Original subtitles

This is the garden that my dad grew up in.

His father was Peter Sellers.

I never knew my grandad.

He died quite a few years before I was born.

But what I do remember is this garden.

I remember watching home movies when I was a kid of him playing

with my dad when he was a baby and the gardener who worked there

at the time.

Michael! Michael!

And there he is running over to his dad now.

See that?

He's a lovely little fella.

I'm not sure that my grandad was the easiest person to live with.

People are very intrigued by Peter Sellers and we know

nothing about him.

He had no own personality.

There was no Peter Sellers as a human being.

I'm a very ambitious person.

I don't believe by any means that I've even begun to do

what's inside me.

I have a burning sort of fire inside me to do certain things

which I know I'm going to do.

He was capable of being mad and funny and wonderful,

and then the next minute he could be plunged

into despair.

Another...

Everyone loved him when he was acting

Peter Sellers,

and that was really his purpose in life.

My family don't have a lot of my grandad's possessions.

Maybe some photos or an old film script.

There's something we do know about, and that's his extensive

collection of home movies.

He was obsessed with cameras.

He filmed pretty much everything -

all the big moments in his life.

He did tend to film a lot of the intense relationships

he had with women -

which not all of ended all that well.

Darling, lay back, as I'm going to come over you like this.

Fantastic.

He was always moving on, trying new things, trying new people,

new affairs, new marriages, trying to find the secret of happiness.

I mean, I have a name of being very difficult. I'm not difficult at all.

I just cannot take mediocrity.

I just cannot take it on any level.

He was a genius, he was able to do that thing of making something funny

but not caricatured - that sort of explosion of talent.

Mein Fuhrer!

I can walk!

May I welcome you to The Goon Show and introduce you to the Goons!

I think it was 1955 when I finally got hooked on the Goon Shows.

Next, we present The Dreaded Revenge Of Fred Fu Manchu, Part Four.

It was Peter Sellers,

Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Spike Milligan,

and I must say, the first one I heard, I thought,

"I just can't make sense of this at all,"

then I realised that was the point of it.

I intend to destroy it

with my explodable finger. Over my dead body!

That's that settled.

The Goon Show - how big was it?

Oh, it was as big as that,

or even bigger. Of course it was before television,

so everybody that you knew who was of the same ilk and of reasonable

intelligence met and, you know, listened to it together.

You don't have its equivalent

even today.

They made a virtue of being on radio.

And of course, Sellers was the sort of standout performer

in terms of his versatility

and the fact that he could do all these voices and transform himself.

Eccles, if I don't get $4,000 within the hour

I'm going to get killed!

What's the time now?

Two o'clock. Oh, don't worry, boss, I'll ring Dick.

Hello, Dick? Can you fix a tune for three o'clock?

They would say the unsayable, really. They were probably nearer

to the sort of Dadaists

or Beckett. Part of the joy of The Goon Show was that these guys

were round the microphone and you could tell

they were having such a good time.

One of the most significant things I know to you in your career,

and that was the Goons - which I know that...

..I mean, wasn't just a passing

phase in your career -

it's something that you still very much adore.

In fact, you look back on it with tremendous fondness.

It's the happiest time in my life.

Yes, professionally in my life.

Yes. I can believe that, too,

and, of course, I mean, you've developed in that time

a very special relationship, too, didn't you, with Harry

and with Spike?

Yes. We worked like one person, you know.

MUSIC: Ying Tong Song by the Goons

My father was Spike Milligan, a great friend of Peter's

and collaborator and sometimes arch enemy,

but they loved each other deeply.

We have just been spinning around the countryside

in Old Min - a 1928 Austin Heavy 12.

Old Min - obviously it's a Goon Show name.

"Minardor." Min, Min, Min, Min, Min.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes?

It was joint ownership - it kind of went between Dad and Peter,

but there seems to be quite a bit of angst surrounding the ownership

of the vehicle. When they were loving each other a lot,

they would gift it to each other. When they didn't like each other

so much, they would send a driver to take it away.

And I remember their conversations - mainly on the telephone -

but Dad would have to lie down on his back to talk to Peter

because he would laugh so...

They'd be laughing so much.

I don't know what was going on, but it was hysteria.

Yeah, sensational,

but I'm sending you another pen

because it'd look funnier in this pen.

A modern pen?

Spike and Peter were sort of both troubled in different ways.

Spike was entirely concerned with the artistry, and Peter -

the trappings of fame were equally appealing.

And there's always inherent tensions and competitiveness

in creative relationships.

I'm sure Peter Sellers' success didn't help in that regard.

Around the same time as the Goons started in 1951, he appeared

in a number of low-budget films.

They were attempts to make a Goon Show on film.

Let's Go Crazy was thrown together

more or less on the spot with a number of local

variety artists, and they turned it into a film in its own right.

Now, Beatrice, what would you have - vin blanc or vin ROOGY?

I'll leave it to you.

Righty-ho.

GARKON! Yes?

Oh...

Can we have two cups of cooking wine?

Yes.

Peter Sellers was always a film fan,

so once he'd established himself

he really wanted to get into films.

His big first break was in The Ladykillers.

TRAILER: No plot was ever hatched with such Satanic cunning

as Guinness and his genial group of merry minstrels hit every high note

in this delightfully different entertainment.

He's magnificent in The Ladykillers.

Alec Guinness was his idol,

his Kind Hearts And Coronets with Guinness playing

lots of characters.

That was something he always wanted to do and emulate.

Darling, I am growing old...

He moved on to do several other films, but it was really

The Mouse That Roared that got Sellers noticed in the States.

In common with several

of his films of the period, he plays three characters.

Peter Sellers as the noble statesman.

There isn't a more profitable undertaking for any country

than to declare war on the United States

and to be defeated.

Peter Sellers as the fearless leader.

Men of Fenwick, when you hear the name of Grand Fenwick, do your

hearts swell with pride? Yes!

And if your country calls,

will you rush to enlist? No! Oh.

Peter Sellers as the Grand Duchess.

Do give my love to your

president, will you?

And Mrs Coolidge too.

My favourite character

in that film is when he's dressed up in drag, his old duchess.

I think he's recreating his grandmother there.

Ma Ray, her name was.

She was a sort of matriarchal figure.

