellectual in the mould of Adlai Stevenson; he played Mandrake as an unflappable Englishman; and Dr. Strangelove, a character influenced by pre-war German cinema, as a wheelchair-bound fanatic. For his performance in all three roles, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor at the 37th Academy Awards, and the Best British Actor award at the 18th British Academy Film Awards.

Between November 1963 and February 1964, Sellers began filming A Shot in the Dark, an adaptation of a French play by L'Idiote by Marcel Achard. Sellers found the part and the director, Anatole Litvak, uninspiring; the producers brought in Blake Edwards to replace Litvak. Together with writer William Peter Blatty, they turned the script into a Clouseau comedy. During the making of the film, Sellers's relationship with Edwards was often strained; the two sometimes stopped speaking to each other during filming, communicating by passing each other notes. Sellers's personality was described by others as difficult and demanding, and he often clashed with fellow actors and directors.

Towards the end of filming, in early February 1964, Sellers met Britt Ekland, a Swedish actress who had arrived in London to film Guns at Batasi; ten days after their meeting—on 19 February 1964—the couple married at the Registry Office in Guildford, Surrey. Shortly after the wedding Sellers started filming for Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid, playing opposite Dean Martin and Kim Novak. On the night of 5 April 1964, Sellers visited Disneyland with his family; that evening he took amyl nitrates prior to having sex with Ekland, after which he suffered a series of eight minor heart attacks over the course of three hours. His health meant he had to withdraw from the filming of Kiss Me, Stupid and he was replaced by Ray Walston. Wilder was unsympathetic about the heart attacks, saying that "you have to have a heart before you can have an attack".

After his illness, Sellers returned in October 1964 to film for three days, playing King of the Individualists alongside Ekland in Carol for Another Christmas, a United Nations special, broadcast on ABC on 28 December 1964. Sellers had been concerned that his heart attacks may have caused brain damage and he would be unable to remember his lines, so the filming reassured him. Sellers followed this with the role of Doctor Fritz Fassbender in What's New Pussycat?, appearing alongside Peter O'Toole and Capucine, the latter of whom had also appeared with him in The Pink Panther; the film was the first screenwriting and acting job for Woody Allen. Because of Sellers's health, producer Charles K. Feldman personally insured him at a cost of $360,000 ($3,536,652 in 2025 dollars).

On 20 January 1965 Sellers and Ekland announced the birth of a daughter, Victoria, before they moved to Rome in May to film After the Fox in which they were both to appear. The film was directed by Vittorio De Sica, whose English Sellers struggled to understand. As a result, the film shoot was a troubled one with Sellers attempting to have De Sica fired. The problems with the film were compounded by Sellers being unhappy with his wife's performance, which put a strain on their relationship. The couple argued on a number of occasions and during one fight Sellers threw a chair at Ekland. Sellers also recorded "A Hard Day's Night" in the style of a Shakespeare soliloquy by Sir Laurence Olivier. The single reached 14 in the UK singles chart in December.

Following the commercial success of What's New Pussycat?, Charles Feldman again brought together Sellers and Woody Allen for his next project, Casino Royale, which also starred Orson Welles; Sellers was on a $1 million contract for the film. ($9,137,725 in 2025 dollars) Seven screenwriters worked on the project, and the filming process was chaotic. To make matters worse, according to Ekland, at the time Sellers was "so insecure, he won't trust anyone". A poor working relationship quickly developed between Sellers and Welles and Sellers eventually demanded that the two should not share the same set. Sellers eventually left the film in May or June, before his part was completed, and the script was re-written for Terence Cooper to take over as another 007.

Shortly after Sellers left Casino Royale, he was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE). The day before the investiture at Buckingham Palace, Sellers and Ekland fought again, with Ekland scratching his face in the process. Sellers called a make-up artist to cover the scratches, noting afterwards that "the Queen didn't spot it". During his next film, The Bobo, which co-starred Ekland, the couple's marital situation worsened. Three weeks into production in Italy, Sellers told director Robert Parrish to fire his wife, saying "I'm not coming back after lunch if that bitch is on the set". Sellers also upset the film crew with his derogatory comments about his wife.. Ekland later stated that the marriage was "an atrocious sham" at this stage. In the midst of filming The Bobo, Sellers's mother had a heart attack; Parrish asked Sellers if he wanted to visit her in hospital, but Sellers remained with the film. She died within days, without Sellers having seen her. He was deeply depressed by her death and remorseful at not having returned to London to see her. Sellers's marriage broke up shortly afterwards and Ekland served him with divorce papers; it was finalised on 18 December 1968, and Sellers's friend Spike Milligan sent Ekland a congratulatory telegram.

Sellers's first film appearance of 1968 was a reunion with Blake Edwards for the comedy The Party. He appears as Hrundi V. Bakshi, a character Sellers's biographer Peter Evans sees as "clearly an amalgam of Clouseau and the doctor in The Millionairess". Sellers's biographer, Roger Lewis notes that like a number of Sellers's characters, he is played in a sympathetic and dignified manner. He followed it later that year with I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, playing an attorney who abandons his lifestyle to become a hippie.

