page_title: Peter Sellers
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Peter Sellers / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Impronte di Peter Sellers al TCL Chinese Theatre a Los Angeles, agosto 2011
context_page_description: Peter Sellers, CBE was an English film actor, comedian and singer. He performed in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series of films.
  Born in Portsmouth, Sellers made his stage debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea, when he was two weeks old. He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres. He first worked as a drummer and toured around England as a member of the Entertainments National Service Association. He developed his mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Reader's wartime Gang Show entertainment troupe, which toured Britain and the Far East. After the war, Sellers made his radio debut in ShowTime, and eventually became a regular performer on various BBC radio shows. During the early 1950s, Sellers, along with Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, took part in the successful radio series The Goon Show, which ended in 1960.
  Sellers began his film career during the 1950s.
context_section_description: New York magazine stated that all of the films starring Sellers as Clouseau showcased his "comedic brilliance". Sellers' friend and Goon Show colleague Spike Milligan said that Sellers "had one of the most glittering comic talents of his age", while English filmmakers John and Roy Boulting noted that he was "the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin". Irv Slifkin said that the most prominent albeit ever-changing face in comedies of the 1960s was Sellers who "changed like a chameleon throughout the era, dazzling audiences". In a 2005 poll to find "The Comedian's Comedian", Sellers was voted 14 in the list of the top 20 greatest comedians by fellow comics and comedy insiders.
  Sellers and The Goon Show were a strong influence on the Monty Python performers, with John Cleese calling him "the greatest voice man of all time", adding, "If he could listen to you for five minutes, he could do a perfect impersonation of you." The Goons were imported to the United States by the NBC program Monitor, which played recorded Goon show episodes starting in 1955. The American comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre also cited the Goons as a big influence on their radio comedy style.
  Sellers and the Goons were also an influence on Peter Cook, who described Sellers as "the best comic actor in the world". British actor Stephen Mangan stated that Sellers was a large influence, as did the comedians Mike Myers, Alan Carr and Rob Brydon. Sellers' characters Hrundi Bakshi (The Party) and Inspector Clouseau (The Pink Panther) later influenced comedian Rowan Atkinson's characters Mr. Bean and Johnny English. The comic performer Sacha Baron Cohen referred to Sellers as "the most seminal force in shaping [his] early ideas on comedy". Cohen was considered for the role of Sellers in the biographical film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. The three members of Spinal Tap—Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer—have also cited Sellers as being an influence on them, as has the US talk-show host Conan O'Brien. David Schwimmer is another whose approach was influenced by Sellers: "he could do anything, from Dr Strangelove to Inspector Clouseau. He was just amazing." As a kid Eddie Murphy developed playing multiple characters in imitation of his acting hero, with Chris Rock hailing Murphy’s performances (such as the multiple roles in The Nutty Professor) "Peter Sellers-esque." Eddie Izzard notes that the Goons "influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as 'alternative'"—including himself, while the media historian Graham McCann states "the anarchic spirit of the Goon Show ... would inspire, directly or indirectly and to varying extents, ... The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Young Ones, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, The League of Gentlemen [and] Brass Eye."
  The stage play Being Sellers premiered in Australia in 1998, three years after the release of the biography by Roger Lewis, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.  In 2004, the book was turned into an HBO film with the same title, starring Geoffrey Rush. The play later transferred to New York in December 2010. The Belfast Telegraph notes how the film captured Sellers's "life of drugs, drink, fast cars and lots and lots of beautiful women". Although the film was widely praised by critics, Lord Snowdon and Britt Ekland were highly critical of it; Ekland said, "The film leaves you with the impression that Peter Sellers was essentially a likeable man when in reality he was a monster. He may have been a brilliant actor, but as a human being he had no saving graces at all". Snowdon disagreed with Ekland's verdict, and with the film, and stated that Sellers "had a light touch, a sense of humour, I can't bear to see him portrayed as somebody who was apparently without either ... The man on the screen is charmless, humourless and boring—the one thing you could never say about Peter."
caption: Sellers's hands and footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre
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