Peter Sellers was born 100 years ago, and his performances still induce hysteria today. Fans and collaborators including Michael Palin, Woody Allen and Lesley-Anne Down explain why the actor remains a comic genius.
Michael Palin recalls how Sellers lit up his teenage years alongside Spike Milligan. 'Spike was the imaginative genius who wrote The Goon Show, but it was Sellers who brought me to tears with his gallery of unforgettable characters: Major Bloodnok, Bluebottle, Henry Crun, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne.' Palin adds that Sellers showed him 'there was something far more important than sport and girls and modern history class, and that was making people laugh.'
Woody Allen praises Sellers's innate comic quality: 'All I can say about Peter was that apart from all his character skills and voices and technical brilliance, he had a built-in funny quality and made you laugh the minute he appeared on screen. It’s nothing you can learn and very few even successful comics have it.'
Lesley-Anne Down, who worked with Sellers on The Pink Panther Strikes Again in 1976, describes him as 'an icon – I mean, not even human, he was like a god.' She recalls the tension before their first dinner meeting, with the publicist warning her not to do certain things. 'He was a very complicated man, but a genius,' she says.
Comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar reflects on watching The Party as a child, where Sellers plays an Indian actor. 'I remember thinking: “Is it possible to die from laughing?” Because I was laughing so much I was in pain.' Bhaskar defends the film against modern criticism, noting that Sellers 'wasn’t trying to be offensive' and that the performance was 'so deftly done.'
Film critic Ian Nathan identifies the decade after The Ladykillers (1955) until Dr Strangelove (1964) as 'peak Sellers,' including the first two Pink Panther films. He notes that after becoming a global star, Sellers's performances became less precise until Being There, which was 'him back to his best.' Nathan concludes: 'I don’t think there’s ever been a better comic actor.'
