Peter Sellers, One Hundred Years of a Giant with a Weak Heart

Can anyone in the entire world imagine Inspector Clouseau not being played by Peter Sellers? It's hard, isn't it? I don't know if there has ever been a more stony, more organic, more cathedral-like identification between an actor and a character throughout the history of cinema. Well, the story could be different. Sellers was Clouseau thanks to Peter Ustinov—then a star recently awarded an Oscar for Spartacus—he abandoned the project for which he had already been hired. The reason? He thought it was terrible that Ava Gardner didn't end up playing his wife in the fiction. It was the reaction of the film's producers to the multiple and unacceptable demands that the actress had tried to impose and that led to hiring the actress Capucine in her place. That cider opened the doors for the British actor, a commercial risk, without a doubt. Sellers had just arrived in American cinema and the public identified him with his most recent role, the depraved Clare Quilty of the Lolita Kubrick's. The operation went well and Sellers became the hilarious (and disastrous) detective with the mustache, the trench coat, and the hat. The role of a lifetime, without a doubt, which he repeated several times throughout successive sequels under the direction of Blake Edwards. A cinematic and commercial success that has gone down in cinema history. As has also happened in history with Sellers' stormy character, his ability to make filming difficult, the ambivalence of a dark personality.

Sellers, who lived only a little more than half of the anniversary we commemorate today, was conditioned by a weak heart. And we're not just talking about his numerous love affairs but, literally, his sick heart. Legend has it that during the filming of Give me a kiss, stupid (1964) suffered eight consecutive heart attacks after inhaling drugs as a sexual stimulant, which forced him to abandon the role entrusted to him by Billy Wilder and to be replaced by Ray Walston. The brilliant filmmaker had a refined and astute response when someone on his team told him the news: "Eight heart attacks? For something like that to happen, the first thing Mr. Sellers would have to have is a heart." For his participation in the parody film How's Pussycat? (1964), the producers covered their shoulders with a $360,000 insurance policy. Never had a heartbeat been so protected.

Memorable characters

Those who knew him well say that Sellers was always afraid of death. Like a shadow that never left him. During the filming of Welcome Mr. Chance (1980) —which earned him an Oscar nomination—, the actor himself was shocked to be still in this world. As if fatalism had to be fulfilled, his heart failed him again, this time fatally, and he died not many months later. He was only 54 years old. He had had time not only to be, for eternity, Jacques Clouseau, but to leave for posterity a whole series of memorable characters. Such as, for example, his creations in Dr. Strangelove (1963), Stanley Kubrick's brilliant political satire in which Sellers plays three different characters with an impressive chameleon-like ability and a comic flair capable of leaving you speechless. Unlike with other directors, the relationship with Kubrick was idyllic; they had already known each other for a long time. Lolita and both shared a passion apart from cinema: photography. It seems incredible that with Blake Edwards - with whom he worked on seven occasions - the relationship was fair to the point of being bad. Asked about the subject, the director had no choice but to be honest: "Peter is capable of eliciting the most pleasurable laugh from you and, the next minute, sticking an axe in your heart." Sellers himself often admitted that it was not exactly easy to get along with him. That shining star who had learned his trade in radio and who had made his way to cinema in the shadow of his admired Alec Guinness - they worked together on the masterful The quintet of death—he earned his reputation as a bumblebee and a woodworm. Almost a look-alike of his character in The party (1968), the Indian actor who is mistakenly invited to a gala dinner and ruins everything he encounters. A pinnacle of comedy, a stratospheric creation by Sellers.

The actor was married four times. His most popular relationship was with Swedish actress Britt Ekland. The marriage lasted from 1964 to 1968, during which time they worked together three times. The fights in sets Filming, in public and private, was commonplace, and the atmosphere was stifling. When they signed the divorce papers, a close friend of the actress couldn't resist sending her a congratulatory telegram. Sellers' life was an obstacle course, of successive shots in the foot, a minefield of difficult survival. It is one of the most transcendent and high-profile cases of a movie star torpedoed by his mental health. Depressive episodes and drug use, as well as a belief in astrology and exotic spiritualities, sedimented a predatory snowball that grew larger and larger. An emotional powder keg.

It would be unfair to end without mentioning one of the most popular films of Sellers' career. Along with Clouseau, Doctor Strangelove, and The Indian Sapastre, A corpse in the dessert (1978) is a benchmark for generations of film buffs. A brilliant parody of detective films, of Philip Marlowe and Columbo in Poirot, Miss Marple, and Charlie Chan—Sellers' role—which allowed him, incidentally, to work once again with his indispensable Alec Guinness and the unforgettable Truman Capote. It had its joys. Not everything was due to the terrible ups and downs of his ailing heart.