Word: film
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...beginning, but not the end. "He was desperate to have this film work," his wife recalls. "He was like a string that would snap if it were pulled any tighter." Director Hal Ashby, knowing how much he needed assurances, tried to provide them, but in the midst of production could not always summon enough time or energy. Worse, Sellers found the principal location, the Biltmore mansion in Asheville, N.C., cold and depressing in the winter. As usual, he found it impossible to leave his role on the set and walked around inside Chance's deadly placid character all the time...
Whether the rather approving note he has insinuated into the film is as wise as the details of his performance is more problematic. To be sure, it represents a kind of wish fulfillment on his part, the "triumph of a simple man," which is what Sellers takes himself to be. "People are always saying, 'What is this guy all about, anyway?' Why don't they leave you alone and just accept what you do? That's one of the things I like about Gardiner. Who the hell is he? Is he God? Is he sent...
...himself as a little like those unrealistic children. "My ambition in the cinema, since I came across it, was to play Chance the gardener in Being There. I have realized that ambition, and so I have no more." He adds: "The older I get, the less I like the film industry and the people in it. In fact, I'm at a stage where I almost loathe them. If all films were like Strangelove and I'm All Right, Jack and Being There, it would be a different thing...
These remarks, however, are delivered while he is working 15 hours a day on Fu Manchu, having just taken over the direction of the film. They are delivered in front of a wife who does not tire of saying that her husband "is only happy when he is working. To give up work would be fatal to Peter's mental state. A beach for him is an ideal which when realized is never as good as the anticipation...
...Protestant and Peg Jewish may have contributed, some friends have speculated, to their child's confusion and detachment. Surely, Bill's shyness and Peg's aggressiveness helped to create the split in Sellers. The private man is anonymously dressed ("If you see me when I'm not making a film, you would never know I was in the business"), hiding behind a variety of tinted glasses. The professional man, the possessed performer, throws himself into roles that are often multiple. He has played more than one part in seven films, including The Mouse That Roared, Strangelove and his next...