And there's his mother, Peg.

My grandparents were both in theatre.

My grandfather was playing piano

and that's how he met my grandmother -

who was actually on the stage.

Her main act was she dressed up in white.

Mum used to stand there in a white-tights thing.

It was a real daring thing then, you see.

And they used to project slides onto Mum and she would depict, you know,

various famous characters from history as the slides changed

and my dad would be playing

the old joanna in the front there or something like that.

So, here we have the original slides that my grandmother

would have performed in front of.

I believe they were hand-painted and, I mean, it's just stunning.

But to see that on the stage

probably did instil something in him, and he was a baby

when all this was going on,

so even if he wasn't that conscious of it, I think

it would have just been part of him.

My dad talked about these slides quite often.

He retained a set throughout his life.

They were obviously part of his heritage

and were very important to him.

My grandmother was quite controlling or she'd like to be.

But she was somebody that was very important to him

and he was an only child,

so that relationship would have been quite a strong bond.

Before my father was born,

Peg and Bill - my grandparents -

had a baby that was stillborn

and they actually called him Peter,

so when my dad was born

he was called Richard Henry,

but, over time, he just became known as Peter.

So, he was like a replacement child

in that respect and incredibly close

to his mother - a relationship that people found a bit clingy,

a bit too close.

He called her Peg, you know -

he didn't call her Mum or Mother.

They were very, very close.

Peg was very affectionate -

yes, very affectionate to him.

They used to cuddle.

We have with us this evening

Mrs Agnes Sellers - the well-known antique dealer

and candle maker -

and she's going to give her...give us

her opinion of several pieces

of antique Georgian silver, which have been obtained

for Mr Peter Sellers by Mr David Mappin.

Mrs Sellers, could you give us your judgment on these pair

of very exquisite candlesticks?

Would you say they are early...?

Would you say they are first, second or third George?

I should say they were second.

I should think about the 17th century.

He was always being bossed around by her and dragged

around by her from all these theatrical digs,

and I suppose a lot of his ambition

must have come from her,

because she very much didn't want him to be

"a failure, like your father".

I really didn't like that period in my life as a kid.

I didn't like the touring.

I didn't like the smell of greasepaint. It used to hit

you when you went into any stage door.

There's sort of a smell of size,

the stuff they paint on scenery, you know? And greasepaint

and baritones with beer on their breath and make-up

on their collar. Always deep voices.

"Hello, little sonny. How are you? Are you all right, little boy?

"Dear little boy. Who is he?

"Who is he?"

And I used to spend my time sitting in dressing rooms,

and whatnot, so didn't like that.

That is probably why I hated being in the theatre.

Really? Yeah. It's amazing...

All connected.

..yes, and, having hated that, that in fact you became involved in it.

But you learnt music from your father, didn't you?

Can you remember a song that Dad taught you from those days?

He used to sing a little song.

It's sort of very dated now, but it's quite, you know, a sweet

little thing, really.

I've got an idea

Soon she'll be cooking my breakfast

Wait and see, I haven't told her

She hasn't told me but we know it just the same

Saturday night on her settee...

When the Second World War broke out,

my father did join up,

but, because of his eyesight,

he wasn't allowed to actually do anything.

So, he became an entertainer,

and I think some of the earliest footage of him is in Burma.

I've got an idea soon there'll be

One little, two little, possibly three...

The Gang Show was an entertainment

thing done for the forces...

..that used to be on the front line.

It was a war but they didn't shoot anybody.

They had to make the poor fellas that were doing the shooting laugh.

Sellers' performance in the Gang Shows took various forms.

He'd appear on stage in sketches.

He would play the drums and ukulele as well.

He performed in India, Burma and Ceylon, and he got

great affection for the people of all of those countries.

He got to know them quite well and was already picking up voices

and accents that he could use -

perhaps not deliberately -

but later he used the accent in The Millionairess.

Beautiful day for a swim.

I'm not swimming.

I'm committing suicide.

Do you hear me?

I'm killing myself.

Jolly good luck to you.

It's obviously a rather ridiculous film, but actually it made me think

that, really, you very rarely saw in those days mixed - what we called

mixed-race relationships -

and my parents loved that film because it reminded them, of course,

of themselves - an Indian man

and a white European woman.

It's all right. I am a doctor, madam.

Of course.

But, in those days, you never saw Indians in the cinema.

So, that's what's such a novelty,

and, of course, he's in brownface - Peter Sellers -

and he's caricatured, but, of course, so is Sophia Loren,

so are all the characters in that film - are caricatured.

Oh, here. Here? Ah!

This is where it is hurting?

Oh, no, no, no, no, everywhere.

Yes, I see, yes.

This is quite, quite beautiful.

What an entirely perfect trapezius you have here.

Quite gratifying. Quite gratifying.

I'm glad you approve of something about me.

The first film that he was in the middle of making

when I joined him was The Millionairess.

It was the first film he did with superstars, if you like,

because Sophia Loren was in it.

Show me your tongue.

Nothing wrong with it. Huh?

Put it away, please.

Her character's in love with the Indian doctor, so therefore

Sellers thought she'd fallen for him and he fell for her

and was convinced that they were deeply in love with each other,

which was the first sign of...madness.

No chance.

So that was all vaguely a figment of his imagination.

It goes boom boody-boom boody-boom boody-boom

Boody-boom boody-boom boody-boom-boom-boom.

Oh!

He just got totally carried away with it,

and he became besotted by her.

I'm not sure if the feeling was returned, but, I mean, he felt

it was, and it was very genuine to him.

He then treated me as his mother -

which I should allow him to do

whatever he wanted to do,

and he would come to me with his problems about Sophia.

It got very difficult.

Just put two and two together

If you have eyes to see...

Sophia Loren is, in truth, the reason that the relationship ended.

There is nothing I can do

For my heart is jumping too

We go boom boody-boom boody-boom...

He went through a period where, you know, he'd come home and he'd say,

"I can feel her. I can feel...

"She's in the room. Sophia's presence is here,"

and I would say, "Well, I'll leave you two to it, then."

I would, you know, go away.

How flirtatious

Goodness gracious.

He never wanted to split up.

He just wanted to be able to do what he liked, wherever he liked,

and come back and tell Mama what was going on, and I was supposed

to be sympathetic to him.

