1925–1939: Early life and career beginnings Sellers was born on 8 September 1925 in
Southsea, a suburb of
Portsmouth. His parents were
Yorkshire-born William "Bill" Sellers and Agnes Doreen "Peg" (née Marks). Both were variety entertainers; Peg was in the Ray Sisters troupe. In 1935 the Sellers family moved to North London and settled in
Muswell Hill. Although Bill Sellers was
Protestant and Peg was
Jewish, Sellers attended the nearby
Roman Catholic school St Aloysius' College in
Highgate, run by the
Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy. For Sellers, the BBC considers it had the effect of launching his career "on the road to stardom". In 1951 the Goons made their feature film debut in
Penny Points to Paradise. Sellers and Milligan then wrote the script for ''
Let's Go Crazy'', the earliest film to showcase Sellers's ability to portray a series of different characters within the same film, and he made another appearance opposite his Goons co-stars in the 1952 flop,
Down Among the Z Men. In 1954, Sellers was cast opposite
Sid James,
Tony Hancock,
Raymond Huntley,
Donald Pleasence, and
Eric Sykes in the
British Lion Film Corporation comedy production,
Orders Are Orders.
John Grierson believes that this was Sellers's breakthrough role on screen and credits this film with launching the film careers of both Sellers and Hancock.
1955–1959: The Ladykillers, The Mouse That Roared, ''I'm All Right Jack'', and other early films Sellers pursued a film career and took a number of small roles, such as a police officer in
John and Julie (1955). He accepted a larger part in the 1955
Alexander Mackendrick-directed
Ealing comedy The Ladykillers, in which he starred opposite his idol
Alec Guinness, in addition to
Herbert Lom and
Cecil Parker. Sellers portrayed Harry Robinson, the
Teddy Boy; biographer Peter Evans considers this Sellers's first good role.
The Ladykillers was a success in the UK and the US, and the film was nominated for an
Academy Award for
Best Original Screenplay. The following year Sellers appeared in a further three television comedy series with one of his
Goon Show co-stars, Spike Milligan:
The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d,
A Show Called Fred, and
Son of Fred. The shows aired on Britain's new
ITV channel. In 1957 film producer
Michael Relph, impressed with Sellers's portrayal of an elderly character in
Idiot Weekly, cast the 32-year-old actor as a 68-year-old projectionist in
Basil Dearden's
The Smallest Show on Earth, supporting
Bill Travers,
Virginia McKenna, and
Margaret Rutherford. The film was a commercial success and is now thought of as a minor classic of post-war British screen comedy. Sellers provided the growling voice of
Winston Churchill to the BAFTA award-winning film
The Man Who Never Was. Later in 1957 Sellers portrayed a television star with a talent for disguises in
Mario Zampi's offbeat
black comedy The Naked Truth, opposite
Terry-Thomas,
Peggy Mount,
Shirley Eaton, and
Dennis Price. (pictured in 1968) starred with Sellers in four films between 1957 and 1959. Their last film together, ''
I'm All Right Jack'' – the highest-grossing film at the British box office in 1960 – saw Sellers receive the
BAFTA Award for Best British Actor. Sellers's difficulties in getting his film career to take off 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 had died in 1904, haunted him and guided his career and life decisions. Sellers was a member of the
Grand Order of Water Rats, the exclusive theatrical fraternity founded by Leno in 1890. In 1958 Sellers starred with
David Tomlinson,
Wilfrid Hyde-White, David Lodge, and
Lionel Jeffries as a
chief petty officer in
Val Guest's
Up the Creek. Guest later said he had written and directed the film as a vehicle for Sellers and thus had started Sellers's film career. To practise his voice, Sellers purchased a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The film received critical acclaim in the United States, and Roger Lewis viewed it as an important practice ground for Sellers. Next, Sellers featured with Terry-Thomas as one of a pair of comic villains in
George Pal's
Tom Thumb (1958), a musical fantasy film, opposite
Russ Tamblyn,
Jessie Matthews, and
Peter Butterworth. Terry-Thomas later said that "my part was perfect, but Peter's was bloody awful. He wasn't difficult about it, but he knew it". The performance was a landmark in Sellers's career and became his first contact with the Hollywood film industry. Sellers released his first album in 1958 called
The Best of Sellers: a collection of comic songs and sketches, among them
Balham - Gateway to the South, where Sellers plays a variety of comic characters. Produced by
George Martin and released on
Parlophone, the album reached number three in the
UK Albums Chart. 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. Originally intended as a private film, the eleven-minute Running Jumping & Standing Still Film was screened at the 1959 Edinburgh and San Francisco film festivals. It won the award for best fiction short in the latter festival and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject (Live Action). In 1959, Sellers released his second album, Songs for Swingin' Sellers'', which—like his first record—reached number three in the UK Albums Chart.
