September 8 marks the birthday of actor and comic legend Peter Sellers. The British star had achieved acclaim on the stage, in recordings and most famously on the radio, particularly for the “The Goon Show,” the popular comedy series regularly heard on the BBC.
However, it was in film where Sellers achieved his greatest worldwide success. He was nominated for his first Academy Award in 1959 for co-writing and producing the live-action short “The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film.” Sellers also received two other Oscar nominations, as Best Actor for 1964’s “Dr. Strangelove” (from Stanley Kubrick) as well as for 1979’s “Being There” (from Hal Ashby).
Sellers won the Best Actor Golden Globe for “Being There” and was nominated on five other occasions, including three times for “The Pink Panther” series (from Blake Edwards) in which he portrayed bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau, the role for which he will likely be best remembered.
So let’s tip our hat to the memorable work of Sellers with our photo gallery, which ranks his 12 greatest film performances from worst to best.
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12. THERE’S A GIRL IN MY SOUP (1970)
Image Credit: Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Roy Boulting. Writers: Terence Frisby, Peter Kortner, based on Frisby’s play. Starring Peter Sellers, Goldie Hawn, Nicky Henson.
The film version of Terence Frisby’s long-running West End play starred Sellers as Robert Danvers, a TV celebrity chef who takes up with American hippie Marion (Goldie Hawn) who has just broken up with her rock star boyfriend (Nicky Henson). Sellers’ vain chef sees himself as quite the ladies man, and his repeated delivery of Danvers’ go-to pickup line (“My God, but you’re lovely”) is a crack-up every time.
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11. I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS (1968)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director: Hy Averback. Writers: Paul Mazursky, Larry Tucker. Starring Peter Sellers, Jo Van Fleet, Leigh Taylor-Young.
As unsatisfied attorney Harold Fine, Sellers dives into the world of hippies once again when Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young) takes a fancy to Harold and makes him a batch of pot-laced brownies as a gift. Not only does Harold consume the brownies, but he serves them to his mother, father and fiancée who dissolves into fits of giggles. It’s a slight Sellers vehicle, but there’s glimpses of the kinds of films that co-writer Paul Mazursky would make in the next decade.
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10. CASINO ROYALE (1967)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Directors: Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest. Writers: Wolf Mankowitz, John Law, Michael Sayers. Starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Orson Welles.
Never ever confuse this “Casino Royale” with Daniel Craig’s action-packed 2006 version. This 1967 film uses the Ian Fleming story to spoof the James Bond super-spy genre with a number of different actors (including both Sellers and Woody Allen!) playing Bond, with Sellers’ Bond being a baccarat expert in a showdown with the evil Le Chiffre (Orson Welles). Yes, it’s that kind of movie.
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9. WHAT’S NEW, PUSSYCAT? (1965)
Image Credit: United Artists/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Clive Donner. Writer: Woody Allen. Starring Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, Romy Schneider, Capucine, Woody Allen.
In “What’s New, Pussycat?”, the first produced screenplay by Woody Allen, Sellers portrays famed psychoanalyst Dr. Fritz Fassbender (Peter Sellers), who is seeing patient Michael James (Peter O’Toole), a notorious womanizer who finds that every woman he meets falls in love with him. The only problem is that all of Dr. Fassbender’s female patients are falling in love with him too. When Sellers is given good dialogue (as he does here), he totally excels.
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8. MURDER BY DEATH (1976)
Image Credit: Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Robert Moore. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring Peter Sellers, David Niven, Maggie Smith, James Coco, Peter Falk, Eileen Brennan, Elsa Lanchester.
Neil Simon’s clever satire turns the tables on familiar Agatha Christie mysteries by making many of the suspects the world’s greatest detectives. Among them is Sellers’ Inspector Henry Wang, who channels Sellers’ inner Charlie Chan and speaks in a kind of broken English that everyone else trapped in the mansion criticizes. It’s a nervy performance, but Sellers absolutely gives it his all.
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7. THE PARTY (1968)
Image Credit: United Artists/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Blake Edwards. Writers: Blake Edwards, Tom Waldman, Frank Waldman. Starring Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet.
