I'm not the real Peter Sellers. Yes, people have asked me if I am. No. Peter Sellers is dead. I wish he wasn't. I wish I was him.
I made a lot of international fame in "The Pink Panther" playing a bumbling inspector. Thank you Blake Edwards, you cheeky bastard. After having a series of heart attacks, I made a TV film written by Rod Serling called "Carol for Another Christmas." I'm awesome in it. Then I made the huge commercial bomb "Casino Royale" and played James Bond (along with David Niven, and even Woody Allen appeared in it). I did a sequel to Pink Panther called "A Shot in the Dark." In-between I starred in a few gems, like "What's New Pussycat" with Woody Allen, and "I Love You Alice B. Toklas." I even made a film with Ringo Starr that was written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman. And "The Party" directed by Blake Edwards was a hoot. I had a few commercial duds, but still pretty good films- "The Bobo" and "Hoffman" among them.
The 70s was a pretty low period, I did make three new Pink Panther movies, and a serious war film called "The Blockhouse." That's on DVD now. But a lot of my films have never been released, and barely ever seen, such as "A Day at the Beach" directed by Roman Polanski. I also hooked back up with my best fiend, Blake Edwards, to make three more Pink Panther sequels. They were ginormous successes at the box office and gave me much needed cash for projects. I did other films like "Soft Beds Hard Battles" and "The Prisoner of Zenda" and quite a few TV commercials. But I didn't do any commercials about peas like that sorry Orson Welles.
By the end of the decade I made the film I always wanted, "Being There" from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, about a man who has no past and no self. Wonderful. The film was ME. I earned an oscar nomination, but didn't win. In the garden. I went on to make "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" and then I died.
-Father, with actress Britt Ekland, of actress Victoria Sellers.
-Ranked #84 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
-Born at 6:00am-BST
-Interred at Golders Green Crematorium, London, England, UK.
-Sellers, Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine and Harry Secombe performed on BBC Radio as "The Goon Show" in the early 1950s.
-Duet with Sophia Loren, "Goodness Gracious Me," was released in 1960 and reached the top four. Also with Loren, "Bangers and Mash" peaked at 22 in the UK charts in 1961.
-Sellers also enjoyed success in the UK music charts, with "Any Old Iron" reaching 17 in 1957 and a cover of the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" released in 1965 and reaching 14.
-Claims to have had a near-death experience during a heart attack, in which he saw Heaven.
-Appointed a CBE in 1966.
-First actor to be nominated for a single Academy award (best actor) for a film in which he potrayed three different characters in the same film: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
-Sellers was the first male to appear on the cover of Playboy Magazine, in April 1964
-Was a vegetarian.
-Father, with Anne Howe, of Michael Sellers and Sarah Sellers.
-His third wife, Miranda Quarry, is now "The Countess of Stockton."
-Turned down the role of George Webber in Blake Edwards 10 (1979) (George Segal was cast instead but eventually replaced by Dudley Moore). Sellers made a cameo appearance but it was cut out of the movie.
-His "Goon Show" records, and other comedy recordings from the 1950s and early 1960s, were produced by George Martin, before he worked with The Beatles.
-Recorded a comedic rendition of "Unchained Melody" which wasn't released until years afterwards.
-He was voted the 41st Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.
-Died at 12:26am - BST after being in a coma for more than 30 hours after suffering a massive heart attack.
-Mel Brooks considered him for - and he expressed interest in - the role of Leo Bloom in The Producers, but nothing ever came of it, and the role eventually went to Gene Wilder. However, Sellers was instrumental in the success of The Producers. After its release, he happened, almost by accident, to see a private screening of the film, and was so impressed with it that the next day he took out two full-page newspaper ads at his own expense proclaiming that The Producers was one of the greatest comedies he had ever seen. This exposure helped promote the film at a critical time when it appeared that the movie was destined to sink without a trace.
-Is portrayed by Geoffrey Rush in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004).
-At the time of his death, he was due to undergo heart surgery.
-One afternoon, the doorbell rang in Peter Sellers's London flat. As Sellers was busy in his study, his wife Anne went to the door, where she was handed a telegram. The message? "Bring me a cup of coffee. Peter."
-Late one night, following a disappointing day wrestling with a troublesome scene in one of the Pink Panther films, director Blake Edwards was roused by a call from the film's star, Peter Sellers. "I just talked to God!" he exclaimed. "And he told me how to do it!" The next day, Edwards humored Sellers - and the result was an unmitigated disaster. "Peter," Edwards suggested, "next time you talk to God, tell him to stay out of show business!"
-Died a few days after filming a "Barclays Bank" commercial, which was never aired.
-His performance as Dr. Strangelove in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is ranked #75 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
-His performance as Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the "Pink Panther" franchise is ranked #67 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
-His performance as Chance the Gardener in Being There (1979) is ranked #49 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
-At the time of his death, Sellers was set to play Inspector Clouseau again in Romance of the Pink Panther. The script had been written by Sellers and Jim Moloney and the film was to be directed by Clive Donner. Also in the pipeline were the leads in Lovesick (1983) and Unfaithfully Yours (1984). Both these roles were taken over by Dudley Moore.
-Left the bulk of his estate, cash, cars, houses and art amounting to £4.5 million, to fourth wife Lynne Frederick. Sellers left his son Michael and his daughter Sarah from his first marriage to actress Anne Howe only £800 each. "It was a calculated and considered act. Even his lawyers blushed when they told me," Michael said. Sellers had married Frederick, who was known primarily as David Frost's girlfriend (and subsequently his wife after Sellers death), in 1977. Reportedly Sellers was in the process of excluding Frederick from his will in the time immediately preceding his death by heart attack in 1980. A drug addict and an alcoholic, Frederick died at aged 39 and all income from Sellers' estate, including royalties from movie profit sharing deals, was inherited by her daughter with third husband Barry Unger.
-Together with actors Nicolas Cage (Adaptation. (2002)) and Lee Marvin (Cat Ballou (1965)), he is the only actor with an Oscar nomination for playing multiple characters in a film (in (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), he plays three characters, Group Captain (G/C) Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley and Dr. Strangelove). Marvin is the only one who actually won one for a double role.
-Became friends with The Beatles, and visited them at Abbey Road Studios. Was given a tape of rough mixes from the "White Album", which was auctioned (and bootlegged) after his death.
-He was one of the favorite actors of Elvis Presley who always had Sellers' Pink Panther films with him on the airplane while he was on tour.
-Prince Charles had been a fan of Sellers since "The Goon Show". In 1975, after he had seen The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) in Montreal, Prince Charles wrote to Sellers that he'd laughed so hard he had wet the dress of the woman in the next seat.
-Before his death he spoke very highly of Robin Williams and Steve Martin, both considered that a great honor.
-Was an amateur photographer and camera nut for most of his life.
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