Well, it didn't actually work.

So, eventually, I guess I left.

As you know, I've been married three times

and on three occasions

it really didn't work,

mainly - probably - due to the fact that I'm impossible to live with,

although my first marriage was -

I mean, that was entirely my fault that broke up.

Why so?

Oh, I just had a romance

with somebody I was working with and, uh...

Would you care to say who?

Oh, well...

Boom diddy-boom diddy-boom diddy-boom...

But anyway, I was terribly happily married - that was the thing -

and I, um... Anyway...

Exquisite.

Beautiful.

Positively formidable.

He sort of wanted to marry me.

I had a happy marriage.

I had... I was in love with my husband.

I had the best marriage ever.

It was a bizarre experience, really,

and he... I think he felt that way about a lot of women.

What are you doing?

Nothing, darling - just making you more comfortable, that's all. Huh?

And I remember - on Wrong Arm Of The Law - we had a scene

where I had to get him into bed.

It was meant to be a seduction scene,

and I had to gradually lift his shirt and keep kissing his chest.

Well, that's all finished now - as I say, it's corporation all the way.

Take next week, for example. Yes, darling.

Peter found it hysterical.

We did the take 20, 30 times.

Peter went every time.

And finally, the director said, "Look, we're going to break.

"Go and have a coffee. Calm down.

"Come back and we'll get it."

Came back, he was still laughing.

That was typical of Peter.

He would, once he'd started to giggle and to laugh,

he could never get through a scene.

Lay in bed.

'Ere, you're getting a bit fresh, ain't you?

Do you not think he did it for a longer seduction, often?

Who knows? Nice... It'd be nice to think that. I don't know.

Er, what about, er...?

Er, let me have a think.

You two exchanged gifts at the end of filming.

What did you give Peter and what did he give you?

Well, I gave Peter a book of quotations,

La Rochefoucauld, because I thought he'd like it,

and it was a very beautiful edition.

And he gave me an E-type Jaguar.

So it was a kind of... SHE LAUGHS

..a kind of amazing gift.

Well, that will be all for now, my dear.

Peter did ask me to marry him, um...

..but I think, you know, I think the reason Peter asked me

to marry him was probably because that's what Mr Hoffman

would have done.

Men who've missed the boat...

..but who still need love.

Well, Miss Smith...

..their day's coming.

The plot of Hoffman is...

I don't think it could be made today.

It's about a middle-aged man

who blackmails a young, vulnerable girl

into coming and living with him for a week.

Miss Smith? BOLT SLAMS SHUT

Please make yourself look as though you want to be fertilised.

And during that week, he teaches her about the finer things of life.

You know, he teaches her about how to eat snails and how to play

the piano and how to enjoy nature.

Aren't you going to eat them?

I don't like them.

How do you know you don't like them if you haven't tried them?

Go on, try one, Miss Smith.

Free yourself. Be venturesome.

It's a new eating experience.

Thinking about my time of working and knowing Peter,

I suspect that he did...

..that there was a sort of transference in him and he saw me,

in a way, as Janet Smith.

Because, when I think of the times we spent together, he-he did love

introducing me to new experiences.

You know, Italian food, jazz.

He'd take me to Ronnie Scott's. I'd never been to Ronnie Scott's.

Wonderful. Famously tried...

..tried to introduce me to marijuana.

That didn't work out very well.

C'est si bon

De se dire des mots doux

De petits riens du tout...

From when I was little, I just remember him being kind of

recognised by the public.

People would be whispering and pointing and, you know,

suddenly he was earning all this money

and he could really have whatever he wanted.

He started to kind of really feel that he was a superstar now.

But I think he was perhaps not happy inside, and that's when things

did start to go wrong.

C'est tellement, tellement bon C'est bon, c'est bon...

Peter and I met at a first-night party.

Peter was in a break of about a week while he was making Dr Strangelove.

And so we had a couple of really nice dates before he went back

to filming.

Janette Scott, he suddenly decided, he would like as his girlfriend.

And for the express purpose of it,

we had to go and find a flat off the King's Road and buy it

that afternoon so that it would be ready for that evening.

And I had to go in and prepare food and everything for her.

He was very needy of my time, which was fine when I wasn't working,

but I was preparing to start a new film.

He asked me to marry him, and I said we hadn't known each other

long enough to begin to talk like that.

I didn't think that Janette was right for him at all.

She was too nice a person, I was going...!

She wasn't complicated enough.

Finally, while I was filming, I was able to make a distance

between Peter and myself, but we remained very good friends

for years.

Mr President, I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus

of human specimens.

It would be quite easy... Ha!

Ha! ..at the bottom of some

of our deeper mineshafts.

When he did Dr Strangelove,

he started off with great enthusiasm because after all,

it was being directed by Stanley Kubrick, who I would think

of all the directors, he was very, um, admiring of.

He was very stressed,

and as a matter of fact,

he cried a couple of evenings when he came round for dinner.

It was very difficult for him.

I don't know if he was having trouble with Stanley Kubrick

or whether it was just the stress of playing so many parts.

Sellers played the British RAF officer and the president.

He also played Dr Strangelove and he was supposed to play

the character that was later on taken on by Slim Pickens.

Stories vary as to why he didn't play this character.

He'd got bored by then, anyway, or that's what he said.

And in fact, he...

..did actually come back with a broken bone in his ankle.

And we think that that was probably a put-up job.

Kubrick would just set up loads of cameras on Sellers

and just let him improvise.

So that marvellous speech in Dr Strangelove

with the American president on the phone

talking to the Russian president as nuclear annihilation approaches,

Sellers was able just to come up with that.

One of our base commanders, he had a sort of...

Well, he went a little funny in the head.

You know, just a little...funny.

And, um, he went and did a silly thing.

Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes...

..to attack your country.

A... Well, let me finish, Dimitri.

Let me finish, Dimitri.

Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it?

Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri?

He would simply refuse to do it more than the once.

And also, Kubrick realised that the comic energy would evaporate,

and that the more takes you did,

Sellers became increasingly deadened.

So he realised that you just, in a way, did it in one big block

and then edited later.

Sellers wasn't someone who could repeat a scene the same.

He wasn't a technician like that.

It was all instinctive.

Ha!

Agh!

