Many years ago I read a biography about Peter Sellers - whom at that time I thought of as one of the greatest comic actors in the world. Sellers was still alive at the time, but the book was quite candid. It mentioned his close relationship with his mother (sort of resembling, if not quite, Minnie Marx and her sons). Among personal historic details I found he was related to some early English pugilist (either "Dutch Sam", inventor or the uppercut, or Daniel Mendoza). I also found a story that has haunted my thoughts about Sellers ever since. The author of the book pointed out that Sellers' vast array of different characters from THE GOON SHOW to the British and then Hollywood films were so diverse in character as to leave little room for his own personality - and that the comedian actually was at a loss for his understanding who he was or where he came from. In fact, he was frequently returning to areas that he used to live in, and asking current residents for permission to visit their apartments or homes to see if it would stir up any smidge of memory of who or what he was.
Peter Sellers is one of those actors who deserved getting the Academy Award several times (most notably for either DR. STRANGELOVE or for BEING THERE) yet never did. The reason, probably, was that he was a highly difficult actor for directors to work with (as this film shows when he is working with Blake Edwards (John Lithgow) or with Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci)). He was also likely to have problems with co-stars.
One that is not gone into in this film, but would have been curious to see, was his problems on the set of CASINO ROYALE with Orson Welles. Sellers had a problem with Welles because Sellers disliked obese people, and he openly commented on Welles' gargantuan size. The result was that in that critical scene in that film (a bomb despite this) instead of having some type of common sequences where the actors could react to each other's performances, Sellers and Welles were shot separately, with Welles purposely adding his own abilities as a magician in performing tricks for the gambling crowd that Ian Fleming did not include in his novel or in his conception of Le Chiffre (Welles' role).
The film follows the life of the star from his working class background to success with Harry Seccombe and Spike Milligan (Steve Pemberton and Edward Tudor-Pole) to his first marriage and it's collapse in the wake of a romance with Sophia Loren (Sonia Aquino) to his string of film successes from THE LADYKILLERS and I'M ALL RIGHT JACK to THE PINK PANTHER and STRANGELOVE. It notes the gradual control his life lost, to both his job and perfectionism (see the scene where Rush shaves himself on the airplane going to Rome, and becomes Inspector Jasques Clouseau to the annoyance of a stewardess). He also becomes too dependent on the advice of a questionable clairvoyant (Stephen Fry as Maurice Woodruff*). Woodruff does advise him that his fate is linked to a woman with the initials "B.E.", which does lead to his second marriage to Britt Eckland (Charlize Theron), which actually seemed quite romantic and promising, but collapses with the death of Sellers' mother. The final decade of his career, with increasingly rotten film choices, and unwanted returns to his career part of Clouseau (for the money, he admits) ends with his last artistic triumph as "Chance the Gardener" in BEING THERE.
Rush does very nicely with the lead role, recapturing scenes from many of Sellers' films. The cast is also good, with some of the characters (Lithgow, Tucci, Miriam Margolyes as his mother Peg) commenting on his personality flaws and good points. In the end we realize he was a genius at recreating paper parts into living and breathing personalities, but never was able to get a satisfied feeling for his own - and had a lousy personal life as a result. But why this happened is impossible to pinpoint. His contemporary Alec Guinness was similarly able to make hundreds of roles spring to life, and was equally a perfectionist in getting down a part - but Guinness was able to find a personal peace of mind in Roman Catholicism, and his home life seemed stable. Sellers could only turn to charlatans like Woodruff for facing into the abyss of the future.
(*Years ago I watched several shows (on Channel 5 in New York in the late 1960s or early 1970s) with Woodruff doing his seer-like spiel for a live audience. Sellers once showed up on the show, although he joked around with Woodruff.)
Peter Sellers is one of those actors who deserved getting the Academy Award several times (most notably for either DR. STRANGELOVE or for BEING THERE) yet never did. The reason, probably, was that he was a highly difficult actor for directors to work with (as this film shows when he is working with Blake Edwards (John Lithgow) or with Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci)). He was also likely to have problems with co-stars.
One that is not gone into in this film, but would have been curious to see, was his problems on the set of CASINO ROYALE with Orson Welles. Sellers had a problem with Welles because Sellers disliked obese people, and he openly commented on Welles' gargantuan size. The result was that in that critical scene in that film (a bomb despite this) instead of having some type of common sequences where the actors could react to each other's performances, Sellers and Welles were shot separately, with Welles purposely adding his own abilities as a magician in performing tricks for the gambling crowd that Ian Fleming did not include in his novel or in his conception of Le Chiffre (Welles' role).
The film follows the life of the star from his working class background to success with Harry Seccombe and Spike Milligan (Steve Pemberton and Edward Tudor-Pole) to his first marriage and it's collapse in the wake of a romance with Sophia Loren (Sonia Aquino) to his string of film successes from THE LADYKILLERS and I'M ALL RIGHT JACK to THE PINK PANTHER and STRANGELOVE. It notes the gradual control his life lost, to both his job and perfectionism (see the scene where Rush shaves himself on the airplane going to Rome, and becomes Inspector Jasques Clouseau to the annoyance of a stewardess). He also becomes too dependent on the advice of a questionable clairvoyant (Stephen Fry as Maurice Woodruff*). Woodruff does advise him that his fate is linked to a woman with the initials "B.E.", which does lead to his second marriage to Britt Eckland (Charlize Theron), which actually seemed quite romantic and promising, but collapses with the death of Sellers' mother. The final decade of his career, with increasingly rotten film choices, and unwanted returns to his career part of Clouseau (for the money, he admits) ends with his last artistic triumph as "Chance the Gardener" in BEING THERE.
Rush does very nicely with the lead role, recapturing scenes from many of Sellers' films. The cast is also good, with some of the characters (Lithgow, Tucci, Miriam Margolyes as his mother Peg) commenting on his personality flaws and good points. In the end we realize he was a genius at recreating paper parts into living and breathing personalities, but never was able to get a satisfied feeling for his own - and had a lousy personal life as a result. But why this happened is impossible to pinpoint. His contemporary Alec Guinness was similarly able to make hundreds of roles spring to life, and was equally a perfectionist in getting down a part - but Guinness was able to find a personal peace of mind in Roman Catholicism, and his home life seemed stable. Sellers could only turn to charlatans like Woodruff for facing into the abyss of the future.
(*Years ago I watched several shows (on Channel 5 in New York in the late 1960s or early 1970s) with Woodruff doing his seer-like spiel for a live audience. Sellers once showed up on the show, although he joked around with Woodruff.)