1960–1963: The Millionairess, Lolita, first divorce, and The Pink Panther In early 1960, Sellers starred as "Dodger" Lane in the prison comedy
Two Way Stretch. Later that year, he portrayed an Indian doctor, Dr Ahmed el Kabir, in
Anthony Asquith's romantic comedy
The Millionairess, a film based on a
George Bernard Shaw play
of the same name. Sellers was not interested in the role until he learned that
Sophia Loren would be his co-star. 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 such a close relationship during filming, he declared his love for her in front of Howe, and woke his son one night to ask if he should divorce from Howe. There is uncertainty whether the relationship was anything more than platonic: a number of people, including Spike Milligan, consider it an affair, while others, including
Graham Stark, think it remained only a strong friendship. Sellers's wife at the time, Anne, afterwards commented, "I don't know to this day whether he had an affair with her. Nobody does." Roger Lewis observed that Sellers immersed himself completely in the characters he enacted during productions, that "He'd play a role as an Indian doctor, and for the next six months, he'd be an Indian in his real [daily] life." The film inspired the George Martin-produced
novelty hit single "
Goodness Gracious Me", with Sellers and Loren, which reached number four in the
UK Singles Chart in November 1960. In 1961, Sellers made his directorial debut with
Mr. Topaze, in which he also starred. The film was based on the
Marcel Pagnol play
Topaze. Sellers portrayed an ex-schoolmaster in a small French town who turns to a life of crime to obtain wealth. The film and Sellers's directorial abilities received unenthusiastic responses from the public and critics, and Sellers rarely referred to it again. The same year, he starred in the
Sidney Gilliat-directed
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 whose affections swing between the glamorous Liz (
Mai Zetterling) and his long-suffering wife Jean (
Virginia Maskell).
Stanley Kubrick asked Sellers to play the role of Clare Quilty in the 1962 film
Lolita, opposite
James Mason and
Shelley Winters. Kubrick had seen Sellers in
The Battle of the Sexes and listened to the album
The Best of Sellers, and was impressed by the range of characters he could portray. in August 1962 Sellers was apprehensive about accepting the role, doubting his ability to successfully portray the part of a flamboyant American television playwright who was, according to Sellers, "a fantastic nightmare, part homosexual, part drug addict, part sadist". Kubrick encouraged Sellers to improvise and stated that he often reached a "state of comic ecstasy". Kubrick had American jazz producer
Norman Granz record portions of the script for Sellers to listen to, so he could study the voice and develop confidence, granting Sellers a free artistic licence. Sellers later claimed that his relationship with Kubrick became one of the most rewarding of his career. Writing in
The Sunday Times,
Dilys Powell commented 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." Sellers's behaviour towards his family worsened in 1962. On one occasion, he asked his son Michael and his daughter Sarah which parent they loved more; neither mentioned him alone, so they were thrown out and disowned. At the end of the year, his marriage to Anne broke down. in
The Pink Panther (1963) In 1963, Sellers starred as gang leader "Pearly Gates" in
Cliff Owen's
The Wrong Arm of the Law, followed by his portrayal of a vicar in
Heavens Above! Sellers was approached by director
Blake Edwards to play the role of
Inspector Clouseau in
The Pink Panther after
Peter Ustinov had backed 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!" Sellers accepted a fee of £90,000 (£ in pounds) for five weeks' work on location in Rome and Cortina. The film starred
David Niven in the principal role, with two other actors—
Capucine and
Claudia Cardinale—having more prominent roles than Sellers. However, Sellers's performance is regarded as being on par with that of Charlie Chaplin and
Buster Keaton, according to biographer Peter Evans. Although the Clouseau character was in the script, Sellers created the personality, devising the costume, accent, make-up, moustache and trench coat.
