Goon, MARION McMULLEN looks back on the life of comedy genius Peter Sellers who died 40 years ago
HE WAS the bumbling French Inspector Jacques Clouseau dispatched to protect the priceless Pink Panther diamond from a notorious jewel thief, a Goon Show regular and a three-time Oscar nominee.
Revered comedy genius Peter Sellers was just 54 when he died in 1980 following a massive heart attack at the Dorchester Hotel in London on July 24. The Hampshireborn star had a talent for voices and characters, but claimed: “I’m a classic example of all humorists – only funny when I’m working.”
His early career saw him ruling the airwaves with Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine in the groundbreaking BBC radio comedy The Goon Show. Peter and Spike met at the Hackney Empire after the Second World Was Spike wrote in his autobiography Peace Work: “Peter was already foot in the door with the BBC and earning MONEY, but he spent, all his life he spent, all cars were on HP. Peg, his mother, would say, never pay the lot, HP – if you drop dead you’re in the clear.” Born Richard Henry Sellers, Peter’s parents worked in an acting company run by his mother and one of his early movie roles saw him playing Harry, one of the gang of thieves, in British comedy classic The Ladykillers with Alec Guinness and his future Pink Panther co-star Herbert Lom. Peter went on to play union leader Fred Kite in the 1959 film I’m All Right Jack and played three roles with three different accents in director Stanley Kubrick’s movie Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. The international success of The Pink Panther led to Inspector Clouseau returning to solve crimes in several spin-off movies and director Blake
Edwards described his leading man as “a walking storehouse of madness, a ham with an