The "period of indifference": two marriages, two Pink Panther films (1970–78)

File:Peter Sellers - Goldie Hawn - Theres s Girl In my Soup - 1970.jpg

With Goldie Hawn in There's a Girl in My Soup (1970)

In 1970 There's a Girl in My Soup was released in which Sellers starred with Goldie Hawn. Andrew Spicer, writing for the British Film Institute's Screenonline, considers that although Sellers favoured playing romantic roles, he "was always more successful in parts that sent up his own vanities and pretensions, as with the TV presenter and narcissistic lothario" [sic] he played in There's a Girl in My Soup. Although the film was seen as a mini-revival in his career, the effects did not last long. Professionally, fellow comedian and friend Spike Milligan noted that the early 1970s were for Sellers "a period of indifference, and it would appear at one time that his career might have come to a conclusion". In his private life he had been seeing the twenty-three-year-old model Miranda Quarry and the couple married on 24 August 1970 at Caxton Hall, even though Sellers had contacted his agent, Dennis Selinger, shortly after the announcement to ask "Den, how do I get out of it?"

On 20 April 1972, Sellers reunited with Milligan and Harry Secombe to record The Last Goon Show of All, which was broadcast on 5 October. His film career was uncertain: his biographer, Peter Evans, notes that "in four years he had made nine films: three were never released; five had flopped ... only There's a Girl in My Soup had done well. For The Optimists of Nine Elms, however, he did win the Best Actor award at the 1973 Tehran Film Festival.

In May 1973, with his third marriage failing and divorce approaching, Sellers went to the theatre to watch Liza Minnelli perform. He was entranced and three days later the couple were engaged, despite Minnelli being engaged to Desi Arnaz, Jr., and Sellers still being married. The relationship lasted a month before breaking up. In 1974, Sellers's friends were concerned that he was having a nervous breakdown. Directors John and Roy Boulting considered that Sellers was "a deeply troubled man, distrustful, self-absorbed, ultimately self-destructive. He was the complete contradiction." Sellers was shy and insecure when out of character. When he was invited to appear on Michael Parkinson's eponymous chat show in 1974, he withdrew the day before, explaining to Parkinson that "I just can't walk on as myself". When he was told he could come on as someone else, he appeared dressed as a member of the Gestapo. After a few lines in keeping with his assumed character, he stepped out of the role and settled down and, according to Parkinson himself, "was brilliant, giving the audience an astonishing display of his virtuosity". During the course of 1974 Sellers claimed to have again spoken with the long-dead music hall comic Dan Leno, who advised him to return to the role of Clouseau.

In 1975 he again teamed up with Blake Edwards for The Return of the Pink Panther, which earned him a nomination for the Best Actor – Musical or Comedy award at the 33rd Golden Globe Awards. In 1976 he followed it with The Pink Panther Strikes Again and was nominated again.

In March 1976 Sellers began dating actress Lynne Frederick, whom he married on 18 February 1977. On 20 March he suffered a second major heart attack, and he was fitted with a pacemaker. Sellers returned from his illness to undertake Revenge of the Pink Panther, stating afterwards that "I've honestly had enough of Clouseau—I've got nothing more to give". The return to the Pink Panther films was a move that reinvigorated Sellers's career and made him a millionaire. Steven Bach, the senior vice-president and head of worldwide productions for United Artists, who worked with Sellers on Revenge Of The Pink Panther, considered that Sellers was "deeply unbalanced, if not committable: that was the source of his genius and his truly quite terrifying aspects as manipulator and hysteric".

Sellers would claim that he had no personality and was almost unnoticeable, which meant that he "needed a strongly defined character to play". He would make similar references throughout his life: when he appeared on The Muppet Show he chose not to appear as himself, instead appearing in a variety of costumes and accents. When Kermit the Frog told Sellers he could relax and be himself, Sellers replied:

But that, you see, my dear Kermit, would be altogether impossible. I could never be myself ... You see, there is no me. I do not exist ... There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.
— Peter Sellers, The Muppet Show, February 1978

Being There, Fu Manchu and marital problems (1979–80)

In 1979, Sellers played the role of Chance, a mindless, emotionless gardener addicted to watching TV, in the black comedy Being There. The film was considered by one critic, Danny Smith, to be the "crowning triumph of Peter Sellers's remarkable career". During a BBC interview in 1971, Sellers had said that more than anything else, he wanted to play the role of Chance. Jerzy Kosinski, the book's author, felt that the novel was never meant to be made into a film, but Sellers succeeded in changing his mind, and Kosinski allowed Sellers and director Hal Ashby to make the film, provided he could write the script.

Sellers's described his experience of working on the film as "so humbling, so powerful". During the filming, in order not to break his character, he refused most interview requests and kept his distance from other actors. He tried to remain in character even after he returned home. Sellers considered Chance's walking and voice the character's most important attributes, and in preparing for the role, he worked alone with a tape recorder, or with his wife, and then with Ashby, to perfect the clear enunciation and flat delivery needed to reveal "the childlike mind behind the words". Co-star Shirley MacLaine found Sellers "a dream" to work with, while the story's author and screenwriter Jerzy Kosinski claimed that "nobody thought Chance was even a character, yet Peter knew that man."

Sellers's performance was praised by critics and biographer Ed Sikov considers that Sellers achieved "the pinpoint-sharp exactitude of nothingness. It is a performance of extraordinary dexterity". Critic Frank Rich noted the acting skill required for this sort of role, with a "schismatic personality that Peter had to convey with strenuous vocal and gestural technique ... A lesser actor would have made the character's mental dysfunction flamboyant and drastic ... intelligence was always deeper, his onscreen confidence greater, his technique much more finely honed": in achieving this, Sellers "makes the film's fantastic premise credible".

The film earned Sellers a Best Actor award at the 51st National Board of Review Awards; the Best Actor award at the 45th New York Film Critics Circle Awards; and the Best Actor – Musical or Comedy award at the 37th Golden Globe Awards. Additionally, Sellers was nominated for the Best Actor award at the 52nd Academy Awards and the Best Actor in a Leading Role award at the 34th British Academy Film Awards.