The Pink Panther was released in the UK in January 1964 and received a mixed reception from the critics, although
Penelope Gilliatt, writing in
The Observer, remarked that Sellers had a "flawless sense of mistiming" in a performance that was "one of the most delicate studies in accident-proneness since the silents". and for a Best British Actor award at the
18th British Academy Film Awards. although the critic from
The Guardian thought his portrayal of the RAF officer alone was "worth the price of an admission ticket". For his performance in all three roles, Sellers 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. 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. On 19 February 1964, just ten days after their first meeting, the couple married. Sellers soon showed signs of insecurity and paranoia; he would become highly anxious and jealous, for example, when Ekland starred opposite attractive men. Shortly after the wedding, Sellers started filming on location in
Twentynine Palms, California, for
Billy Wilder's
Kiss Me, Stupid, opposite
Dean Martin and
Kim Novak. The relationship between Wilder and Sellers became strained; both had different approaches to work and often clashed as a result. On the night of 5 April 1964, prior to having sex with Ekland, Sellers inhaled
amyl nitrite (
poppers) as a sexual stimulant in his search for "the ultimate
orgasm" and suffered a series of eight
heart attacks over the course of three hours as a result. His illness forced him 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 some time recovering, Sellers returned to filming in October 1964, playing King of the Individualists alongside Ekland in
Carol for Another Christmas, a feature-length special broadcast in the United States on the
ABC network on 28 December 1964, designed to promote the
United Nations. Because of Sellers's poor health, producer
Charles K. Feldman insured him at a cost of $360,000 ($ in dollars). On 20 January 1965, Sellers and Ekland announced the birth of a daughter,
Victoria. They moved to Rome in May to film
After the Fox, an Anglo-Italian production in which they were both to appear. The film was directed by
Vittorio De Sica, whose English Sellers struggled to understand. Sellers attempted to have De Sica fired, causing tensions on the set. Sellers also became unhappy with his wife's performance, straining their relationship and triggering open arguments, during one of which Sellers threw a chair at Ekland. Despite these conflicts, the script was praised for its wit. '' (1966) 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 signed a $1 million contract for the film ($ in dollars). Seven screenwriters worked on the project, and filming was chaotic. To make matters worse, according to Ekland, Sellers was "so insecure, he won't trust anyone". A poor working relationship quickly developed between Sellers and Welles: Sellers eventually demanded that the two should not share the same set. Sellers left the film before his part was complete. A further agent's part was then written for
Terence Cooper, to cover Sellers's departure. Shortly after leaving
Casino Royale, Sellers was appointed a
Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in honour of his career achievements. The day before the investiture at
Buckingham Palace, Sellers and Ekland argued, with Ekland scratching his face in the process; Sellers had a make-up artist cover the marks. During his next film,
The Bobo, which again co-starred Ekland, the couple's marital problems 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". 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 on set. She died within days, without Sellers having seen her. He was deeply affected by her death and remorseful at not having returned to London to see her. Ekland served him with divorce papers shortly afterwards. The divorce was finalised on 18 December 1968, and Sellers's friend Spike Milligan sent Ekland a congratulatory telegram. Upon its release in September 1967,
The Bobo was poorly received. Sellers's first film appearance of 1968 was a reunion with Blake Edwards for the
fish-out-of-water comedy
The Party, in which he starred alongside
Claudine Longet and
Denny Miller. He appears as Hrundi V. Bakshi, a bungling Indian actor who accidentally receives an invitation to a lavish Hollywood dinner party. His character, according to Sellers's biographer Peter Evans, was "clearly an amalgam of Clouseau and the doctor in
The Millionairess". 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
Hy Averback's
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, playing an attorney who abandons his lifestyle to become a
hippie.
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars, remarking that Sellers was "back doing what he does best", although he also said that in Sellers's previous films he had "been at his worst recently". In 1969, Sellers starred opposite
Ringo Starr in the
Joseph McGrath-directed film
The Magic Christian. Sellers portrayed Sir Guy Grand, an eccentric billionaire who plays elaborate
practical jokes on people. The critic Irv Slifkin remarked that the film was a reflection of the cynicism of Peter Sellers, describing the film as a "proto-
Pythonesque adaptation of Terry Southern's semi-free-form short novel" and "one of the strangest films to be shown at a gala premiere for Britain's royal family". The film, a satire on human nature, was in general viewed negatively by critics.
Roger Greenspun of
The New York Times believed that the film was of variable quality and summarised it as a "brutal satire".