Kubrick managed to contain and focus his talent,

which he himself was not particularly good at.

Um, but...

..Kubrick managed to harness it in a really effective, worthwhile way.

We had an idea about how Dr Strangelove himself should appear.

And Stanley said, "What about the idea that his hand had been injured

"in some terrible nuclear fallout experiment?"

So then we put this black glove on, and then suddenly,

from the black glove, we got the idea that half of him was Nazi

and half was American, you see,

and suddenly, this hand started to go up.

Well, this came out of just talking and throwing ideas at each other.

This part is fine. I enjoy this.

I enjoy working with a creative director who can sling ideas

to you and you can sling them back, and out of it comes something good.

Kubrick liked working with Sellers enormously because Sellers had a way

of becoming a character. He'd do more than just take on the part.

He would become that character and he would enter what Kubrick

called "a state of comic ecstasy".

I have a plan.

Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!

We'll meet again

Don't know where, don't know when

But I know we'll meet again some sunny day...

And then there was Britt.

We'll meet again...

She was like a fairy-tale princess.

She was enchanting.

Beautiful.

She was intelligent.

She was talented.

..meet again some sunny day.

The whole purpose of me coming to England, to London

was to be launched as the new star with a contract

with 20th Century Fox.

I was staying at the Dorchester.

I was in the bath and there was a knock on the door

and I just wrapped a towel around me

and rushed to open up the door and there was...

..this very tall gentleman.

He said, "Hello. My name is Bert.

"I'm Mr Sellers' valet."

And I didn't quite understand anything, um...

Then he said, you know, would I like to come to his suite?

I was staying at the Dorchester while I was doing a film.

And one evening, I looked in the paper and saw Britt's picture,

and that she had just arrived in England.

And I thought what I saw was very good.

And I thought that I would like to meet what I saw.

He asked me if I wanted to go to the movies. Yeah, I loved the movies.

And so we drove to Odeon Square and that was The Pink Panther.

And he doesn't have to pay for the tickets.

And I was like, "What is this?

"He gets everything for free."

And then, it's his name there.

And then we started seeing the film and...

..I loved it.

We must find that woman.

What was that? What did you say?

After the film, we just sit there,

we're drinking champagne.

Then he took me out on the terrace and I remember him kissing me.

And then I woke up in my own room the next morning, fully clothed.

And after a couple of days, I had to go to New York

to do promotion on the other side of the Atlantic.

And they said, "There's a phone call for you."

And I thought, "For me?"

And it was Peter Sellers.

He asked me if I wanted to marry...

No, he didn't ask me.

He just said, you know, "I have told the press

"that we're going to get married."

OK.

How did you come to propose?

We proposed over the phone, really, didn't we? Well, yes.

Um, over the long-distance phone, you know?

Would you say it was a strange love, Doctor?

We proposed via Telstar!

Um, no.

Actually, you know

that it's very nice, you know, to have this proposal in this way.

Yeah, very glad. We are going down the mineshaft later

for our honeymoon, you know?

Where we hope to breed prodigiously, ahem!

Yes!

Everything went crazy.

You know, the English people really immediately took

to this fairy-tale story of their most favourite actor

and this little creampuff from Sweden.

NEWSREEL: He met her at a reception in London.

He proposed after knowing her only two days.

Will 20th Century Fox be the first to star

Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland together?

Peter's fiancee is already under contract to the company.

I can remember Bert and myself going round to the flat

when they were both there, and him breaking the news

that he was getting married.

And so we sort of said, "Congratulations,"

and thought, "Good heavens! Extraordinary."

Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo...

Then before we knew where we were, he was going to marry her.

He was quicksilver, wasn't he?

Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo, Zoo Be Zoo, Zoo Be Zoo

Means that I love you

Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo...

By the time we met and we married was probably a period

of about a little more than three weeks.

Britt, how does it feel to be Mrs Sellers?

Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful.

Is he going to make you a good husband, do you think?

Oh, I know he will be the most perfect in the world.

How do you feel, Peter? Well, pretty great today, I must say.

My father just accepted the fact that he was so much older

than me because he was famous.

Um, you know, fame has this effect that...

..it doesn't matter what you do or who you are.

If you're famous, that's all that's valuable.

NEWSREEL: Here, we photograph the homecoming

of Mr and Mrs Peter Sellers.

Britt was wearing Peter's wedding present mink coat to keep her warm.

He decided what I was going to wear.

I had no say in this.

He just pre-decided everything without even asking me.

I was at boarding school.

I was told to get my stuff together because I was going out for the day,

but nobody told me what.

And the driver picked me up, possibly Bert,

said it was because Father was getting married.

And we arrived here...

..an hour or so later and the place was just encamped.

Zo Bee Zo Be Zoo I can't explain this feeling...

We didn't actually get to go to the wedding ceremony,

which I can remember. I would have liked to have done.

I think it's aged. I think we actually watched it on telly...

Yes, quite probably. ..on the day.

Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo Our hearts are close together...

It was very joyful. It was... All the friends were there.

On the whole, I would say it was a very lovely time in my life.

Now, darling, this is being recorded,

everything we're saying now. Oh, I love you!

Can you hear that, folks? I love you!

She said she loved me.

We got married on the Wednesday and he left Saturday

and I started working Monday.

Well, Peter's leaving for Hollywood, next week, no? Mm-hm.

And I have to stay here because I'm going to work here, 23rd February.

I'd never seen him so happy.

I'd only been with him, well, a couple of years

at that point in time.

But he had something to do. He was occupied.

He had a big interest. He had a lovely lady on his arm.

And she genuinely, as far as I could see, loved him.

They were good to begin with, but she didn't know

what she was letting herself in for, I don't think.

She was very young and probably didn't realise

what a difficult life it was going to be for her.

I worked for three weeks on the film and then it was Easter,

and he called me and said,

"Ask the production if you can have an extra day off."

And they said no.

And he just said, "After filming on Friday, just get your passport.

"This is taken care of."

And someone picked me up and drove me to the airport,

put me on a plane,

and the next thing I know, I land in California...

..where I'd never been before, and with no clothes,

just my passport.

The plan was that I would land, I would spend the weekend

with Michael and Sarah, and then I would fly back.

And then, of course, when I arrived he said,

"Oh, I have a doctor here looking at you because you don't look well."