In its own way, Blake Edwards’ “The Party” is one of the more radical films that Sellers ever made. Largely improvisational, Sellers (in brownface) plays Indian actor Hrundi V. Bakshi, who has unwittingly caused catastrophes on his current shoot, but instead of being fired, he is accidentally invited to a big producer’s party, where the catastrophes continue. Yes, it’s a film whose plot consists entirely of character bits, but that lends it an air of “anything can happen.” And it does.
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6. THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964)
Image Credit: United Artists/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: George Roy Hill. Writer: Nora Johnson, Nunnally Johnson. Starring Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, Angela Lansbury, Merrie Spaeth, Tippy Walker.
Sellers portrays the title character in George Roy Hill’s comedy about two adolescent schoolgirls (Merrie Spaeth, Tippy Walker) who begin to stalk famed concert pianist Henry Orient and obsess about a possible relationship with him. Henry, on the other hand, thinks that the girls are spying on him at the behest of the husband of his current mistress (Paula Prentiss). Henry is a surprisingly reactive role for Sellers but one that he handles nicely.
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5. THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (1959)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director: Jack Arnold. Writer: Leonard Wibberley. Starring Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell.
Sellers made one of his first big international splashes in this British satire, in which the teeny Duchy of Grand Fenwick finds that its main export, Pinot Grand Fenwick wine, is being sold in a cheaper version in the U.S. With their economy in jeopardy, the government devises a plan to declare war on the United States, then immediately surrender, and reap the benefits of the resulting American foreign aid. It’s a brilliant plan…until it isn’t. Sellers plays three roles — military leader Tully Bascomb, prime minister Rupert Mountjoy and the country’s Duchess Gloriana XII — foreshadowing his three-role hat trick five years later in “Dr. Strangelove.”
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4. THE PINK PANTHER series (1963, 1964, 1975, 1976, 1978)
Image Credit: United Artists/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Blake Edwards. Writers: Blake Edwards and various. Starring Peter Sellers.
Sellers portrayed his his most iconic creation as bumbling French Inspector Jacques Clouseau in five “Pink Panther” films. In each case, Clouseau stumbled his way into solving a major crime, and Sellers became a huge movie star in the process. For his performance as Inspector Clouseau, Sellers received Golden Globe Best Actor nominations for 1963’s “The Pink Panther,” 1975’s “The Return of the Pink Panther” and 1976’s “The Pink Panther Strikes Again.”
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3. LOLITA (1962)
Image Credit: Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock Director: Stanley Kubrick. Writer: Vladimir Nabokov, based on his novel. Starring James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, Peter Sellers.
The idea of making a film of Vladimir Nabokov’s scandalous 1955 novel about the middle-aged Humbert Humbert (James Mason) whose infatuation with 14 year-old girl Lolita (Sue Lyon) seemed unthinkable in 1962. But MGM did it, and no mobs holding torches and pitchforks showed up at their Culver City gates. Sellers plays Clare Quilty, a playwright who eventually marries and impregnates Lolita, much to the frustration of Humbert. For his performance as Clare, Sellers earned his first Golden Globe nomination.
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2. BEING THERE (1979)
Image Credit: United Artists/REX/Shutterstock Director: Hal Ashby. Writer: Jerzy Kosiński, based on his novel. Starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Warden, Melvyn Douglas.
Based on the novel by Jerzy Kosiński, “Being There” follows Chance The Gardener, a simple man who knows little of the world, and what he does know, he learns it just from watching television. Chance is such a blank that those who come in contact with him see only what they want to see. It’s a beautifully modulated performance by Sellers, one of his very best and earned him his first Golden Globe Award and received his third Oscar nomination.
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1. DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director: Stanley Kubrick. Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George. Starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens.
Stanley Kubrick’s classic Cold War satire has only gotten better with age. When a U.S. Air Force general (Sterling Hayden) goes mad and orders a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, the leaders of both nations scramble to keep the bomb from hitting its target and unleashing a nuclear catastrophe. For his performances as Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley and Dr. Strangelove, Sellers was nominated for his second Academy Award.
