Establishment can mean the act of establishing (permanently setting up) something, as well as that which has been established, by such an act or otherwise.

In particular, establishment or The Establishment may refer to:

Establishment (Pakistan) a term referring to Pakistan's dominant military-civil oligarchy

Establishment (church), the official sanction and support of a church by a nation's government

*Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, pronouncements in the United States Constitution forbidding congress from involvement in the establishment of a religion

The Establishment, the dominant group or elite holding the effective power or authority in an organization, society, or field of endeavour, in particular when viewed as being opposed to change

The Establishment (club), the English satire club founded in the early 1960s by Peter Cook

The Establishment (comic book), the comic book produced by Wildstorm comics in 2001-2003 featuring a British team of superheroes

Freedom of establishment, the right of EU nationals to establish themselves economically in any member state

Name	Charles Ives
Background	non_performing_personnel
Birth name	Charles Edward Ives
Birth date	October 20, 1874
Death date	May 19, 1954
Origin	Danbury, Connecticut
Religion	United Church of Christ
Occupation	composer, insurance agent
Years active	}}

Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives's music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original". Ives combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music, and was among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatoric elements, and quarter tones, foreshadowing many musical innovations of the 20th century.

Sources of Charles Ives’s tonal imagery are hymn tunes and traditional songs, the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster.

Biography

Charles Ives was born in Danbury, Connecticut in 1874, the son of George Ives, a U.S. Army bandleader in the American Civil War, and his wife Mary Parmelee. A strong influence of Charles's may have been sitting in the Danbury town square, listening to his father's marching band and other bands on other sides of the square simultaneously. George Ives's unique music lessons were also a strong influence on Charles; George Ives took an open-minded approach to musical theory, encouraging his son to experiment in bitonal and polytonal harmonizations. It was from his father that Charles Ives also learned the music of Stephen Foster. Ives became a church organist at the age of 14 and wrote various hymns and songs for church services, including his ''Variations on 'America' ''.

Ives moved to New Haven in 1893, enrolling in the Hopkins School where he captained the baseball team. In September 1894, Ives entered Yale University, studying under Horatio Parker. Here he composed in a choral style similar to his mentor, writing church music and even an 1896 campaign song for William McKinley. On November 4, 1894 Charles's father died, a crushing blow to the young composer, but to a large degree Ives continued the musical experimentation he had begun with George Ives.

At Yale, Ives was a prominent figure; he was a member of HeBoule, Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi chapter) and Wolf's Head Society, and sat as chairman of the Ivy Committee. His works ''Calcium Light Night'' and ''Yale-Princeton Football Game'' show the influence of college and sports on Ives's composition. He wrote his Symphony No. 1 as his senior thesis under Parker's supervision. During his career as an insurance executive, Ives devised creative ways to structure life-insurance packages for people of means, which laid the foundation of the modern practice of estate planning. His ''Life Insurance with Relation to Inheritance Tax'', published in 1918, was well-received. As a result of this he achieved considerable fame in the insurance industry of his time, with many of his business peers surprised to learn that he was also a composer. In his spare time he composed music and, until his marriage, worked as an organist in Danbury and New Haven as well as Bloomfield, New Jersey and New York City.

Ives died in 1954 in New York City. His widow bequeathed the royalties from his music to the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the Charles Ives Prize.

Music

Early period (before 1900)

As a youth, Charles was musically trained by his father George Ives, the bandmaster in Danbury, Connecticut. Charles played drums in his father's band at an early age, then learned to play piano and organ as his "main" instrument. He was a sought-after organist in some of the local churches as a teenager and once received a favorable newspaper review. George Ives engaged his son with challenging musical exercises such as alternative tunings and bitonal singing exercises. The elder Ives experimented with having two marching bands start at opposite ends of town playing two different songs in different keys while marching towards each other. Charles later credited his father as the seminal musical influence in his life.

Ives was formally trained in music at Yale. His First Symphony shows a grasp of the academic skills needed to write in the traditional sonata form of the late 19th century, as well as a tendency to display an individual and iconoclastic harmonic style. His father was a band leader, and like Hector Berlioz, Ives was fascinated with both outdoor music and instrumentation. His attempts to fuse these interests coupled with his devotion to Beethoven set the direction for the remainder of his musical life.