And the doctor said, "No, no, she's suffering strain and stress."

OK. And, "You can't possibly go back filming,

"you know, you're not well enough." OK.

Were you suffering strain and stress? No, of course not!

I was 21 years old. Fit as a fiddle.

But, um...

..I had no choice.

I couldn't have said, "I'm sorry...

"..I love you, but I've got to go back to work now."

That... There was no option for that.

It was just, "You are ill. The doctor's here.

"He has proved that you're ill.

"You're going to stay and take it easy."

And, um, that was it.

I was fired from the film because I was replaced by Mia Farrow.

NEWSREEL: She's been picked to replace Britt Ekland.

Britt, you'll remember, was starring in Guns At Batasi

when she decided to fly to Hollywood

to be near her husband, Peter Sellers.

Now the part will be played by this cool blonde newcomer,

who took this press call at Pinewood just before going on the set.

And so that was my career over.

He paid out of his own pocket, I suppose, for her to leave

the film, compensate them, um...

..because he was so besotted with her, wanted her attention full-time.

I was taken straight back to our marble palace.

He took me into the bedroom, which was all gold and white.

And then next to it was a walk-in closet,

which I had never seen before.

And he'd bought everything you could possibly need as a woman

who didn't have any clothes, from evening gowns to bikinis.

The bikini was actually made of mink.

Um, and...

..I just...I was floored.

Then Michael and Sarah came over with Hattie

and we went to Disneyland.

And we had royal treatment there.

I mean, everybody, you know... We didn't have to queue

for any rides.

It was fantastic because he was who he was.

In LA, of course, there was lovemaking involved and he used

his amyl nitrate pills.

I don't think they called them poppers in those days.

But he took that and then we were going to drink champagne

and he spilt it on the bed,

and, you know, I decided we had to change the sheets.

And then suddenly he just went...

SHE INHALES SHARPLY

..and put his arm out and he said, "I know what this is."

I believe he had eight heart attacks.

MACHINE BEEPS

When he came into the hospital as an emergency in the ICU,

it was not believed that he would survive.

Then, when he came through,

the doctors knew he was going to make it,

I had to have a press conference.

Hello.

Little me in the hospital, which was very scary

cos, what can I say?

I could just say that, you know, "Thank God that he has survived."

This, for me, is the first time I've seen a hospital really

from the inside, and I know it is for him, too.

He's been wonderful all the time.

And he really helped the doctors in that way,

that he is all the time trying to joke

with the nurses, and everything.

He was worldwide news.

I mean, you couldn't pass a newspaper stall,

or the phone never stopped ringing.

And all we wanted to do was to get the children back.

It was decided that I should fly with them.

I remember stepping off the plane here in London.

It was just like a sea of flashing lights.

And of course, we were shuffled to the front of the plane to get

them out first.

And that was why - for all these pictures.

We weren't really aware of what was going on.

They are too young to realise really how critical the whole thing was.

I think his son, he's ten years old, did understand it.

But we managed to make it that way that they shouldn't worry.

Whether he was aware of what had happened to him

and the extent of what had happened to him, I really don't know,

because we sort of never talked about it.

All I knew was that I was taught how to give injections

and how to take his blood pressure.

I effectively became his nurse.

I had eight heart arrests, you see, eight in a row, which is very rare.

I never do things by halves, you know!

And...

But, as I say, the good thing

about it is that, according to all these chaps,

and I do hope they know what they're talking about, you know,

that I'm not booked for the old wooden overcoat yet.

In fact, how near were you to dying?

Dying, I actually died for one and a half minutes.

I did expire for one and a half minutes.

And they were very lucky to get me around again,

because your brain deteriorates after that, you see,

from the lack of blood to the brain.

Anyway, you know, I wouldn't say there's any...

No sign at the moment of damage to the brain, you know?

Peter didn't talk about his ailments at all.

But he went through a period of time where he wanted to be really fit

and do a lot of exercise and eat the proper foods

and lose weight and all that.

Mr Gough? Mr Gough?

Could I tear you away for a moment?

Would you like to sit down for a while?

I was doing Not Only... But Also with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

I think it was 1965.

I got this phone call from Peter saying could he be in the show.

He said,

"You know, having these heart attacks, the insurance Herberts,

"you know, they're a bit doubtful about my health,

"and working in movies, you've got to get a clean bill of health.

"So I'd really like to show them I'm fit."

So he turned up and I wrote this scene where he plays a boxer.

A boxer-turned-action-painter.

Well, we're going to look very shortly at one of

Mr Gough's latest paintings.

By the way, who is this person here you're painting?

What are you talking about, "Who is it?"?

Who is this person?

The Archbishop of Canterbury.

Who is it? It's the Archbishop of Canterbury!

It's the Archbishop of Canterbury, is it? Yes.

Course it's the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Yes, of course it is.

You know, he gets up with the palette and hits the board and,

in fact, almost knocks the easel onto the ground

because he hits it so hard.

Sign it. Sign it.

Ah!

My marriage to Peter Sellers was like being on a roller-coaster.

I would have to constantly be on my toes.

I've looked in my diaries and it always says the word "gral".

G-R-A - with two dots on it - L.

And that means fight in Swedish.

There's been enough crying.

Take this soap and wash those lips off your face.

I hate you! I hate you till I die!

He cast her in his own films and they made two together called

The Bobo and After the Fox.

And one day, people will point to me in the street

and say, "That's her. That's Gina Romantica."

He tries to turn Britt into Sophia Loren.

Sophia!

Hello, my darling.

No, Sophia, I told you, I'm busy with Tony Powell.

I am sorry, Sophia.

You will have to get somebody else.

Sophia, I'm sorry, my darling.

There's no part for you in the picture.

Peter wasn't very kind to her about her performance.

He didn't think that she'd done very well at all.

He was awful to her, really bullying, because, I suppose,

I don't know, he imagined that she'd be some other kind of an actress.

Delinquent! Snake!

Harlot! Card!

Tramp! Starlet!

You are never to mention acting again.

And you are to put down that flowerpot!

She never misses.

The threats of divorce came, basically, every Friday night.

But... And then by Monday, there would be a make-up lunch,

or a make-up present.

He obviously suffered from, or was, bipolar.