In March 1980 Sellers asked his fifteen-year-old daughter Victoria what she thought about Being There: she replied, "I said yes, I thought it was great. But then I said, 'You looked like a little fat old man'. ... he went mad. He threw his drink over me and told me to get the next plane home." His other daughter Sarah told Sellers her thoughts about the incident and he sent her a telegram that read "After what happened this morning with Victoria, I shall be happy if I never hear from you again. I won't tell you what I think of you. It must be obvious. Goodbye, Your Father."

Sellers's last film was The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, a comedic re-imagining of the eponymous adventure novels by Sax Rohmer; Sellers played both police inspector Nayland Smith and Fu Manchu. The production of the film was troublesome before filming started, with two directors—Richard Quine and John Avildsen—both fired before the script had been completed. Sellers also expressed dissatisfaction with his own portrayal of Manchu and his ill-health also caused delays. Arguments between Sellers and director Piers Haggard led to Haggard being fired at Sellers's instigation and Sellers took over direction, using his long-time friend David Lodge to direct some sequences.

Sellers's final performances were a series of advertisements, filmed in April in Ireland, for Barclays Bank, in which he played a Jewish conman, Monty Casino. Four were scheduled, but only three were filmed as Sellers collapsed in Dublin, again with heart problems. After two days in care—and against the advice of his doctors—he travelled to the Cannes Film Festival, where Being There was in competition. Sellers was again ill in Cannes, and Steven Bach, the United Artists VP, noted shortly afterwards that Sellers "seemed frail, infinitely fragile ... a spectral presence, a man made of eggshells". Back at home in Gstaad, Switzerland, Sellers worked on the script for his next project, Romance of the Pink Panther. He also agreed to undergo an angiogram at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, to see if he was able to undergo open-heart surgery. Spike Milligan later noted that Sellers heart condition had lasted fifteen years and had "made life difficult for him and had a debilitating effect on his personality". His fourth marriage was also in trouble, with his wife telling Malcolm McDowell that she was arranging a divorce, and Sellers telling his son that "She annoys me ... I just wish the divorce was over and done with." Sellers also phoned Milligan and discussed his will, agreeing that he would arrange for his children to receive a share of his estate.

Sellers had recently started to rebuild his relationship with his son Michael after the failure of the latter's marriage. Michael later said that "it marked the beginning of an all-too-brief closeness between us". Sellers admitted to his son that "he hated so many things he had done", including leaving his first wife, Anne, and his infatuation with Sophia Loren.

Death and subsequent family issues

On 21 July 1980 Sellers flew into London from Geneva and checked into the Dorchester Hotel, before visiting Golders Green Crematorium for the first time to see the location of the ashes of his mother and father. He had plans to attend a reunion dinner with his Goon Show partners Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, scheduled for the evening of 22 July. On the day of the dinner Sellers took lunch in his hotel suite and shortly afterwards collapsed from a heart attack. He was taken to the Middlesex Hospital, London, and died just after midnight on 24 July 1980, aged 54.

Following Sellers's death, fellow actor Richard Attenborough noted that Sellers "had the genius comparable to Chaplin", while filmmakers, the Boulting brothers considered Sellers "was a man of enormous gifts; and these gifts he gave to the world. For them, he is assured of a place in the history of art as entertainment." Burt Kwouk, who appeared as Cato in the Pink Panther films noted that "Peter was a well-loved actor in Britain ... the day he died, it seemed that the whole country came to a stop. Everywhere you went, the fact that Peter had died seemed like an umbrella over everything". Director Blake Edwards thought that "Peter was brilliant. He had an enormous facility for finding really unusual, unique facets of the character he was playing". Sellers's friend and Goon Show colleague Harry Secombe said "I'm shattered. Peter was such a tremendous artist. He had so much talent, it just oozed out of him", although he also joked "Anything to avoid paying for dinner". Secombe later noted to journalists "Bluebottle is deaded now". Fellow Goon, Spike Milligan, was too upset to speak to the press at the time of Sellers's death, but in retrospect he thought that "it's hard to say this, but he died at the right time."

A private funeral service was held at Golders Green Crematorium on 26 July, conducted by Sellers's old friend, Canon John Hester; his final joke was the playing of "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller, a tune he hated. His body was cremated and his ashes were interred at Golders Green Crematorium in London. After her death in 1994, the ashes of his widow Frederick were co-interred with his. A memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 8 September 1980—what would have been Sellers's fifty-fifth birthday. Lord Snowdon read the twenty-third Psalm, Harry Secombe sang "Bread of Heaven" and the eulogy was read by David Niven.

Although Sellers was reportedly in the process of excluding Frederick from his will a week before he died, she inherited almost his entire estate worth an estimated £4.5 million while his children received £800 each. Spike Milligan appealed to her personally on behalf of Sellers's three children, but she refused to increase the amount. Sellers's only son, Michael, died of a heart attack at 52 during surgery on 24 July 2006, 26 years to the day after his father's death. In 1986 Victoria appeared in Playboy and was indicted for cocaine smuggling; she worked as an escort with Heidi Fleiss in the "Hollywood Madam" scandal of 1993 and was deported from the US in 2006 after immigration violations. As of 2004, Sarah Sellers continued to live in London.

In 1982, Blake Edwards tried to continue with Romance of the Pink Panther and offered the role of Clouseau to Dudley Moore, who turned it down. Edwards subsequently released Trail of the Pink Panther, which was composed entirely of deleted scenes from his past three Panther films. Frederick saw the film as an exploitation of Sellers, and she successfully sued the film's producers for unauthorised use of her late husband's image.

