was born to a well off English acting family in 1925. His mother and father worked in an acting company run by his grandmother. As a child, Sellers was spoiled, as his parents' first child had died at birth. Sellers enlisted and fought during World War 2, where he met Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, who would become his future workmates. After the war he set up a review in London, which was a combination of music (he played the drums) and impressions. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into prominence as the voices of numerous favourites on The Goon Show (1951-1960), making his debut in films in Penny Points to Paradise (1951) and Down Among the Z Men (1952), before making it big as one of the crims in Ladykillers, The (1955). These small, but vital roles continued throughout the 1950s, but he got his first big break in 1959 playing the union man, Fred Kite, in I'm All Right Jack (1959).
Now he had it made and great starring vehicles occurred right throughout the 1960s which showed off his extreme comic ability to the full, but after the relative failure of What's New, Pussycat (1965), which was Woody Allen's first film, Sellers embarked on a rapid downfall to "Grade Z" movies in the 1970s, all of which he claimed to have made only because he needed the money. In 1972 he read the book Being There, and decided to make it into a film. It may have taken him seven years, but it earned him an Oscar nomination in the long run (he lost to Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of "Superdad" in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)). Being There (1979) (also 1979) proved to be somewhat of a last hurrah for Sellers, as he died the following year. His last movie, Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, The (1980), completed just before his death, proved to be another flop.
Director Blake Edwards' attempt at reviving the Pink Panther series after Sellers's death resulted in two panned 1980s comedies, the first of which, Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), deals with Inspector Clouseau's disappearance and was made from material cut from previous Pink Panther films and includes interviews with the original casts playing their original characters. It was David Niven's last film.
1925 - 1980 (54 years)
- Yes, date unknown
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