AUTOGRAPHS

Peter Sellers – English Comic Actor

Peter Sellers was one of England’s greatest icons and is recognised worldwide as one of the greatest comic actors of the 20th Century. I thought it would be interesting to write the story of this famous icon from his birth in Southsea to his present day status as a great English Icon.

Often credited as the greatest comedian of all time, Peter Sellers was born to a well-off English acting family in Southsea, Portsmouth, England in 1925. His mother and father worked in an acting company run by his grandmother. As a child, Sellers was spoiled, as his parents’ first child had died at birth. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force and served during World War II. After the war he met Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine who would become his future workmates on the BBC Radio Show “The Goon Show”.

After the war, he set up a review in London, which was a combination of music (he played the drums) and impressions. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into prominence as the voices of numerous favourites on “The Goon Show” (1951-1960), making his début in films in Penny Points to Paradise (1951) and Down among the Men (1952), before making it big as one of the criminals in The Ladykillers (1955).

These small roles continued throughout the 1950s, but he got his first big break playing the dogmatic union man, Fred Kite, in I’m All Right Jack (1959). The film’s success led to starring vehicles into the 1960s that showed off his extreme comic ability to its fullest. In 1962, Sellers was cast in the role of Clare Quilty in the Stanley Kubrick version of the film Lolita (1962) in which his performance as a mentally unbalanced TV writer with multiple personalities landed him another part in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) in which he played three roles which showed off his comic talent in play-acting in three different accents; British, American, and German.

He is best known for playing the klutzy and bumbling French Inspector Jacques Clouseau in The Pink Panther (1963) which led to him reprising the role in A Shot in the Dark (1964), plus three more Pink Panther movies during the 1970s. But after the relative failure of Whay’s New Pussycat (1965), which was Woody Allen;s first film, Sellers embarked on a rapid downfall to “Grade Z” movies during the 1970s, all of which he claimed to have made only because he needed the money.

In 1972, he read the book “Being There” and decided to make it into a film. It took him seven years to finally bring it to the screen, but it earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

The film “Being There” (1979) proved to be somewhat of a last hurray for Sellers, as he died the following year.

In May 1964, at age 38, Sellers suffered a series of heart attacks (13 in total, and all within a few days) because of his recreational smoking, drinking, and drug use. Although he survived, his heart was permanently damaged. Sellers’ heart condition slowly deteriorated over the next 16 years because, instead of electing traditional medical treatment, he only consulted with “psychic healers.” In late 1977, Sellers barely survived another major heart attack and as a result, he had a pacemaker surgically implanted on his failing heart to help regulate his heartbeat, which caused him even more considerable medical problems.

His last movie, The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu (1980), completed just a few months before his death, proved to be another box office flop. Director Blake Edward’s attempt at reviving the Pink Panther series after Sellers’ death resulted in two panned 1980s comedies, the first of which, Trail of The Pink Panther (1982), deals with Inspector Clouseau’s disappearance and was made from material cut from previous Pink Panther films and includes interviews with the original casts playing their original characters.

A reunion dinner was scheduled in London with his Goon Show partners, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, for July 25, 1980. But on July 22, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack in his Dorchester Hotel room and fell into a coma. He died in a London hospital just after midnight on July 24, 1980 at age 54. He was survived by his fourth wife, Lynne Frederick, and three children: Michael, Sarah and Victoria. At the time of his death, he was scheduled to undergo heart surgery in Los Angeles at the very end of that month.

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The Chinese call Britain ‘The Island of Hero’s’ which I think sums up what we British are all about. We British are inquisitive and competitive and are always looking over the horizon to the next adventure and discovery.

Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author

My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th Century AD. I am also a direct descendent of Sir Christopher Wren which has given me an interest in English History which is great fun to research.

I have recently decided to write articles on my favourite subjects: English Sports, English History, English Icons, English Discoveries and English Inventions. At present I have written over 100 articles which I call “An Englishman’s Favourite Bits Of England” in various Volumes. Please visit my Blogs page http://Bloggs.Resourcez.Com where I have listed all my articles to date.

Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.

Fred Lynn Homers 1976 All-Star Game