Ives published a large collection of his songs, many of which had piano parts that paralleled modern movements in Europe, including bitonality and pantonality. He was an accomplished pianist who could improvise in a variety of styles, including those then quite new. Though he is now best known for his orchestral music, he composed two string quartets and other works of chamber music. His work as an organist led him to write ''Variations on "America"'' in 1891, which he premiered at a recital celebrating the Fourth of July. The piece takes the tune (which is the same one as is used for the national anthem of the United Kingdom) through a series of fairly standard but witty variations; it was not published until 1949. The variations differ sharply: a running line, a set of close harmonies, a march, and a polonaise; the interludes are one of the first uses of bitonality; William Schuman arranged this for orchestra in 1964 and again for symphonic band in 1968.

Middle period (1900–1910)

Around the turn of twentieth century Ives composed his Symphony No. 2, signifying a departure from the conservative approach of his composition teacher at Yale, Horatio Parker. His first symphony is a more conventional piece since Parker had insisted that he stick to the older European style. However, the second symphony, composed after he had graduated, adopted new techniques that included musical quotations, unusual phrasing and orchestration, and even a blatantly dissonant 11-note chord ending the work. The second symphony foreshadows his later compositional style even though the piece is relatively conservative by Ives's standards.

In 1906, Ives composed what some have argued was the first radical musical work of the twentieth century, ''Central Park in the Dark''. The piece evokes an evening comparing sounds from nearby nightclubs in Manhattan (playing the popular music of the day, ragtime, quoting "Hello! Ma Baby" and even Sousa's "Washington Post March") with the mysterious dark and misty qualities of the Central Park woods (played by the strings). The string harmony uses shifting chord structures that are not solely based on thirds but a combination of thirds, fourths, and fifths. Near the end of the piece the remainder of the orchestra builds up to a grand chaos ending on a dissonant chord, leaving the string section to end the piece save for a brief violin duo superimposed over the unusual chord structures.

Ives had composed two symphonies, but it is with ''The Unanswered Question'' (1906), written for the highly unusual combination of trumpet, four flutes, and string orchestra, that he established the mature sonic world that became his signature style. The strings (located offstage) play very slow, chorale-like music throughout the piece while on several occasions the trumpet (positioned behind the audience) plays a short motif that Ives described as "the eternal question of existence". Each time the trumpet is answered with increasingly shrill outbursts from the flutes (onstage) — apart from the last: the unanswered question. The piece is typical Ives — it juxtaposes various disparate elements, it appears to be driven by a narrative never fully revealed to the audience, and it is tremendously mysterious. It has become one of his more popular works. Leonard Bernstein borrowed its title for his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1973, noting that he always thought of the piece as a musical question, not a metaphysical one.

Mature period (1910–1923)

Starting around 1910 Ives began composing his most accomplished works including the ''Holiday Symphony'' and arguably his best-known piece, ''Three Places in New England''.

Pieces such as ''The Unanswered Question'' were almost certainly influenced by the New England transcendentalist writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

The sonata is possibly Ives's best-known piece for solo piano (although it should be noted that there is an optional part for flute). (A part for viola in the "Emerson" movement is not intended for a viola player — it is simply the "viola part" from the original "Emerson" Concerto sketch, which was also to be played by bassoon and tubular bells.) Rhythmically and harmonically, it is typically adventurous, and it demonstrates Ives's fondness for quotation — on several occasions the opening motto from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is quoted. It also contains one of the most striking examples of Ives's experimentalism: in the second movement, he instructs the pianist to use a piece of wood to produce a dense but generally very soft cluster chord. All these effects are combined to create one of the towering masterworks of 20th century piano literature—an unprecedented masterpiece of American music.

