Peter Sellers
1 portrait of Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
by Bill Brandt
bromide print on card mount, 1963
13 1/2 in. x 11 1/2 in. (343 mm x 292 mm)
Purchased, 1982
Photographs Collection
NPG x22474
Sitterback to top
- Richard Henry ('Peter') Sellers (1925-1980), Actor and photographer. Sitter in 17 portraits.
Artistback to top
- Bill Brandt (1904-1983), Photographer. Artist or producer of 120 portraits, Sitter in 34 portraits.
This portraitback to top
Seen here during the filming of A Shot in the Dark in which he played 'Inspector Clouseau' for the second time, having introduced the character in The Pink Panther (1963).
Linked publicationsback to top
- Gibson, Robin, 20th Century Portraits, 1978 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 9 June - 17 September 1978), p. 30
- Gibson, Robin; Clerk, Honor, 20th Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery Collection, 1993, p. 30 Read entry
Complete with bump (or 'bermp' as he would call it) on his head, Peter Sellers is seen in the character of Inspector Clouseau on the set of A Shot in the Dark, the second of four ‘Pink Panther' films featuring the inept French policeman. Sellers had a certain following as a member of the anarchic Goon Show on radio (1951-60) and his genius became more widely recognized with films such as The Ladykillers (1955) and I’m All Right Jack (1959), but it was Clouseau that made him an international celebrity. The tragi-comic hero who inadvertently causes mayhem is a theme often portrayed by Sellers and reappears in one of his last films, Being There (1979), when he plays a gardener whose simple horticultural lore becomes, through a series of accidents, the higher political wisdom of the United States.
The photograph, with a number of others, was given to the National Portrait Gallery by the renowned photographer, Bill Brandt, in 1982.
Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top
- Comedians: From the 1940s to now (17 September 2011 - 8 January 2012)
- Bill Brandt: Portraits 1982 (7 May 2004 - 22 August 2004)
Events of 1963back to top
Current affairs
The Secretary of State for War, John Profumo is found to have lied to the House of Commons when he denied having an affair with the showgirl, Christine Keeler. The Profumo Affair was a public scandal for the Conservative party, and ultimately contributed to the resignation of Harold Macmillan.Art and science
Doctor Who is first broadcast on the BBC with William Hartnell playing the Doctor. This long running science fiction series about an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in his police-box-shaped Tardis has been watched by generations of viewers (often from behind the back of the sofa), and features imaginative, but traditionally low-budget, special effects, innovative electronic music, and the Doctor's greatest enemy, the Daleks.International
John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Texas. The arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald for his murder did not prevent a score of conspiracy theories involving Cuba, the CIA, the KGB, and the Mafia among others.Martin Luther King delivers his 'I have a dream' speech, marking an important moment in the civil rights movement in America and helping to secure him the Nobel Peace Prize' in 1964.
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