Acting technique and preparation

Sellers's friend and Goon Show colleague Spike Milligan said that Sellers "had one of the most glittering comic talents of his age", while John and Ray Boulting noted that he was "the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin". In an October 1962 interview for Playboy, Sellers described how he prepared for his wide range of roles:

I start with the voice. I find out how the character sounds. It's through the way he speaks that I find out the rest about him. ... After the voice comes the looks of the man. I do a lot of drawings of the character I play. Then I get together with the makeup man and we sort of transfer my drawings onto my face. An involved process. After that I establish how the character walks. Very important, the walk. And then, suddenly, something strange happens. The person takes over. The man you play begins to exist.

Writer and playwright John Mortimer saw the process for himself when Sellers was about to undertake filming on Mortimer's The Dock Brief and could not decide how to play the character of the barrister. By chance he ordered cockles for lunch and the smell brought back a memory of the seaside town of Morecambe: this gave him "the idea of a faded North Country accent and the suggestion of a scrappy moustache". So important was the voice as the starting point for character development Sellers would walk round London with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, recording voices to study at home.

A feature of the characterisations undertaken by Sellers is that regardless of how clumsy or idiotic they are, he ensured they always retain their dignity. On playing Clouseau, he described that "I set out to play Clouseau with great dignity because I feel that he thinks he is probably one of the greatest detectives in the world. The original script makes him out to be a complete idiot. I thought a forgivable vanity would humanise him and make him kind of touching." His biographer, Ed Sikov, notes that because of this retained dignity, Sellers is "the master of playing men who have no idea how ridiculous they are." Film critic Dilys Powell also saw the inherent dignity in the parts and noted that Sellers had a "balance between character and absurdity". Richard Attenborough also thought that because of his sympathy, Sellers could "inject into his characterisations the frailty and substance of a human being". Critic Tom Milne saw a change over Sellers's career and noted that his "comic genius as a character actor was ... stifled by his elevation to leading man" and his later films suffered as a result.

Legacy and influence

In a 2005 poll to find "The Comedian's Comedian", Sellers was voted 14 in the list of the top 20 greatest comedians by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Sellers and The Goon Show were a strong influence on the Monty Python performers, as well as Peter Cook; Cook described Sellers as "the best comic actor in the world". The British actor Stephen Mangan stated that Sellers was a large influence, as did comedians Alan Carr and Rob Brydon. Sacha Baron Cohen referred to Peter Sellers as "the most seminal force in shaping his early ideas on comedy". Cohen was considered for the role of Sellers in the biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers's'. The three members of Spinal Tap—Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer—have also cited Sellers as being an influence on them, as has American talk-show host Conan O'Brien. David Schwimmer was another whose approach was influenced by Sellers: "he could do anything, from Dr Strangelove to Inspector Clouseau. He was just amazing."

Eddie Izzard notes that The Goons "influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as 'alternative'"—including himself, while Media historian, Graham McCann states "the anarchic spirit of the Goon Show ... would inspire, directly or indirectly and to varying extents, ... The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Young Ones, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, The League of Gentlemen Brass Eye.

The stage play Being Sellers's' premiered in Australia in 1998, three years after release of the biography by Roger Lewis, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers's'. The play premiered in New York in December 2010. In 2004, the book was turned into an HBO film, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, starring Geoffrey Rush.

Filmography and other works

Main article: Peter Sellers on stage, screen and record

Notes and references

Notes

Film critic Kenneth Tynan noted that one of Sellers's main "motive forces" for his ambition as an actor was "his hatred of anti-Semitism." Tynan opined that this led to Sellers's refusal "to be content with the secure reputation of a great mimic and his determination to go down in history as something more—a great actor, perhaps, or a great director".
The meaning of the acronym KOGVOS was flexible: it has also been defined as "King of Goons and Voice of Sanity" and "King of the Goons Voices Society".
Her maiden name was Anne Howe, while her professional name was Anne Hayes.
There is uncertainty if the relationship was anything more than platonic: a number of people, including Spike Milligan, consider it was an affair, whilst others, including Graham Stark, think it remained nothing more than a strong friendship. Sellers's wife at the time, Anne, afterwards commented that "I don't know to this day whether he had an affair with her. Nobody does."
The decree nisi was granted in March 1963 and Anne married Elias 'Ted' Levy in October the same year.
According to some accounts Sellers was also invited to play a fifth part, that of Buck Turgidson, but turned it down because it was too physically demanding.
The character may have been called Imperial Me, according to The New York Times.
Various theories have been given about the animosity between Sellers and Welles, including: Sellers trying to get Welles to laugh and Welles not responding; Sellers hearing a young woman comment that Welles was sexy; Sellers's comments about Welles' weight being objected to; and Seller's jealousy at Welles' friendship with Princess Margaret, who was also a friend of Sellers. Sellers's biographer Peter Evans, notes that "the real reason for this ... hostility is still uncertain", while another biographer, Ed Sikov notes that others were as much to blame for problems with the film.
The marriage was formally dissolved in September 1974.
Frederick subsequently married David Frost; she divorced him and married a cardiologist, Dr Barry Unger: she died in 1994 after struggling with drug and alcohol dependency.