Perhaps the most remarkable piece of orchestral music Ives completed was his Fourth Symphony (1910–16). The list of forces required to perform the work alone is extraordinary. The work closely mirrors ''The Unanswered Question''. There is no shortage of novel effects. (A tremolando is heard throughout the second movement. A fight between discordance and traditional tonal music is heard in the final movement. The piece ends quietly with just the percussion playing at a distance.) In it, Ives finally resolves all of his compositional issues and the full force of his considerable genius is heard. The final movement can be seen as an apotheosis of his work and a culmination of his musical achievement. A complete performance was not given until 1965, almost half a century after the symphony was completed, and more than a decade after Ives's death.

Ives left behind material for an unfinished ''Universe Symphony'', which he was unable to assemble in his lifetime despite two decades of work. This was due to his health problems as well as his shifting conception of the work. There have been several attempts at completion or performing version. However, none has found its way into general performance. The symphony takes the ideas in the Symphony No. 4 to an even higher level, with complex cross-rhythms and difficult layered dissonance along with unusual instrumental combinations.

Ives's chamber works include the String Quartet No. 2, where the parts are often written at extremes of counterpoint, ranging from spiky dissonance in the movement labeled "Arguments" to transcendentally slow. This range of extremes is frequent in Ives's music — crushing blare and dissonance contrasted with lyrical quiet — and carried out by the relationship of the parts slipping in and out of phase with each other. Ives's idiom, like Mahler's, employed highly independent melodic lines. It is regarded as difficult to play because many of the typical signposts for performers are not present. This work had a clear influence on Elliott Carter's Second String Quartet, which is similarly a four-way theatrical conversation.

Reception

Ives's music was largely ignored during his lifetime as an active composer, but since then his reputation has greatly increased. Juilliard commemorated the 50th anniversary of Ives's death by performing his music over six days in 2004. Many of his works went unperformed for many years. His tendency to experiment and his increasing use of dissonance were not well taken by the musical establishment of the time. The difficulties in performing the rhythmic complexities in his major orchestral works made them daunting challenges even decades after they were composed.

One of the more damning words one could use to describe music in Ives's view was "nice", and his famous remark "use your ears like men!" seemed to indicate that he did not care about his reception. On the contrary, Ives was interested in popular reception, but on his own terms.

Early supporters of his music included Henry Cowell, Elliott Carter and Aaron Copland. Cowell's periodical ''New Music'' published a substantial number of Ives's scores (with the composer's approval), but for almost 40 years Ives had few performances that he did not arrange or back, generally with Nicolas Slonimsky as the conductor. The next year, this piece won Ives the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Ives gave the prize money away (half of it to Harrison), saying "prizes are for boys, and I'm all grown up".

At this time, Ives was also promoted by Bernard Herrmann, who worked as a conductor at CBS and in 1940 became principal conductor of the CBS Symphony Orchestra. While there he was a champion of Charles Ives's music. When meeting Ives, Hermann confessed that he had tried his hand at performing the ''Concord Sonata''.

Remarkably, Ives, who actually avoided the radio and the phonograph, agreed to make a series of piano recordings from 1933 to 1943 that were later issued by Columbia Records on a special LP set issued for Ives's centenary in 1974. New World Records issued 42 tracks of Ives's recordings on CD on April 1, 2006.

Recognition of Ives's music has improved. He received praise from Arnold Schoenberg, who regarded him as a monument to artistic integrity, and from the New York School of William Schuman. He won the admiration of Gustav Mahler, who said that Ives was a true musical revolutionary. Mahler talked of premiering Ives's Third Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, but Mahler's death soon after prevented the premiere.

In 1951, Leonard Bernstein conducted the world premiere of Ives's Second Symphony in a broadcast concert by the New York Philharmonic. The Iveses heard the performance on their cook's radio and were amazed at the audience's warm reception to the music. Bernstein continued to conduct Ives's music and made a number of recordings with the Philharmonic for Columbia Records. He even honored Ives on one of his televised youth concerts and in a special disc included with the reissue of the 1960 recording of the second symphony and the ''Fourth of July'' movement from Ives' ''Holiday Symphony''.

Another pioneering Ives recording, undertaken during the 1950s, was the first complete set of the four violin sonatas, performed by Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster Rafael Druian and John Simms.

Leopold Stokowski took on the Symphony No. 4 in 1965, regarding the work as "the heart of the Ives problem". The Carnegie Hall world premiere by the American Symphony Orchestra led to the first recording of the music.