1970–1978: "Period of indifference": two marriages and three Pink Panther films After a cameo appearance in
A Day at the Beach (1970) (under the pseudonym "A. Queen") and a serious role later in 1970 as an ageing businessman who seduces
Sinéad Cusack in
Hoffman, Sellers starred in
Roy Boulting's ''
There's a Girl in My Soup opposite Goldie Hawn. According to The Times'', the film was a major commercial success and became the seventh most popular film at the British box office in 1970. 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" he played in ''There's a Girl in My Soup''. The film was seen as a small revival of his career. Sellers's next films, including
Rod Amateau's
Where Does It Hurt? (1972) and Peter Medak's
Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1974), were again poorly received, and his acting was viewed as frenetic rather than funny. Despite these setbacks, Sellers won the Best Actor award at the 1973 Tehran Film Festival for his tragi-comedic role as a street performer in
Anthony Simmons's
The Optimists of Nine Elms. Fellow comedian and friend Spike Milligan believed 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". However, the film was a critical failure, and Sellers's career and life reached an all-time low. The turning point in Sellers's flailing career came when he re-teamed with Blake Edwards and starred in
The Return of the Pink Panther, alongside
Christopher Plummer, Herbert Lom and
Catherine Schell. The film was shot on a budget of $3.7 million and earned $33 million at the box office upon release in May 1975, restoring Sellers's career as an A-list film star along with his millionaire status. In 1976, Sellers and Edwards followed it with
The Pink Panther Strikes Again. During filming from February to June 1976, the already fraught relationship between Sellers and Blake Edwards had deteriorated even further. Edwards says of the actor's mental state at the time of
The Pink Panther Strikes Again, "If you went to an asylum and you described the first inmate you saw, that's what Peter had become. He was certifiable." With declining physical health, Sellers could at times be unbearable on set. His behaviour was regarded as unprofessional and childish, and he frequently threw tantrums, often threatening to abandon projects. His difficult behaviour during productions was widely reported and made it more difficult for Sellers to get employment in the industry at a time when he most needed the work. In March 1976, Sellers began dating actress
Lynne Frederick, whom he married on 18 February 1977. Biographer Roger Lewis documents that of Sellers's four wives, Frederick was the most poorly treated; Julian Upton likened it to a boxing match between a heavyweight and a featherweight, a relationship that "oscillated from ardour to hatred, reconciliation and remorse". On 20 March 1977, Sellers suffered a second major heart attack during a flight from Paris to London; he was subsequently fitted with a
pacemaker. Sellers returned from his illness to undertake
Revenge of the Pink Panther; although it was a commercial success, the critics were tiring of Inspector Clouseau. Julian Upton expressed the view that the strain behind the scenes began to manifest itself in the sluggish pace of the film, describing it as a "laboured, stunt-heavy hotchpotch of half-baked ideas and rehashed gags". Sellers too had become tired of the role, saying after production, "I've honestly had enough of Clouseau—I've got nothing more to give".
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." He refused to seek professional help for his mental issues. 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 in 1978, a guest appearance that earned him an
Emmy nomination for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in Variety or Music, he chose not to appear as himself, instead appearing as a variety of characters in several costumes and speaking in different accents. When
Kermit the Frog told Sellers he could relax and just be himself, Sellers replied:
1979–1980: Final work, Being There, Fu Manchu, and continued domestic problems In 1979, Sellers starred alongside Lynne Frederick,
Lionel Jeffries and
Elke Sommer in
Richard Quine's
The Prisoner of Zenda. He portrayed three roles, including King Rudolf IV and King Rudolf V—rulers of the fictional small nation of Ruritania—and Syd Frewin, Rudolf V's half-brother. Upon its release in May 1979, the film was well received;
Janet Maslin of
The New York Times observed how Sellers divided "his energies between a serious character and a funny one, but that it was his serious performance which was more impressive". However,
Philip French, for
The Observer, was unimpressed by the film, describing it as "a mess of
porridge" (sic) and stating that "Sellers reveals that he cannot draw the line between the sincere and the sentimental". the
London Critics Circle Film Awards Special Achievement Award; 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 15-year-old daughter Victoria what she thought about
Being There; she reported later that "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, alongside
Helen Mirren and
David Tomlinson. The production of the film was troublesome before filming started, with two directors—
Richard Quine and
John Avildsen—fired before the script had been completed. Sellers also expressed dissatisfaction with his own portrayal of Manchu, with his ill health often causing delays. Arguments between Sellers and director
Piers Haggard led to Haggard's firing at Sellers's instigation, and Sellers took over direction, using his long-time friend
David Lodge to direct some sequences.
Tom Shales of
The Washington Post described the film as "an indefensibly inept comedy", adding that "it is hard to name another good actor who ever made so many bad movies as Sellers, a comedian of great gifts but ferociously faulty judgment. "Manchu" will take its rightful place alongside such colossally ill-advised washouts as
Tell Me Where It Hurts,
The Bobo and
The Prisoner of Zenda". Sellers's final performances were a series of advertisements for
Barclays Bank. Filmed in April 1980 in Ireland, he played Monty Casino, a Jewish con man. Four advertisements 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, returning to his residence in
Gstaad to work on the script for his next project,
Romance of the Pink Panther. At the urging of his friends, he made an appointment to undergo an
angiogram at the
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on 30 July 1980 to see if he was able to undergo open-heart surgery. Spike Milligan later considered that Sellers's heart condition had lasted for over 15 years and had "made life difficult for him and had a debilitating effect on his personality." Sellers's fourth marriage to Frederick collapsed soon after. Sellers had recently started to rebuild his relationship with his son Michael after the failure of the latter's marriage. In lighter moments, Sellers had joked that his epitaph should read "Star of stage, screen and alimony." ==Death==