References

^ Milligan, Spike (2004). "Sellers, Peter (1925–1980)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31669. Retrieved 9 July 2012. (subscription required)
Sikov 2002, p. 5.
^ Lewis 1995, p. 690.
Lewis 1995, p. 9.
Lewis 1995, p. 25.
Sikov 2002, p. 9.
^ Evans 1980, p. 45.
Evans 1980, p. 57.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 24.
^ Lewis 1995, p. 44.
Sikov 2002, p. 12.
Walker 1981, p. 11.
Sikov 2002, p. 8.
Sikov 2002, p. 18.
Walker 1981, p. 28.
^ Walker 1981, p. 32.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 19.
Sikov 2002, p. 20.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 22.
Lewis 1995, p. 85.
Walker 1981, p. 40.
Sikov 2002, p. 25.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 32.
Walker 1981, p. 42.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 26.
Walker 1981, p. 44.
Walker 1981, p. 46.
^ Lewis 1995, p. 132.
Sikov 2002, p. 32.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 38.
Walker 1981, p. 57.
Walker 1981, p. 58.
Sikov 2002, p. 40.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 45.
Rigelsford 2004, pp. 47–48.
^ Lewis 1995, p. 164.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 48.
Sikov 2002, p. 46.
Carpenter 2003, p. 90.
^ Barker, Dennis. "Goons (act. 1951–1960)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 July 2012. (subscription required)
^ Sikov 2002, p. 55.
Lewis 1995, p. 230.
Lewis 1995, p. 231.
Evans 1980, p. 68.
Evans 1980, p. 69.
Sikov 2002, p. 56.
Sikov 2002, p. 57.
Walker 1981, p. 71.
Walker 1981, p. 98.
Lewis 1995, p. 284.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 177.
Cook, William (27 April 1993). "Radio: Landmarks in radio comedy". The Guardian. London. p. 58.
Evans 1980, p. 79.
"The 29th Academy Awards (1957) Nominees and Winners". Oscar Legacy. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 65.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 71.
Sikov 2002, pp. 117–118.
Evans, Peter (7 November 2009). "Dynamite in bed – and ruthless out of it. Lynne, the gold-digger who tricked Peter Sellers's family out of his millions". Daily Mail. London. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
Anthony 2010, p. 200.
Hall 2006, p. 254.
Lewis 1995, p. 79.
^ "Peter Sellers, albums". Official UK Charts Archive. The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 186.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 123.
^ Boulting, John; Boulting, Roy (25 July 1980). "Peter the Great". The Guardian. London. p. 11.
Evans 1980, p. 85.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 80.
"BAFTA Awards 1959". BAFTA Awards Database. British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
Sikov 2002, p. 130.
Lewis 1995, p. 536.
Lewis 1995, p. 594.
Sikov 2002, pp. 120–121.
Oliver, John. "Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film, The (1960)". Screenonline. British Film Institute. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
"The 32nd Academy Awards (1960) Nominees and Winners". Oscar Legacy. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
Sikov 2002, p. 141.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 84.
Sikov 2002, p. 146.
Sellers 1981, p. 72.
Sikov 2002, p. 145.
^ "Peter Sellers & Sophia Loren". Official UK Charts Archive. The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
"Mr. Topaze (1961)". Film & TV Database. British Film Institute. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
Walker 1981, p. 108.
Walker 1981, p. 109.
Sikov 2002, p. 167.
Lewis 1995, p. 733.
"BAFTA Awards 1962". BAFTA Awards Database. British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
Evans 1980, p. 98.
^ Walker 1981, p. 117.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 91.
"'I Am Not a Funny Man'—Mr. Peter Sellers as Peter Sellers". The Times. London. 27 June 1962. p. 15.
Walker 1981, pp. 117–118.
Powell, Dilys (9 September 1962). "A Test for 'Lolita'". The Sunday Times. London. p. 33.
^ Walker 1981, p. 118.
LoBrutto 1999, pp. 204–205.
LoBrutto 1999, p. 205.
Sikov 2002, p. 254.
Sikov 2002, p. 180.
Walker 1981, p. 114.
Sikov 2002, p. 182.
Walker 1981, pp. 126–127.
Sikov 2002, p. 185.
Walker 1981, p. 127.
^ Evans 1980, p. 101.
^ Walker 1981, p. 128.
"Peter Sellers triumphs as a detective". The Guardian. London. 27 January 1964. p. 7.
Sikov 2002, p. 187.
^ Gilliatt, Penelope (12 January 1964). "Sellers strikes encore: FILMS". The Observer. London. p. 27.
"The 22nd Annual Golden Globe Awards (1965)". Golden Globe Awards. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
^ "BAFTA Awards 1964". BAFTA Awards Database. British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 191.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 101.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 100.
^ Evans 1980, p. 106.
Sikov 2002, p. 192.
Sikov 2002, pp. 192–193.
Sikov 2002, p. 193.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 197.
Walker 1981, p. 119.
Sikov 2002, p. 195.
Walker 1981, p. 120.
"The 37th Academy Awards (1965) Nominees and Winners". Oscar Legacy. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
Sikov 2002, p. 206.
Sikov 2002, p. 205.
Sikov 2002, p. 210.
^ Milne, Tom (27 July 1980). "The comic chameleon:". The Observer. London. p. 32.
Sikov 2002, p. 211.
Walker 1981, p. 134.
Evans 1980, p. 116.
Sellers 1981, p. 96.
Walker 1981, p. 138.
Sikov 2002, p. 224.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 228.
^ Vinciguerra, Thomas (20 December 2007). "Marley Is Dead, Killed in a Nuclear War". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
Walker 1981, p. 139.
Sikov 2002, p. 231.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 108.
