By Elliott West
“He was a very tormented soul”.
Britt Ekland
Introduction
Peter Sellers was one of the funniest comedians that this country has ever produced. Yet beyond the manic comedy, multiple characters and comedic genius was a man who spent his life trying to find the meaning of happiness. Apart from his film and television catalogue, very little remains of Sellers apart from some faded photographs and a mountain of cine home movies of family and private moments. An only child who was a replacement for his mother’s grief of losing an earlier stillborn child. A dominant force throughout his life who didn’t want Peter to be a failure like his father. It was the start of an obsessive streak in this future comedian who believed Sophia Loren was in love with him and had three failed marriages to Anne Howe, Britt Ekland and Miranda Quarry. A man who was never happy inside and had a highly complicated character. No one actually knew the real Peter Sellers. He was an enigma who lived his life in his characters. Few directors could harness his brilliance, an actor who couldn’t perform the same way in each take.
A Troubled Soul
Peter described his time in The Goons as his happiest times but the irony of this manic humour that was funny because it made no sense, was that it revealed Sellers’ own mental fragility. Sellers couldn’t live comfortably as himself. As a result, he was impossible to live with. A man who relied on poppers, cocaine and alcohol to get him through the day. Yet he was a big studio property. His name sold films and made money for the movie moguls. As a result, his health suffered, leading to one near-fatal heart attack and his ultimate death in 1980 after a second.
The Britt Years
The true turmoil of Peter Sellers can be seen in his relationship and marriage to Britt. Ekland was staying at the Dorchester, paid for by Twentieth Century Fox, promoted by the company as a new starlet. Whilst in the bath, there was a knock at the door. It was Peter’s valet Bert. He asked her to come to Sellers’ room so he could meet her. Peter had seen that she was staying at the same hotel after reading a newspaper article. Two days after this 21-year-old Swedish actress came to the door clad in nothing but a towel, Peter had contacted the press telling them the two were getting married. They had only had one date. Ekland didn’t even know and was informed in a frenzied transatlantic phone call from Peter. The couple were married three weeks later and then went on honeymoon.
On returning Sellers bought Ekland a fur coat and made her wear it during a photoshoot of the two. He also got her fired from the 1964 film Guns at Batasai when he demanded she take a day off from filming. She was flown to California and picked up in a car. She had no clothes with her but was only supposed to spend the weekend there and fly back. When she arrived at the house, a doctor was waiting. He examined her and concluded that was suffering from strain and stress and couldn’t possibly go back to the film set.
Sellers led her to the bedroom and showed her a wardrobe. Inside was a whole rail of clothes he had bought her including a bikini made from mink. Brit must have had blind love in those early years because she had a daughter Victoria with Peter. Brit hasn’t revealed all the details of their time together but she did reveal that she thought Peter had bipolar disorder. A conclusion that she made after spending four years with him. However, they did fight and Sellers was known to throw things in a fit of rage. An example is in Rome when he threw a clock at her. It was the last straw and Britt knew she couldn’t go back to him.
The Dark Side
“I could never be myself you see. There is no “Me”. I do not exist. There used to be me but I had it surgically removed”.
Peter Sellers
The star of the Pink Panther films was obsessed with his mother Peg. When she died, he started to visit a psychic as he wanted to stay in touch with her. He loved the paranormal and was very superstitious. He wouldn’t walk under a ladder and became reliant on horoscopes, fortune telling and psychic readings. From early as 1958, Peter would visit a clairvoyant, Maurice Woodruff. He predicted that Sellers would be offered a film role and he rapidly signed up for the 1959 film The Mouse That Roared. Although a risk as it was the first attempt by an independent producer, Walter Shenson, it turned out to be a cinema hit. An actor who claimed he was being haunted by malevolent spirits.
The Last Years
Sellers looked tired and ill in his final years. Noticeably thinner, his last two films Being There in 1979 and The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu completed a few months before his death didn’t get the notoriety of his earlier films. On July 22 1980, whilst staying in the Dorchester Hotel, Sellers had a massive heart attack and fell into a coma. He later died in a London hospital just after midnight on July 24, 1980. He was only 54 years old. His fourth wife Lynne Frederick inherited his £4.5 million estate as their divorce hadn’t been finalised before his death.