But very severely bipolar.

He was a very tormented soul who should have had more help,

but instead he was enabled because he was such a valuable asset.

During the filming, we lived in Via Appia Antica and one day he gets

a phone call saying that Peg is ill.

As she was dying, I used to have to go and visit her and talk to her,

instead of him doing it, because he was too busy.

Peg passed away and he didn't go back.

And I can't explain why that was.

Why didn't he return to England?

He was filming.

But if it's your mother dying, you would think

that that would be the one time that he could actually excuse himself

a day to go and see her, but obviously never did.

And then when my mother died, although I had children alive,

she was the last close relative.

I felt a great feeling of loneliness.

I just couldn't pick up the phone and speak to my mother any more.

I felt that a lot.

I felt that a lot.

Maybe a year later, we flew to Rome

and we go out and have dinner.

And of course, there was a lot of paparazzi.

And instead of putting your hand over your face, or sneaking, or coat

over, I just said, "Let them have the picture.

"And then we'll go and do what we want to do."

And he didn't like that.

So back at the hotel, he just went on and on and on.

And it was like having a drone over my head with the sound.

And this just continued all night.

And he took my radio and smashed it.

And in the end, maybe 5:00 in the morning, cos it was light outside,

he called our agent, Franco, and said - he just said,

"Come and pick her up."

I knew that this time something broke and I could never go back.

The two films that he made in Italy, The Bobo and After The Fox,

were crushing defeats.

He was going through a bad period of his life, then,

and I think probably regretted sort of trying to

boost Britt's career.

He was always anxious about the work he'd done, whether it was as good

as he thought it was going to be.

And sometimes, perhaps didn't always make the best choices of films.

Casino Royale is a rubbish film.

You know, I mean, it makes no sense at all.

I believe you have my name in a crevice. James Bond.

Pardon, monsieur? Bond.

James Bond.

Oh, yes, Mr Bond.

Bond. James Bond? Name is familiar.

But at the time, it was the most expensive movie being made.

It was my first feature film.

Halfway through the shooting, Peter said,

"That's it, from now on, I don't want to appear in the same set-up.

"I don't want any wide shots of Orson Welles. Send me home today.

"When you finish shooting Orson's stuff, as per the script...

"..I'll come back in, we'll read through Orson's script,

"and we'll see what you've shot, we'll run it,

"..and then I can be funnier than he is."

Aren't you a little out of your depth, Mr Bond?

In the last 20 minutes I have ruined two Greeks and a Maharajah.

No, Mr Bond, we aren't playing for marbles.

The night is young

and the Rose Garden is already littered with my victims.

I said, "Look, apart from the dishonesty of doing that,

"I think you're cheating the audience."

"No, I don't care. You've got to get rid of him."

I said, "You're behaving like a spoilt boy."

Woof.

And he hit me. You know, right on the chin.

But I managed to duck a bit and it sort of glanced off.

So I hit him back.

And then we grabbed each other and started wrestling around.

And Gerry Crampton, who was the stuntman,

came over and separated us.

And he said, "I don't know which one to hit. I love you both."

Thank you.

And welcome to France, Monsieur Bond.

I mean, I have a name of being very difficult.

I'm not difficult at all.

I just cannot take mediocrity.

I just cannot take it on any level.

And I'm not difficult.

It's just when people just don't seem to know,

or have the basic knowledge of, what makes A and B tick,

that gets me, you know.

For example, I am often written up as being, er,

you know, nasty on the set.

I'm not nasty on the set at all.

The end product is all that matters.

The end product.

Twice-married ex-Goon, comedian and actor Peter Sellers

makes it three as he arrives at Caxton Hall in London

for his wedding to 23-year-old Miranda Quarry.

The next marriage was the forgotten marriage

to a sort of aristocratic lady.

She's like Peter's forgotten movies.

It's his forgotten wife.

Hundreds of sightseers were there to wish the happy couple

all the best.

That didn't last for long either.

And in fact, nor did their honeymoon.

One morning we couldn't find him.

And then the ship-to-shore phone rang, and it was him.

He'd booked himself into a hotel, and he'd left his bride of weeks

on the yacht with me.

And we couldn't work out why.

And he was just... I think he regretted it almost immediately.

Yes! And we're in love. It's frightfully good.

And then, of course, there was Liza Minnelli.

That was hot off the press.

Liza Minnelli, that's right.

He made that very obvious when he was still married.

So...

If and when you get married, you'll be the fourth Mrs Sellers.

Does this frighten you at all?

Oh, no. Four is my lucky number, my dear.

They were contemplating marriage very seriously.

After how long?

Oh, after...a week.

I'm going to marry her, aren't I?

But I can't now cos I'm married, aren't I?

I mean, that's the trouble. But I'm getting div...

Oh, well, when I get my di...

I have to be careful here because of all the ice creams.

Now then...

What does that mean? Translate. Freezers. Translate.

Geezers. Geezers? Ice cream freezers. Ice... Oh.

All right.

Everybody was buzzing about it.

Are they going to?

Aren't they going to?

They were hounded by the press and ended up back in Belgravia

at the house.

There was only one way in and only one way out.

And there were dozens of press outside.

And it was like being snowed in.

I was young at the time, and my husband did not like me

working for...erm, somebody in their home.

A man.

And it was causing problems in our marriage, and it was going

through quite a rocky patch.

So Liza was asking me about my life and I told her what was going on.

And she told me how wonderful it was to have found Peter.

And she had this necklace here, which was a love charm.

She told me,

"I've found Peter now and I'm so happy, and it's worked for me."

And she took it off and she gave it to me.

And I thought, "What a generous thing to do."

I call it my Liza Minnelli necklace.

What happened next with Peter and Liza?

As quickly as it started, it ended.

And again. And again. That's lovely.

Land ahead!

Land ahead!

Who says I can't navigate?

Ghost In The Noonday Sun didn't make any sense.

The film was absolutely doomed for disaster from day one.

Now, then, little duck.

Let's see you get out of this.

Fire!

Look at that!

He was incredibly depressed because of it -

I think Liza just left him - and realised that this could never work.

And so my problems with Peter started at that point.

Where he'd change his mind, and this was the best project ever, you know.

And then suddenly it'd become the worst project.

Watch out for me, Bombay.