^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved 29 February 2024.
Sikov 2002, p. 233.
Walker 1981, p. 141.
^ Walker 1981, p. 142.
Sikov 2002, p. 238.
Sikov 2002, p. 240.
"Peter Sellers". Official UK Charts Archive. The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
^ Benson 1988, p. 238.
Walker 1981, p. 143.
Walker 1981, p. 146.
Evans 1980, p. 127.
Walker 1981, p. 148.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 252.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 31.
Evans 1980, p. 130.
"The Birthday Honours". The Times. London. 11 June 1966. p. 14.
Sellers 1981, p. 113.
Sikov 2002, p. 259.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 261.
Sikov 2002, p. 264.
Sellers 1981, p. 112.
Sikov 2002, p. 285.
^ Evans 1980, p. 236.
Lewis 1995, p. 620.
Spicer, Andrew. "Sellers, Peter (1925–1980)". Screenonline. British Film Institute. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 119.
Sikov 2002, p. 310.
Walker 1981, p. 171.
Walker 1981, p. 172.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 182.
Evans 1980, p. 235.
"In the News". Take One. 4. Unicorn Publisher: 35. 1972.
WWW 1981, p. 714.
Sikov 2002, p. 326.
Walker 1981, p. 186.
Evans 1980, p. 231.
Lewis 1995, p. 823.
^ Mortimer, John (27 July 1980). "Creative Force of a Meticulous Clown". The Sunday Times. London. p. 37.
Parkinson 2009, p. 255.
Parkinson 2009, p. 256.
"The 22nd Annual Golden Globe Awards (1976)". Golden Globe Awards. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
"The 23rd Annual Golden Globe Awards (1977)". Golden Globe Awards. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
Walker 1981, p. 192.
Buchan, David (29 March 1977). "Sellers 'op'". Daily Express. London. p. 7.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 131.
Lewis 1995, p. 591.
"Obituary: Mr Peter Sellers". The Times. London. 25 July 1980. p. 16.
Sikov 2002, p. 352.
Sikov 2002, p. 357.
^ Smith, Danny (February 1981). "Giving Peter Sellers a Chance". Third Way. 4 (12). Hymns Ancient & Modern: 22–23.
^ Dawson 2009, p. 211.
Walker 1981, p. 204.
Sikov 2002, p. 361.
^ Rich, Frank (14 January 1980). "Cinema: Gravity Defied". Time. Retrieved 26 June 2012. (subscription required)
"Awards for 1979". NBR Awards. National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
"Peter Sellers: The Official Site". Peter Sellers: Awards. The Estate of Peter Sellers. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
"The 37th Annual Golden Globe Awards (1980)". Golden Globe Awards. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
"The 52nd Academy Awards (1980) Nominees and Winners". Oscar Legacy. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
"BAFTA Awards 1980". BAFTA Awards Database. British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 374.
Evans 1980, p. 242.
Walker 1981, p. 212.
Walker 1981, p. 213.
Sikov 2002, pp. 370–371.
Lewis 1995, p. 47.
Sikov 2002, p. 375.
Walker 1981, p. 215.
Sikov 2002, pp. 375–376.
^ Evans 1980, p. 246.
Sikov 2002, p. 377.
Walker 1981, p. 217.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 379.
Sellers 1981, p. 222.
^ Sellers, Michael (8 August 2004). "When Britt told Dad she wanted a baby he said: 'Have one of mine ... I've got two already.'". The Mail on Sunday. London. pp. 51–54.
Sikov 2002, p. 380.
Sikov 2002, pp. 381–382.
^ Chorlton, Penny (25 July 1980). "Stars' tributes to Peter Sellers". The Guardian. London. p. 1.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 382.
"Showbiz hails a comic genius". Daily Mirror. London. 25 July 1980. p. 5.
Mason, Peter (24 July 1980). "Actor Peter Dies". The Daily Express. London. p. 1.
Walker 1981, p. 225.
Merrin, Tom (25 July 1980). "No ex-wives at funeral". Daily Mirror. London. p. 5.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 7.
^ Graham, Caroline (8 February 2009). "The girl who got Peter Sellers's £5m – and she never even met him". Daily Mail. London. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 383.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 384.
Sellers & Morecambe 2000.
"US to deport Victoria Sellers". USA Today. 2 October 2006. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
^ Sikov 2002, p. 385.
Sikov 2002, pp. 385–386.
"Playboy interview: Peter Sellers". Playboy. 9 (10): 72. 1 October 1962.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 72.
Rigelsford 2004, p. 97.
Sikov 2002, p. 270.
Powell, Dilys (27 July 1980). "The delicate balance of Peter Sellers". The Sunday Times. London. p. 37.
"Cook voted 'comedians' comedian'". BBC News. 2 January 2005. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
Perry 2007, p. 16.
Perry 2007, p. 19.
"Stephen Mangan Interview". Channel 4. 6 March 2009. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
"An Interview with Alan Carr". Channel 4. 8 March 2010. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
Grant, Brigit (18 December 2011). "Little big man boxing clever". The Sunday Express. London. pp. 47–49.
Saunders 2009, p. 22.
Molitorisz, Sacha (22 July 2003). "Hard rock troubadours turn folk for larks". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney. p. 12.
Houpt, Simon (7 February 2004). "Conan gets creative with his Canadian invasion". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. p. R1.
Waterman, Ivan (17 June 2001). "After winning $1million an episode deal, the sitcom superstars call it a day; goodbye dear friends". Sunday Express. London. p. 3.
Games 2003, p. vii.
McCann 2006, pp. 344–345.
Merwin, Ted (23 November 2010). "Who Was Peter Sellers?". The Jewish Week. New York. Retrieved 26 June 2012.

