Peter Sellers

Many of Sellers' comedy records were produced by George Martin. He is reportedly paid $100,000 per episode of the show in which he appears; if this is in fact true, he earns more from appearing in two shows than he did in an entire year as a Senator, and will earn nearly twice in one season what his earnings were for his entire Senate career. In some of above titles, Sellers appears only by his voice. Senator also to take a full-time television acting job; however, his first scenes as Branch were filmed during the Senate's August, 2002 recess, so he missed no legislative time in order to act on television. Lewis' biography was adapted for the HBO movie, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), with Geoffrey Rush in the title role. In doing so, he became the first serving U.S. Roger Lewis wrote about the "madness" and bizarre behavior of Sellers in his biography, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (Applause Books, 1997). In the final months of his term, he joined the cast of the long-running NBC television series Law & Order, playing the character of District Attorney Arthur Branch (a role he still portrays as of 2005).

In his will he had explicitly requested that Glenn Miller's song "In The Mood" be played for his funeral; it is considered his last touch of humour, since he deeply hated that tune. Although he announced in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks his intention to seek re-election, upon further reflection, which seems to have been prompted in large part by the sudden death of his daughter from unrelated events, he decided not to pursue this course. His premature death was perhaps hastened by his belief in so called "quack medicine", including psychic surgery. He had never planned to make a lifetime career of the Senate, and had often publicly stated as much. Sellers died of a heart attack on July 24, 1980, in London, England and was cremated. Thompson was not a candidate for re-election in 2002. Another interesting trait of his character was his love for cars; he was believed to have owned and sold a few tens of different cars by the late sixties. Thompson then became the ranking minority member.

His wife at the time of his death was Lynne Frederick, who later married Sir David Frost. While in the Senate, he was chair of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1997 to January 3, 2001 and January 20, 2001 to June 6, 2001, when the reorganization of the Senate prompted by the resignation of James Jeffords of Vermont from the Republican Party changed the control of the Senate. Sellers was married four times, his second marriage was to the Swedish actress Britt Ekland. This was no doubt due to his acting background, but many pundits saw this as an attempt to groom him for an even larger political role. Thompson was easily re-elected in 1996 for the term ending January 3, 2003 over Democratic attorney Houston Gordon of Ripley, Tennessee by an even larger margin than that by which he had defeated Cooper two years earlier. He was nominated twice for an Academy Award, but was unsuccessful on both occasions although he won a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for I'm Alright Jack. ("while I was still unpacking my boxes," as he put it) Thompson was selected by the Republicans to give a reply to a nationally-televised address by President Bill Clinton. He appeared with many stars, among them Shirley MacLaine, Sophia Loren, Maggie Smith, Goldie Hawn, Shelley Winters, Elke Sommer, Claudine Longet, and even Ringo Starr (The Beatles' drummer). Almost immediately upon his arrival in Washington, D.C.

Other directors Sellers worked under include Roman Polanski, Paul Mazursky, and Billy Wilder. Thompson took the oath of office on December 2, 1994. Commonly considered a master actor, sometimes described as an "obsessive perfectionist", Sellers found in Blake Edwards a devoted director who could delicately underline and follow his comic rhythms; Edwards defined Sellers as a "mercurial clown" who could turn comedy into drama, and vice-versa, in an instant. Representative Jim Cooper in a landslide which represented the most votes anyone had ever received for a statewide office in Tennessee history up to that point. A late masterpiece for Sellers was the film Being There. On November 8, 1994, Thompson was elected to the United States Senate to fill the unexpired portion of the term ending January 3, 1997, left vacant by the resignation of Al Gore, defeating six-term Democratic U.S. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, easily varying from brilliant themes as in The Party, to more intense performances as in Lolita (from Vladimir Nabokov's notorious masterpiece). Even more than most actors, Thompson's roles are generally portrayals of characters who are very similar to his real life persona, much in the tradition of performers such as John Wayne.

Strangelove, and an officer of the RAF (the first two appearing in the same room throughout the film) in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Thompson would go on to appear in numerous motion pictures, including The Hunt for Red October (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and In the Line of Fire (1993). He played many other more challenging parts, notably the triple role consisting of the president of the United States, Dr. This film launched his acting career. The movie The Trail of the Pink Panther was released posthumously in 1982, containing previously unused footage of Sellers. The scandal became the subject of a book and a movie titled Marie (1985) in which Thompson played himself, supposedly because the producers were unable to find a professional actor who could play him plausibly. Sellers' first film successes were in 1959 in the British Ealing comedies, such as The Ladykillers, I'm All Right Jack and The Mouse That Roared; however, he is most famous for his role as the bungling Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies, which gave him a worldwide audience. In 1977, Thompson took on a Tennessee Parole Board case that ultimately toppled Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton from power on charges of selling pardons.

Success came as one of the goons on the radio programme The Goon Show with fellow comedians Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine and was followed by early television work. He was responsible for Baker's asking one of the questions that is said to have led directly to the downfall of President Richard Nixon – "What did the President know, and when did he know it?". He phoned up a television producer pretending to be Kenneth Horne, who was currently in the show Much Binding in the Marsh, in order to get them on the phone. He was the campaign manager for Senator Howard Baker's successful re-election campaign in 1972, which led to a close personal friendship with Baker, and from 1973-1974, he served as co-chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of the Watergate scandal. His success was quite slow in coming. attorney from 1969-1972. Strangelove. He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1967 and commenced the practice of law, serving as an assistant U.S.

This helped Sellers in his later film Dr. degree from Vanderbilt University in 1967. During his leisure periods, he did impersonations of his superior officers, which could have gotten him a court-martial. He received a J.D. During World War II, Sellers was an officer in the Royal Air Force. He attended Memphis State University where he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and political science in 1964. He is known to have performed at the Windmill Theatre. Born in Sheffield, Alabama, Thompson grew up attending the public schools in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.

Trail of the Pink Panther - posthumously (1982). Class Action (1991). The Great Pram Race (1980). Necessary Roughness (1991). Fu Manchu (1980). Curly Sue (1991). The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Cape Fear (1991).

Hoffman (1970). The Magic Christian (1970). Toklas (1968). I Love You, Alice B.

Carol For Another Christmas (1964). A Shot in the Dark (1964, sequel to The Pink Panther). The World of Henry Orient (1964). Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964 - first Oscar nomination).

Dr. The Pink Panther (1964). Light of Day (1963). Heavens Above! (1963).

The Road to Hong Kong (1962). Only Two Can Play (1962). Topaze aka I Like Money (1961). Mr.