Another promotor of Ives was choral conductor Gregg Smith, who made a series of recordings of the composer's shorter works during the 1960s, including first stereo recordings of the psalm settings and arrangements of many short pieces for theater orchestra. The Juilliard String Quartet recorded the two string quartets during the 1960s.

In the present, Michael Tilson Thomas is an enthusiastic exponent of Ives's symphonies, as is composer and biographer Jan Swafford. Ives's work is regularly programmed in Europe. Ives has also inspired pictorial artists, most notably Eduardo Paolozzi, who entitled one of his 1970s sets of prints ''Calcium Light Night'', each print being named for an Ives piece (including ''Central Park in the Dark''). In 1991, Connecticut's legislature designated Ives as that state's official composer.

The Scottish baritone Henry Herford began a survey of Ives's songs in 1990, but this remains incomplete, owing to the collapse of the record company involved (Unicorn-Kanchana).

Pianist-composer and Wesleyan University professor Neely Bruce has made a life's study of Ives. To date, he has staged seven parts of a concert series devoted to the complete songs of Ives.

Musicologist David Gray Porter reconstructed a piano concerto, the "Emerson" Concerto, from Ives's sketches. A recording of the work was released by Naxos Records.

However, Ives is not without his critics. Some find his music bombastic and pompous. Others find it, strangely enough, timid in that the fundamental sound of European traditional music is still present in his works. His onetime supporter Elliott Carter has called his work incomplete, but has since revised his stance.

Influence on twentieth-century music

A bold testament to Ives comes from the composer Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg's widow eventually found a note of his in the form of a brief poem shortly after his death (just three years before Ives himself died). The note was originally written in 1944 when Schoenberg was living in Los Angeles and teaching at UCLA stating:

. He responds to negligence by contempt. He is not forced to accept praise or blame. His name is Ives.}}

Ives was also a great financial supporter of twentieth century music, often supporting works that were written by other composers. This he did in secret, telling his beneficiaries it was really his wife who wanted him to do so. Nicolas Slonimsky said in 1971, "He financed my entire career."

Compositions

''Note: Because Ives often made several different versions of the same piece, and because his work was generally ignored during his lifetime, it is often difficult to put exact dates on his compositions. The dates given here are sometimes best guesses. There have also been controversial speculations that Ives purposely misdated his own pieces earlier or later than actually written.

Variations on ''America'' for organ (1892)

The Circus Band (a march describing the Circus coming to town)

Psalm settings (14, 42, 54, 67, 90, 135, 150) (1890s)

String Quartet No. 1, ''From the Salvation Army'' (1897–1900)

Symphony No. 1 in D minor (1898–1901)

Symphony No. 2 (Ives gave dates of 1899-1902; analysis of handwriting and manuscript paper suggests 1907-1909)

Symphony No. 3, ''The Camp Meeting'' (1908–10)

''Central Park in the Dark'' for chamber orchestra (1906, 1909)

''The Unanswered Question'' for chamber group (1906; rev. 1934)

Piano Sonata No. 1 (1909–16)

Piano Trio (c1909–10, rev. c1914–15)

Violin Sonata No. 1 (1910–14; rev. ca. 1924)

Violin Sonata No. 4, ''Children's Day at the Camp Meeting'' (1911–16)

''A Symphony: New England Holidays'' (1904–1913)

''"Robert Browning" Overture'' (1911–14)

Symphony No. 4 (1912–18; rev. 1924–26)

String Quartet No. 2 (1913–15)

Pieces for chamber ensemble grouped as "Sets," some called ''Cartoons or Take-Offs'' or ''Songs Without Voices'' (1906–18); includes ''Calcium Light Night''

''Three Places in New England'' (Orchestral Set No. 1) (1910–14; rev. 1929)

Violin Sonata No. 2 (1914–17)

Violin Sonata No. 3 (1914–17)

Orchestral Set No. 2 (1915–19)

Piano Sonata No. 2, ''Concord, Mass., 1840–60'' (1916–19) (revised many times by Ives)

''Universe symphony'' (incomplete, 1915–28, worked on symphony until his death in 1954)

''114 Songs'' (composed various years 1887–1921, published 1922.)