Bibliography

Anthony, Barry (2010). The King's Jester. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-430-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Benson, Raymond (1988). The James Bond Bedside Companion. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85283-233-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carpenter, Humphrey (2003). Spike Milligan: The Biography. London: Coronet Books. ISBN 978-0-3408-2612-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Dawson, Nick (2009). Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2538-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Hall, Julian (2006). The Rough Guide to British Cult Comedy. London: Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1-8435-3618-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Evans, Peter (1980). The Mask Behind the Mask. London: Severn House Publishers. ISBN 0-7278-0688-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Games, Alexander (2003). The Essential Spike Milligan. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-0071-5511-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Lewis, Roger (1995). The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. London: Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0-0997-4700-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
LoBrutto, Vincent (1999). Stanley Kubrick: A Biography. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-3068-0906-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
McCann, Graham (2006). Spike & Co. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-89809-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Parkinson, Michael (2009). Parky: My Autobiography. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-3409-6167-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Perry, George (2007). The Life of Python. London: Pavilion Books. ISBN 978-1-8620-5762-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Rigelsford, Adrian (2004). Peter Sellers: A Life in Character. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-7535-0270-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Saunders, Robert A. (2009). The Many Faces of Sacha Baron Cohen: Politics, Parody, and the Battle Over Borat. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7391-2337-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Sellers, Michael (1981). P.S. I Love You!. Glasgow: William Collins, Sons. ISBN 0-00-216649-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Sellers, Michael; Morecambe, Gary (2000). Sellers on Sellers. London: André Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-2-339-9883-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Sikov, Ed (2002). Mr Strangelove; A Biography of Peter Sellers. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-2830-7297-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Walker, Alexander (1981). Peter Sellers. Littlehampton: Littlehampton Book Services. ISBN 978-0-2977-7965-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Who Was Who (1971–1980). London: A & C Black. 1981. ISBN 978-0-7136-2176-1.

External links

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

1952–1967

British	Ralph Richardson (1952) John Gielgud (1953) Kenneth More (1954) Laurence Olivier (1955) Peter Finch (1956) Alec Guinness (1957) Trevor Howard (1958) Peter Sellers (1959) Peter Finch (1960) Peter Finch (1961) Peter O'Toole (1962) Dirk Bogarde (1963) Richard Attenborough (1964) Dirk Bogarde (1965) Richard Burton (1966) Paul Scofield (1967)
Foreign	Marlon Brando (1952) Marlon Brando (1953) Marlon Brando (1954) Ernest Borgnine (1955) François Périer (1956) Henry Fonda (1957) Sidney Poitier (1958) Jack Lemmon (1959) Jack Lemmon (1960) Paul Newman (1961) Burt Lancaster (1962) Marcello Mastroianni (1963) Marcello Mastroianni (1964) Lee Marvin (1965) Rod Steiger (1966) Rod Steiger (1967)

1968–present

Spencer Tracy (1968)
Dustin Hoffman (1969)
Robert Redford (1970)
Peter Finch (1971)
Gene Hackman (1972)
Walter Matthau (1973)
Jack Nicholson (1974)
Al Pacino (1975)
Jack Nicholson (1976)
Peter Finch (1977)
Richard Dreyfuss (1978)
Jack Lemmon (1979)
John Hurt (1980)
Burt Lancaster (1981)
Ben Kingsley (1982)
Michael Caine / Dustin Hoffman (1983)
Haing S. Ngor (1984)
William Hurt (1985)
Bob Hoskins (1986)
Sean Connery (1987)
John Cleese (1988)
Daniel Day-Lewis (1989)
Philippe Noiret (1990)
Anthony Hopkins (1991)
Robert Downey Jr. (1992)
Anthony Hopkins (1993)
Hugh Grant (1994)
Nigel Hawthorne (1995)
Geoffrey Rush (1996)
Robert Carlyle (1997)
Roberto Benigni (1998)
Kevin Spacey (1999)
Jamie Bell (2000)
Russell Crowe (2001)
Daniel Day-Lewis (2002)
Bill Murray (2003)
Jamie Foxx (2004)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (2005)
Forest Whitaker (2006)
Daniel Day-Lewis (2007)
Mickey Rourke (2008)
Colin Firth (2009)
Colin Firth (2010)
Jean Dujardin (2011)
Daniel Day-Lewis (2012)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (2013)
Eddie Redmayne (2014)
Leonardo DiCaprio (2015)
Casey Affleck (2016)
Gary Oldman (2017)
Rami Malek (2018)
Joaquin Phoenix (2019)
Anthony Hopkins (2020)
Will Smith (2021)
Austin Butler (2022)
Cillian Murphy (2023)

