The Fake Mustache of Peter Sellers: (3) or How I Learn to Stop Picking on Him

In 2004 BBC and HBO collaborated to bring the true Peter Sellers to the audiences. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers starred Geoffrey Rush as Peter Sellers and other 39 roles, mostly people in Sellers’ life, and some fictional characters played by Sellers.

Suffering from frustration before the stardom and indulging in sex, drugs and alcohol after; marrying, divorcing, and ignoring his family; big temper, high pressure and low self-esteem; aren’t these the standardized equipment for all movie stars? The Life and Death of Peter Sellers offers nothing new in this respect.

There are creative bits in the style of the film. Geoffrey Rush plays Peter Sellers arguing with Kubrick, and the next take he plays Kubrick talking to the audiences. On this end of the telephone line Peter Sellers refused to visit his mother in the hospital, and on the other end “she” lifted her head from sadness and it’s Geoffrey Rush wearing a wig playing the sick lady, talking when walking to her coffin, lying down and dying. The change of roles creates a surreal atmosphere but the style contradicts the message, in my opinion. Peter Sellers was known to be immature and selfish, while the style implies that he was insightful of people’s secret thoughts.

Geoffrey Rush is a good actor. I am impressed by his performance in The Quill. But it is a pity that in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, no matter which role he plays he looks just like himself, Geoffrey Rush. What is worse, he plays the famous roles Sellers played too, Inspector Clouseau, the President of the U.S., Dr. Strangelove and Chance the gardener, and still they all are just himself, Geoffrey Rush! The way The Life and Death of Peter Sellers salutes the great comedian is to use Geoffrey Rush as sacrifice. Watching Rush makes me realize how difficult it is to copy Sellers. Rush only manages to make Dr. Strangelove look evil, but not funny; Chance looks dull and dumb but not void.

Rush’s pathetic mimicry of Sellers shows that the riddle of Sellers is bigger and deeper than I know. How did he do it then, if Rush fails miserably? Those roles vary to such an extent and those personalities contain such complexity; how could Sellers put it off as if it is the most natural thing for him to do? What is the true, natural Peter Sellers?

Obviously somebody asked the question. One of Seller’s famous quotes is, “There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.”

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers does not help much in the answer. Maybe it is a question that can not possibly be answered; maybe Sellers was honest in that quote: there is no Peter Sellers. He identifies deeply with Chance in Being There and that is a subject of the void. It is doomed that Geoffrey Rush could only do so much. Peter Sellers describes himself, “I feel ghostly unreal until I become somebody else again on the screen.” As good as Geoffrey Rush is, how can he possibly portray someone “ghostly unreal”?

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers has a beautiful ending. Peter Sellers stood in the snow without a word, the flakes sank and titles rose, and we learn that he was down because he did not win the Oscar for Being There. At the tender moment it was Blake Edwards, the director of The Pink Panther that Sellers despised, witnessed Sellers’ defeat. The titles tell the death of Sellers. The take zoomed out and it became the footage played in the shooting scene, the audience turned around and it is Rush as young Sellers. Young Sellers watched his whole life and gave us a “what the heck” smile. He walked to his trailer and shut the camera out: “No, you can not come in.” On the door, it says, “Peter Sellers”.

His death is actually comic if you know how to laugh. He was about to go to his lawyer to sign a document to exclude his current wife of his will. (Another quote from Peter Sellers: “You only know what happiness is once you're married. But then it's too late.”) He didn’t get to see the lawyer before he was taken by a severe heart attack. In his funeral the song In the Mood was played as Sellers wanted. That’s his last humor because it’s a song he hates. He has a son and two daughters and he decides to give them £800 each. His son didn’t appreciate the “humor”: “Even the lawyers blushed when they came to tell me.” The rest of the gigantic inheritance went to his wife, which Sellers tried to prevent.

After The Life and Death of Peter Sellers I stop picking on him and start to watch whatever I can find with him. The Pink Panther. Casino Royale. I don’t care their notoriety for being boring; I just want to watch how this man wasted his talents. He once said, “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.” These movies are nothing but mediocrity.

On the list of his works there is I Love You Alice B. Toklas. That’s interesting! Alice B. Toklas is a lesbian, whose girlfriend is Gertrude Stein. Peter Sellers plays an American lawyer with a stable but predictable life. His brother is a hippie with a hippie girlfriend. Peter Sellers was enchanted by the free lifestyle of hippies, so he ran away from the wedding, got rid of his belongings and opened his house for everyone. The soul searching journey started from the hashish brownie the hippie girlfriend made—the hippie girlfriend of his brother’s and then of his but of course she is of no one’s, she’s a hippie—that was too liberating to resist, even for the hardcore conservatives. I didn’t know that Alice B. Toklas is famous for two things: One is Gertrude Stein, and the other is the cookbook she published with the recipe of hashish brownie. The theme of the movie sings, “I love you Alice B. Toklas! So is Gertrude Stein…” The movie presents the encounter of the values of middle class and hippies. It’s interesting to see the lesbian reference be used naturally in a movie which did not target specifically lesbian audiences.

Another one is titled Murder by Death. Peter Sellers plays a Chinese detective. It is so racist. Peter Sellers’ costume is only seen on zombies in Chinese movies. Who else would dress like that other than those who lie in tombs! He paints his eyes slanted, wears snaggletooth and fakes Chinese accent. At some point he was ridiculed for not being able to use articles and prepositions correctly.

Since it was made 30 years ago and they don’t do it anymore, I didn’t allow it to bother me too much. What is for ridicule and what is not is delicate. In Dr. Strangelove the German is portrayed as Nazi, pervert, dangerously ambitious; and people laugh. Germans didn’t complain and such portrayal is never judged as politically incorrect. In The Pink Panther the French accent is exaggerated and ridiculed too. If Germans and French don’t need special care, do Chinese need it?

Aside from falling for stereotype, Peter Sellers’ efforts in acting like a Chinese is very much visible. Or maybe I don’t care. I think I am officially a fan of Peter Sellers.

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