There's a power of strength in them shoulders, there.

Ah!

And if you wore green, he went absolutely bananas,

and started jumping around and throwing salt over his shoulder

and doing this kind of insane dance, you know.

And I said, "We're cursed

"and that's why we're having all these problems on the production."

Ha!

The salt!

I spilt the salt.

That's bad luck, is that.

It's bad luck spilling the salt.

I've spilt that salt.

I feel extremely vulnerable and that I need help.

A lot. A lot.

I suppose I feel mainly that I need the help of a woman.

So, I'm just continually searching for this woman.

This woman, you know, this...

I keep reading of these great women behind men, who support them

and push them forward, and they mother you...

..they're great in bed,

they're like a sister,

they're not there when you don't want to see them and they are there

when you want to see them.

I don't know where they are. Maybe they're around somewhere.

I'll find one one of these days.

He used to sort of show people,

even his children, photographs of various candidates

for who he should marry next.

Lay back, as I'm going to come over you like this.

Fantastic.

One day Sarah went up to my father's flat and he pulls out

these two pictures and he said,

"Now, which one of these shall I marry?"

It just seemed a bit...bizarre way to decide who you were going to go

out with, to ask me which one I liked, you know, whose picture

I liked best.

And Sarah, you know, at a loss, she didn't know either of the people.

So she pointed to Lynne for some reason.

I now pronounce you man and wife.

I read in the paper that they'd got married. Really.

I mean, I knew they were together.

And, I mean, I'd seen her quite a lot out and about,

and there was rumours of marriage.

Well, I knew with my father, when he got serious with them,

you know, it was either marriage or out the door very soon.

One or the other, usually.

Lynne Frederick was in The Prisoner Of Zenda

and looked a million dollars.

When Peter was due on the set,

the PAs would move Lynne to sit somewhere else so that when Peter

got on the set, she wasn't seen having a good time.

I think he was quite insecure about her.

With good reason.

I think he was forever forgiving Lynne for...

..um...

..her very...flagrant...

..humiliation of him.

I'll pray for you.

And I'll dream about you for the rest of my life.

In the sort of later part of his life,

perhaps I didn't talk to him as much

because I guess, um...

..the fact that he married several times

and we didn't always see eye to eye with his current wife.

So our relationship was different.

In the beginning of the... of Lynne and my dad,

and me meeting her and, you know,

going on vacations with them,

she was, like, incredible.

That was all smoke and mirrors.

Later in life, she controlled the show.

She basically cut his food on his plate for him

and put it into his mouth.

And she could make my father like, dislike or hate something.

Bert had been with him I don't know how many years.

And he trusted him with everything.

He was a really good person.

For some reason, Lynne took against him.

She worked at it and she worked at it and she worked at it,

until in the end, Peter called me in

and he started to dictate this letter.

And it was basically telling Bert he no longer required his services.

It was heartbreaking. It was awful.

He was devastated.

I couldn't understand it.

I still don't understand it today, why, after all I had given...

He'd given a lot as well. But we also gave.

And even today, I just can't...

..I can't tell you why.

Lynne got rid of everyone he'd ever been close to,

including his children.

With Michael and Sarah,

I met them sort of briefly a couple of times.

And then my real memory of them, of course,

are the hateful letters that he wrote

saying that he didn't want anything to do with them.

Often he would write a letter to someone,

and if I held it for a couple of days, he'd come down

and we would never send it.

And so my hope, certainly the first time this happened,

was that he wouldn't do it, but he did.

I had to mail them. And I did call Michael,

because I just couldn't bear the thought that these letters

saying, basically, "You're no longer my son,"

would arrive and he would have no warning.

How do you get that angry to pen a letter, like, that says that?

And not just once, but twice.

Who says that to their children that have done nothing to them?

There was always the excuse of his illness

for keeping people away from him.

Looking back at it now,

I think it was more about keeping him isolated.

And I think then she started to think more in terms of the will

and what's going to happen.

I suppose you'll think I am too old

for such a young and ravishing creature such as yourself.

How old are you?

Oh, I am...

..168.

Oh! I don't think age matters.

He quite often looked like a man beaten on Fu Manchu.

There was... The days when he was really upbeat

and on good form were much rarer.

And we'd have... He'd say,

"Oh, this scene, it's not working, it's not working,"

we'd all have to go and smoke a joint

or have a vitamin B12 injection.

Bring forth the elixir vitae

and let me drink!

GONG

I think he was very committed to Fu Manchu because the parallel

between Peter and poor old Fu

was they were both looking for eternal youth

and some elixir to kind of make themselves more potent

or more attractive.

I feel fantastic!

He was ill. I mean, he was really ill.

We were actually helping him without...

..trying to let people not notice that we were helping him,

walking onto the set. He was that ill.

It was not a happy time.

There was a melancholy about Peter, wasn't there?

I think the marriage had shifted and changed and become,

you know, less happy or even more unhappy.

I don't think you would call it a marriage by that point.

I mean, they had... He had been ill for so long

that the gap in the age was really showing at that point.

So here we have the last will and testament of my grandad.

So, this was made around the time that he was

preparing to divorce Lynne.

I mean, it even says it in the will.

Um, just here.

"As adequate provision has been made for my wife Lynne Frederick Sellers

"in a separation agreement,

"it is my express wish that no provisions

"be made for her in my will."

So the odd thing about this is that about six months later,

there's a handwritten codicil

that basically reinstates Lynne,

and he's leaving his residuary estate to her,

which is basically everything,

so about $10 million, all of his properties,

all the royalties from his films and all of his possessions.

And it leaves my dad and my aunts,

his children, with effectively nothing.

At the time he wrote this up,

my grandad and Lynne had been separated for a while.

My grandad was living in Switzerland and Lynne was living in LA.

But I remember my dad saying my grandad got lonely that winter.

And he wanted Lynne back.

So I guess this is the price he paid.

I think this really ate my dad up.

It played on him throughout his life.

I mean, he died 15 years ago of similar circumstances

to my grandad.

And I don't think he ever really got over

how things were left with him and Peter.

They felt very rejected. By the will?

By the will. Not the money, but the sort of public rejection.

And it was humiliating.

I think it was a whim of his.

I think he...

Well, he never thought he was going to die until he was 75 anyway.

