Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers (1925-1980) was a master of impersonation and grasping different accents, most of us remember him as the incompetent inspector Jacques Clouseau, always proud of his imaginary abilities, messing up the simplest of cases, and who by some miracle is always saved by those very mistakes, and consequently gains a fame and reputation as a detective. Interesting to know that Sellers' opinion of the character was that Clouseau knew that he was incompetent, but never gave up, which was the reason for his eventual success. The scene I am posting here is from "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" (1976) from Blake Edwards' Pink Panther series. The investigation of a kidnapping case... watch a pro work here... no priceless pianos can stand in the way of justice!

Sellers used his talents in a variety of roles. Although he never won the Academy Award that he wanted very much, he was nominated a number of times. One of these was for his roles in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964). Roles indeed, for he played three of them in this film, a fact that was quite characteristic of him. Dr. Strangelove is a black comedy about nuclear power struggle. In the selected scene see Sellers as the chief scientist convince (himself as) the President of the fact that things don't look so bad just because of nuclear war... Observe the irrepressible outburst of the nazi reflex in the left arm...

Sellers, who impersonated so many different characters in his life, often said he had no personality of his own, that's why he played others with ease. He found happiness in acting, it was indeed hard to catch him out of role, maybe in the home made films he was in the habit of making. Maybe it was such an inner quest for himself that lead him to a book titled "Being There" by Jerzy Kosiński, of which he reportedly stated it was about him. He took a great deal of trouble to convince the author of the book to make it into a film, who thought his novel was unsuitable for the cinema. The story is about a gardener who lived his entire life in townhouse tending a garden, his only connection with the world being the television. When his employer dies, he is suddenly exposed to the outside world and even to fame... Maybe it was the childish innocence that finds itself in a complicated world not knowing what is going around that appealed to Sellers in the character for which he received his final Oscar nomination. He obviously became somewhat bitter for not getting it as this was the role he felt he could give his best. Unfortunately, he was not given the chance to be nominated anymore, as he died of heart attack only a year later.