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Peter Sellers

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Richard Henry Sellers, better known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian, talented comic actor and member of the The Goon Show (a long-running BBC radio show - 1951-1960). Born September 8, 1925 in Southsea, Hampshire, England, in a family of vaudeville entertainers, Sellers died of a heart attack on July 24 1980 in London, England.

Probably following his family in the vaudeville circuit Sellers learnt this popular yet difficult art and the immediate instict of the "gag"; but, an incredibly versatile artist, his preparation includes dancing and was completed with a notably musical activity as an ukulele, banjo and, in particular, drum player touring with jazz bands.

Sellers is famous for his role as the bungling Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies, which granted him a really wide popularity, but he also played a number of important roles, including the eponymous Dr. Strangelove, in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, easily varying from brilliant themes as in Hollywood Party, to more intense performances as in Lolita (from Vladimir Nabukov's book). Commonly considered a master actor, sometimes described as an "obsessive perfectionist", he found in Blake Edwards perhaps his most devote director, who was delicately able to underline and follow his comic rhythms; Edwards will define Sellers as a "mercurial clown" abel to turm the comedy into drama, and vice-versa, in a fraction of time. Other directors he played for include above mentioned Kubrick, Roman Polanski, Paul Mazursky, Billy Wilder. He played with really many stars, among which Shirley MacLaine, Sophia Loren, Maggie Smith, Goldie Hawn, Shelley Winters, Elke Sommer, Claudine Longet, and even Ringo Starr (Beatles' drum player). Sellers' career include, mainly in its early times, radio and television

He was married four times, first marriage was to Swedish actress Britt Ekland.

Sellers had explicitly requested that Glenn Miller's song In The Mood" was played for his funeral; it is considered his last touch of humour, since he deeply hated that tune.

Films:

In some of above titles, Sellers appears only by his voice