English Wordplay ~ Listen and Enjoy
PETER SELLERS 1925-1980
If you take yourself too seriously, you're missing the experience, and that experience is we are something more than what we appear to be.
British comedian and actor best known for his roles in Dr. Strangelove, as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther, as Clare Quilty in the original 1962 version of Lolita and in comedy films such as The Millionairess.
He rose to fame on the BBC Home Service radio series The Goon Show. His ability to speak in different accents (e.g., French, Indian, American, British, German), along with his comic talent to portray a range of characters contributed to his international fame.
He was married four times. His second wife was the Swedish actress Britt Ekland.
| PETER | You are known as a superb comic actor, but you were often depressed and anxious about failure. You abused your wives, took drugs and drank heavily. How much was this to do with your family background? |
| SELLERS | A lot. It was what I had come down to experience. I wanted to take the immensity of what a person could put up with and yet create something original. |
| PETER | You sought help from psychic healers. Did they help? |
| SELLERS | They were of assistance, when I allowed them to be. It was like so many other things in my life: I tried to make somebody else responsible for what I was going through. Now I know it was my own energy that dictated where I went. |
| PETER | When you had a heart attack, did you have a near death experience? |
| SELLERS | (LAUGHS) I had a near death experience, which I put immediately out of my mind, as being too ridiculous. |
| PETER | During the war in the Royal Air Force, you met Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, and later you all created The Goon Show for the BBC. Tell me about them. |
| SELLERS | They were dear souls, who desired through laughter to let others open up the feelings within them. Each had a particular talent and when we strung them together, we could reach even the most staid of individuals. |
| PETER | How much do you now believe that films like Dr. Strangelove affect social consciousness? |
| SELLERS | Carried upon the back of comedy, more people get the message, than from an orator on his soapbox; because they are getting it from the common man. |
Toni comments: That dialogue felt like a merry-go-round, being bounced from one entertainment to another - getting the experience of the joke house, going through the tunnel of love, where you don't know what's round the next corner, whether it's going to be scary or loving.
Underneath was a sense of a lost boy searching for security and for a sense of who he was.
Peter comments: It is remarkable that like his fellow Goon, Spike Milligan, Peter was able to to turn inner pain into glorious and infinitely silly humour.
In Heavens Above! as the Reverend John Smallwod, he confounds the Church of England by taking the commandments of Jesus seriously and ends up as the Bishop of Outer Space.
Now at last we know that Peter got there safely and is enjoying the view.
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