He was quite convinced. This is because...

Well, this was because he... He was superstitious?

Yes, very superstitious. And he went to a clairvoyant

who had told him he was going to marry four wives,

and he was going to be a household name,

and he was going to die when he was 75, you see.

So there's no reason to believe any different.

So I think with the will, it was one of these sort of petulant things.

He came over from Switzerland on a private jet, to the Dorchester,

where he was going to be having this reunion dinner

with the Goons that night.

And Sellers had said in advance to Spike,

you know, it was all over with Lynne,

and he was going to leave everything to the children and all this.

And he was coming over to see his solicitor

to get all this ratified.

We were sat having lunch and I was talking to Peter.

And he kept saying, "Don't go, don't go."

I got up and I said, "I really do have to go, Peter."

And he said, "Could you get me a glass of water before you go?"

And I walked, so I turned my back to him,

walked to get some water.

And I heard this thump.

And I turned round and he was on the floor.

He'd fallen.

And he was already going that ghastly purple-black colour.

Peter Sellers is now said to be gravely ill.

His condition has been getting worse throughout the day.

And the latest news from the Middlesex Hospital

is that he's still in a coma.

Sellers, who's 54, had his fourth heart attack yesterday

and immediately members of his family began arriving

from abroad, including his daughter Victoria and his former wife

Britt Ekland, who flew in from Stockholm.

His wife, Lynne Frederick, arrived at Heathrow from Los Angeles

this afternoon and drove straight to the hospital.

Afterwards, she said, "There wasn't even a flicker of recognition.

"He was completely unconscious."

I remember travelling back to the UK and going to the hospital to see him

and with all the tubes and everything in him,

and it freaked me out.

And then I remember how strange Lynne behaved,

almost like she didn't have time for us or anything.

She was, like... had all these meetings and things.

We all left that evening, they said to us,

"Nothing's going to happen overnight."

You know, "He's stable, as stable as he's going to be,

"go home, get some rest."

And everybody left. We all left.

And I'd just got to my home and the phone rang and they said,

"Please come back. He's passed away."

And he...

And this is the most terrible thing.

And I always feel so dreadful about this.

For the man who never wanted to be on his own,

never, ever wanted to be alone,

he was alone at the end.

And to me, that is heartbreaking.

REPORTER: The cremation was attended by family and close friends only.

But hundreds waited in torrential rain for a glimpse of the coffin.

The heavens opened.

As we drove into Golders Green, into the chapel there,

it was like the end of the world.

It rained so hard.

Anyway, we finally got out, we got in there,

and all the doors closed and the service started.

And then it was clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack,

heels, and there was Britt

looking stunning in black and white

with a huge pussycat bow.

I mean, talk about an entrance to a funeral!

Peter would have approved, I think, he really would.

But someone didn't? Lynne did not, no.

The Church of England service ended

with the actor's favourite tune, In The Mood.

Afterwards, his son Michael helped his father's fourth wife,

Lynne Frederick, from the chapel.

His two daughters, Sarah and Victoria, followed,

and Peter Sellers' second wife, actress Britt Ekland,

stopped to talk to Canon John Hester, who conducted the service.

I felt that I should be there, because of the children.

If you're nice and polite, that's what you do.

So I didn't sit with the family, I sat far back in the...

..in the place and, you know,

just left everyone alone, but I was there.

And I think I should have been there.

I don't think there was anything wrong with that.

I remember being next to Lynne

and she was complaining that my mother had been there

and that she didn't want her there.

And it was pretty horrible.

As soon as he died, she lived in Beverly Hills

and she bought the entire Yves Saint Laurent collection,

and just lived the most extravagant life.

And shortly after that, she married David Frost.

And shortly after that, they divorced.

And then she was having a lot of different relationships

with people, very Hollywood,

very...

You know, it was very much the time of cocaine

and, who cares?

When Sellers died, she could then play the great role of her life,

which was Mrs Peter Sellers.

She'd been married to David Frost.

She was married to then someone else, I think a heart surgeon.

But she was still Mrs Peter Sellers on her credit cards

and watched his films over and over.

I understand that Lynne was really obsessed with him

and went from this pretty woman to this sad alcoholic.

My last memory of Lynne is I visited her,

and she was, like, 350 pounds.

And the place was not that furnished,

but it was still a nice place.

We were in the kitchen, and she opened the cabinet

and it was like a vodka jug with the handle,

you know, those big ones. And she took a swig.

She got through a lot of her fortune on cocaine and alcohol.

And she died.

In the last years of my grandad's life,

he made quite a few bad films,

particularly Zenda,

and he made another one called Fu Manchu.

ALL: Happy birthday to Fu...

However, sandwiched between these two pretty bad films

was a really good one.

It was a project he was trying to

get off the ground for quite a while.

A lot of people think it's his masterpiece.

That film's called Being There.

In Being There, my grandad only plays one role,

a character called Chance. He's a gardener.

He's lived quite a simple life, shuttered off from the world.

Then, through a series of sheer flukes,

he ends up mixing with the highest levels of American society.

Mr President,

I want you to meet my very dear friend,

Mr Chauncey Gardiner.

Hmm!

On television, Mr President, you look much smaller.

I must warn you that Chauncey is not a man to bandy words!

I don't really know what attracted him to this role.

It could be a few things.

He could have wanted to play something completely different

to anything he'd ever played before.

He could have been trying to play

what you might think of as a blank slate.

His Chance is a little like that.

Or he might have been trying to recapture the happy moments

that he spent making the home movies with my dad and the gardener.

Being There, for me, is probably the earliest memory I have

of finding out about my grandad.

Funnily enough, it was on TV, and my dad sat me down to watch it

and he explained to me who my grandad was

and that we were about to see him.

And come to the end of the film,

Chance is walking onto the water

and he keeps on walking and eventually he just disappears off.

This is my grandad, the first time I've seen him,

and at the end of it, he disappears and he's left me already.

And I was inconsolable. I couldn't stop crying.

I didn't know what to do.

My dad had to calm me down. It was horrible.

I was just genuinely really sad about the whole thing.

Then, maybe without knowing it,

this is the first time I realised that I can see and hear my grandad,

but I'm never going to know him.

I'm never going to know the real Peter Sellers.