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Often credited as the greatest comedian of all time, Peter Sellers was born to a well-off English acting family on Sept 8, 1925. His mother and father worked in an acting company run by his grandmother. As a child, Sellers was spoiled, as his parents' first child had died at birth. He enlisted in the army and fought during World War II, where he met Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, who would become his future workmates. After the war he set up a review in London, which was a combination of music (he played the drums) and impressions. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into prominence as the voices of numerous favorites on "The Goon Show" (1951-1960), making his debut in films in Penny Points to Paradise (1951) and Down Among the Z Men (1952), before making it big as one of the criminals in The Ladykillers (1955). These small but showy roles continued throughout the 1950s, but he got his first big break playing the dogmatic union man, Fred Kite, in I'm All Right Jack (1959). The film's success led to starring vehicles into the 1960s that showed off his extreme comic ability to its fullest, but after the relative failure of What's New, Pussycat (1965), which was Woody Allen's first film, Sellers embarked on a rapid downfall to "Grade Z" movies in the 1970s, all of which he claimed to have made only because he needed the money. In 1972 he read the book "Being There" and decided to make it into a film. It took him seven years to finally bring it to the screen, but it earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination (he lost to Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of "Superdad" in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)). Being There (1979) proved to be somewhat of a last hurray for Sellers, as he died the following year. His last movie, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980), completed just before his death, proved to be another flop. Director Blake Edwards' attempt at reviving the Pink Panther series after Sellers' death resulted in two panned 1980s comedies, the first of which, Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), deals with Inspector Clouseau's disappearance and was made from material cut from previous Pink Panther films and includes interviews with the original casts playing their original characters.
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peter
sellers
the
pink
panther
british
comedy
films
Added: 8th September 2007
Views: 595
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Posted By: Sophia |
 
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Peter Sellers performing A Hard Days Night followed by The Beatles - We Can Work It Out. This was from a Granada television special on Lennon & McCartney
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peter
sellers
the
beatles
we
can
work
it
out
Added: 9th October 2007
Views: 7186
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Posted By: Naomi |
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Opening Intro for the 50's Television show "Your Hit Parade". Your Hit Parade was a popular radio and television program, sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes and broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio and telecast from 1950 to 1959. During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups.
Each Saturday evening at 8pm, a hit parade of the more popular and bestselling songs of the week were presented. The original format involved a presentation of the top 15 tunes. Later, a countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale. Occasional performances of standards and other favorite songs from the past were known as "Lucky Strike Extras."
Listeners were informed that "Your Hit Parade survey checks the best sellers on sheet music and phonograph records, the songs most heard on the air and most played on the automatic coin machines, an accurate, authentic tabulation of America's taste in popular music." However, the exact procedure of this "authentic tabulation" remained a secret. Some believe song choices were often arbitrary due to various performance and production factors. The show's ad agencies never revealed the specific sources or the methods that were used to determine the top hits.
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your
hit
parade
50s
television
music
Added: 11th October 2007
Views: 398
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Posted By: Naomi |
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What a great scene from Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film 'Lolita'. In this scene Humbert is checking out a room he's thinking about renting and stumbles upon his deciding factor. Shelley Winters, James Mason, Sue Lyon and Peter Sellers were perfectly cast! Trivia for this is in the Comments.
Tags:
lolita
stanley
kubrick
shelly
Added: 26th February 2008
Views: 172
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Posted By: Naomi |
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