v t e Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
1950–1976	Fred Astaire (1949) Danny Kaye (1951) Donald O'Connor (1952) David Niven (1953) James Mason (1954) Tom Ewell (1955) Mario Moreno (1956) Frank Sinatra (1957) Danny Kaye (1958) Jack Lemmon (1959) Jack Lemmon (1960) Glenn Ford (1961) Marcello Mastroianni (1962) Alberto Sordi (1963) Rex Harrison (1964) Lee Marvin (1965) Alan Arkin (1966) Richard Harris (1967) Ron Moody (1968) Peter O'Toole (1969) Albert Finney (1970) Chaim Topol (1971) Jack Lemmon (1972) George Segal (1973) Art Carney (1974) George Burns / Walter Matthau (1975)
1976–2000	Kris Kristofferson (1976) Richard Dreyfuss (1977) Warren Beatty (1978) Peter Sellers (1979) Ray Sharkey (1980) Dudley Moore (1981) Dustin Hoffman (1982) Michael Caine (1983) Dudley Moore (1984) Jack Nicholson (1985) Paul Hogan (1986) Robin Williams (1987) Tom Hanks (1988) Morgan Freeman (1989) Gérard Depardieu (1990) Robin Williams (1991) Tim Robbins (1992) Robin Williams (1993) Hugh Grant (1994) John Travolta (1995) Tom Cruise (1996) Jack Nicholson (1997) Michael Caine (1998) Jim Carrey (1999) George Clooney (2000)
2001–present	Gene Hackman (2001) Richard Gere (2002) Bill Murray (2003) Jamie Foxx (2004) Joaquin Phoenix (2005) Sacha Baron Cohen (2006) Johnny Depp (2007) Colin Farrell (2008) Robert Downey Jr. (2009) Paul Giamatti (2010) Jean Dujardin (2011) Hugh Jackman (2012) Leonardo DiCaprio (2013) Michael Keaton (2014) Matt Damon (2015) Ryan Gosling (2016) James Franco (2017) Christian Bale (2018) Taron Egerton (2019) Sacha Baron Cohen (2020) Andrew Garfield (2021) Colin Farrell (2022) Paul Giamatti (2023) Sebastian Stan (2024)

v t e National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
1945–1975	Ray Milland (1945) Laurence Olivier (1946) Michael Redgrave (1947) Walter Huston (1948) Ralph Richardson (1949) Alec Guinness (1950) Richard Basehart (1951) Ralph Richardson (1952) James Mason (1953) Bing Crosby (1954) Ernest Borgnine (1955) Yul Brynner (1956) Alec Guinness (1957) Spencer Tracy (1958) Victor Sjöström (1959) Robert Mitchum (1960) Albert Finney (1961) Jason Robards (1962) Rex Harrison (1963) Anthony Quinn (1964) Lee Marvin (1965) Paul Scofield (1966) Peter Finch (1967) Cliff Robertson (1968) Peter O'Toole (1969) George C. Scott (1970) Gene Hackman (1971) Peter O'Toole (1972) Al Pacino / Robert Ryan (1973) Gene Hackman (1974) Jack Nicholson (1975)
1976–2000	David Carradine (1976) John Travolta (1977) Jon Voight / Laurence Olivier (1978) Peter Sellers (1979) Robert De Niro (1980) Henry Fonda (1981) Ben Kingsley (1982) Tom Conti (1983) Victor Banerjee (1984) William Hurt / Raul Julia (1985) Paul Newman (1986) Michael Douglas (1987) Gene Hackman (1988) Morgan Freeman (1989) Robert De Niro / Robin Williams (1990) Warren Beatty (1991) Jack Lemmon (1992) Anthony Hopkins (1993) Tom Hanks (1994) Nicolas Cage (1995) Tom Cruise (1996) Jack Nicholson (1997) Ian McKellen (1998) Russell Crowe (1999) Javier Bardem (2000)
2001–present	Billy Bob Thornton (2001) Campbell Scott (2002) Sean Penn (2003) Jamie Foxx (2004) Philip Seymour Hoffman (2005) Forest Whitaker (2006) George Clooney (2007) Clint Eastwood (2008) George Clooney / Morgan Freeman (2009) Jesse Eisenberg (2010) George Clooney (2011) Bradley Cooper (2012) Bruce Dern (2013) Michael Keaton / Oscar Isaac (2014) Matt Damon (2015) Casey Affleck (2016) Tom Hanks (2017) Viggo Mortensen (2018) Adam Sandler (2019) Riz Ahmed (2020) Will Smith (2021) Colin Farrell (2022) Paul Giamatti (2023) Daniel Craig (2024)

v t e The Goons
Spike Milligan Harry Secombe Peter Sellers Michael Bentine
Radio / TV series	The Goon Show The Telegoons The Last Goon Show of All
Characters	Major Dennis Bloodnok Bluebottle Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister Eccles Hercules Grytpype-Thynne Count Jim Moriarty Neddie Seagoon
Films	Let's Go Crazy Penny Points to Paradise Down Among the Z Men The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film
Related	Episodes Goon Show Preservation Society Running jokes "Ying Tong Song" Bridge on the River Wye

v t e The Pink Panther
Original films	The Pink Panther (1963) A Shot in the Dark (1964) Inspector Clouseau (1968) The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978) Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
Reboot films	The Pink Panther (2006) The Pink Panther 2 (2009)
Shorts	The Pink Panther (1964–1978) The Inspector Roland and Rattfink The Ant and the Aardvark Tijuana Toads The Blue Racer Hoot Kloot The Dogfather Misterjaw Crazylegs Crane
Animated shorts	The Pink Phink The Pink Blueprint
TV series	The Pink Panther Show (1969–1980) Pink Panther and Sons (1984–1985) The Pink Panther (1993–1995) Pink Panther and Pals (2010)
TV specials	A Pink Christmas (1978) Olym-Pinks (1980) Pink at First Sight (1981)
Video games	Pink Panther (1988) Pink Goes to Hollywood (1993) The Pink Panther: Passport to Peril (1996) The Pink Panther: Hokus Pokus Pink (1998)
Music	"The Pink Panther Theme" "It Had Better Be Tonight (Meglio stasera)" "Check on It" "A Woman Like Me"
Characters	The Pink Panther Inspector Clouseau
Related	DePatie–Freleng Enterprises Panthermobile The Lionhearts Owens Corning Pink Panthers (jewel thief network) The Pink Panthers (LGBT rights organizations)
Category

Template:Persondata

Categories: