I'm Just A Little Thing - Preface by Lynne Frederick Sellers from "Peter Sellers" written by Alexander Walker - Entertainment - http://maxpages.com/pinkpanther/Just_A_Little

(This preface is from Alexander Walker's book "Peter Sellers" an authorized biography. It is not written in any way by the creator of this site.)

Nothing about Peter Sellers or his life was simple, either for himeslf or for those around him, and the four and a half precious years we shared was no exception. It was a relationship that had to be nurtured twenty-four hours a day, with someone who often-sometimes contritely and sometimes proudly-described himself as one of the most complicated men in the world. It was a relationship that had to be renewed daily, kept fresh, kept young, and above all kept together; and so it was, except for the breif interlude of seperation fifteen months before he died, a wound that we both know would be healed, for when I went to an analyst for advice at this time, he listened to what I told him, then looked at me and said, "You know, it's as if you and Peter are obsessed with each other.." We were. After every argument, every trauma that the film business an breed, it always ended by his saying to me, "you're the person who knows me best. Nobody understands me teh way you do." By then, I hope he was right. There was very little Peter did that I couldn't relate to or comprehend, though the learning process had sometimes been hard and painful.
He was a terribly vulnerable person: people could "get" to him, hurt him, more woundingly than you could ever imagine. Peter never learned to shield himself, despite his long years in the film business. People might think he was the toughest nut around - he wasn't; he had no protective shell. One word could destroy him. Even saying hello the wrong way could put him off his stroke. A well meaning friend once said to him, "Peter, how well you look - you've put on a bit of weight." For days afterward, he didn't touch his food.
That is the way Peter was. It was up to me anda few other close companions to share these problems with him and to protect him from himself, as far as we could. There is no concealing the fact that he was frequently his own worst enemy, but once you understood him, you could forgive him.
When I met him, he spent the first six months of our relationship telling me horendous stories about his earlier life, the marriages, the girl friends, the children, the movies, all the intimate details, night after night, day after day. I suppose it was rather like an amateur analysis session, a thing he would have hated and feared had it been thrust on him by others even for his own good, but which his volunteered with an unconcious need to tell all when he had someone to lend a sympathetic ear. When he had completed his revelations, I felt: "Well, I know everything about everyone else if your life. All we have to do now is to get to know each other!" It had not been merely a recounting of the past; in a very real sense, ti had been a recanting of it, too.
I drew from this experience: it gave me the key to him. When you're about to play a role in a film, you construct the character in your mind. I put Peter together in the same way, one piece of self revelation after another, until I had a picture of him that was like an in-depth study for our life together. I felt I was ready to go for my Ph.D in my chosen subject, "The life and times of Peter Richard Henry Sellers." I not only felt I knew what his feelings were at any time, I also tried to anticipate what was going to upset him before it did - and if possible prevent it. (Not always, I might add, with total success!)
Whatever his behavior, I would try to find a reason for it and an alibi for his own use. "Isn't it a bit stupid to be doing this?" he'd ask me nervously, when he was spending a fortune on some strictly unnecessary bit of pleasure. And I'd reply: "Why not, darling? I suppose it is, a little, but then life's not that long." I knew it couldn't be very long for him; even so, I'd no idea it would be cut quite so cruelly short.
At the time of his death, I think he was coming into his finest hour as an actor., It was vital to try and instill in him the confidence that he could do anything. Some people may think it odd thta he needed this constant reassurance, but Peter was convinced - and by this time he was a very sick man - that all he was fit for way playing Inspector Clouseau for the rest of his life. When I first met him, he used to say, "i was quite talented once... Now all I can do is fall over." What overcame his success in BEING THERE, which was his creative pinnacle. I felt he was moving more into straight roles, more into subtle humor and thus realizing the size and nature of his true potential.
It is no compensation for the loss of living, but knowing Peter, I am relieved he never had to read the notices of his last film, THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR FU MANCHU. The reviews were not unfair - it was far from being a good film - but the critisism would have conveyed to him the feeling of being unwanted again. He would have thought that BEING THERE was just a five minute wonder. Even the sucess of BEING THERE was double edged. After finishing it, he went through a series of suicide threats, which were really cries for help. He felt that he had achieved the utmost within his powers. It was not the most he could have done had he been a healthy man, maybe; but he had certainly transcended his debilitated condition and touched genius again. However, it was then that he started to say last thing at night, "Pray I won't wake up in the morning. Just pray that god will take me." I'd say: "Darling, you don't mean that." But I realized that in one sense he did mean it. .............. And he'd say: "I'd don't feel any thing. I've done what I wanted to do. I've fulfilled my ambition. Apart from you, I've no reason to go on living."
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With few exceptions, he always did what he wanted, sometimes succeeding magnificently, sometimes failing lamantably. Occasionally he yeilded to the temptation of huge fees, then bitterly regretted it when he saw how he had exposed himself to working on subjects unworthy of his talents. At other times, he battled for years to win the power to do something he wanted, and then he valued the result.
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Because we had no children, I was able to stay closer to Peter and his career than I could otherwise have done. In some ways he was like a child himself; it was a curious reversal of age and circumstances. He was happy when he knew where I was, whih was generally near him. On a film set, he'd look across the studio to me after a take for a sign, a nod of approval, or an opinion like, "Well, I think you could do better." But it wasn't criticism: it was guidance and moral support. It came from someone he trusted not to deceive him; if he felt he wasn't getting sufficient guidance and support from the director, he'd look to me for it. I understood his occasional rages and the way his conduct made other people agnry. And because I knew the people he was dealing with, I could try to be a go between. Being marrie to Peter didn't mean closing your eyes to his faults: it meant constantly adjusting to them and shielding him from their consequences.
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I'll always remember Peter for a side of him that he only showed to those he totally trusted: it was a sort of sweet innocence. He had one phrase that sticks in my mind, the phrase "I'm only a little thing," which he used to resort to when he coudn't cope, or when he felt people were out to get him, or when he blamed himself for something that had momentarily gone wrong. By being small, by making himself into a little boy in his own mind, he hoped to soften the enemy and deflect his rage, for how could a seven year old be expected to understand? It was as if he were saying, "She's my mother... she'll take care of me." So when people called him about something that might spell trouble for him, he'd say to me, "Lynne, you talk to them, you know what to say. I'll get into such a muddle, you know, I'm only a little thing." It was an intensly vulnerable and disarming characteristic. You had to pardon and love him, whatever he had done.
In those moments he could touch you with his pain, just as he touched the lives of so many millions of people with laughter. He deserved a little more of this last precious quality of his own life.

Lynne Frederick Sellers

(This was not the entire Preface. I reccomend Alexander Walker's book to anyone who is interested in finding out more about Peter Sellers.)

In loving memory of Peter Sellers - this site is dedicated to him... the one and only Inspector Clouseau

"Give me ten men like Clouseau, and I could destroy the world." Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom)

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