Three Quarter Tone Piano Pieces (1923–24)

Orchestral Set No. 3 (incomplete, 1919–26, notes added after 1934)

Notes

Further reading

External links

The Charles Ives Society

Charles Ives at Peermusic Classical Composer's Publisher and Bio

Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra Tippett rehearses ''Putnam's Camp''. A short video from 1969.

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives, online edition

The Charles Ives Center for the Arts. Inc

Art of the States: Charles Ives ''Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for Two Pianos'' (1924)

''Multitasking,'' an episode of The Infinite Mind public radio program (Cambridge, MA, Lichtenstein Creative Media, 2005), a report on Charles Ives and his integration of multitasking into his compositions.

Ives Vocal Marathon—performances and programs of Ives's vocal work.

Charles Ives at Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

The online music review La Folia has an in-depth article on Ives's Concord Sonata

The Charles Ives Papers at Yale University Music Library

Category:1874 births Category:1954 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:American classical musicians Category:American composers Category:American Congregationalists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Microtonal musicians Category:Modernist composers Category:People from Danbury, Connecticut Category:Pulitzer Prize for Music winners Category:Wolf's Head Society Category:Hopkins School alumni Category:Yale Bulldogs football players Category:Yale University alumni Category:Symbols of Connecticut

zh-min-nan:Charles Ives ca:Charles Ives cs:Charles Ives da:Charles Ives de:Charles Ives es:Charles Ives eo:Charles Ives fa:چارلز آیوز fr:Charles Ives ko:찰스 아이브스 it:Charles Ives he:צ'ארלס אייבס nl:Charles Ives ja:チャールズ・アイヴズ pl:Charles Ives pt:Charles Ives ru:Айвз, Чарлз simple:Charles Ives sl:Charles Ives fi:Charles Ives sv:Charles Ives uk:Чарлз Айвз zh:查理斯·艾伍士

name	Alec Wilder
background	non_performing_personnel
birth name	Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder
born	February 16, 1907
died	December 24, 1980 Gainesville, Florida, U.S.A.
origin	Rochester, New York, U.S.A.
genre	Popular music
occupation	Composer
website	}}

Alec Wilder (born Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder in Rochester, New York, February 16, 1907; d. Gainesville, Florida, December 24, 1980) was an American composer.

Biography

His family was prominent in Rochester; a downtown building (at the "Four Corners") bears the family's name. As a young boy, he traveled to New York City with his mother and stayed at the Algonquin Hotel. It would later be his home for the last 40 or so years of his life. He attended several prep schools, unhappily, as a teenager. Around this time, he hired a lawyer and essentially "divorced" himself from his family, gaining for himself some portion of the family fortune.

He was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied briefly at his hometown's Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but left without completing his degree. While there, he edited a humor magazine and scored music for short films directed by James Sibley Watson. Wilder was eventually awarded an honorary degree in 1973.

He was good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and other luminaries of the American popular music canon. Among the popular songs he wrote or co-wrote were "I'll Be Around" (a hit for the Mills Brothers), "While We're Young" (recorded by Peggy Lee and many others), and "It's So Peaceful in the Country". He also wrote many songs for the cabaret artist Mabel Mercer, including one of her signature pieces, "Have You Ever Crossed Over to Sneden's?"

In addition to writing popular songs, Wilder also composed classical pieces for exotic combinations of orchestral instruments. The Alec Wilder Octet, including Eastman classmate Mitch Miller on oboe, recorded several of his originals for Brunswick Records in 1938-40. His classical numbers, which often had off-beat, humorous titles ("The Hotel Detective Registers"), were strongly influenced by jazz. He wrote eleven operas; one of which, ''Miss Chicken Little'' (1953), was commissioned for television by CBS. Sinatra conducted an album of Wilder's classical music. Wilder also arranged a series of Christmas carols for Tubachristmas.

Wilder wrote the definitive book ''American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950'' (1972). He was also featured in a radio series based on the book, broadcast in the mid '70s. With lyricist Loonis McGlohon, he composed songs for the Land of Oz theme park in Banner Elk, North Carolina.

Wilder loved puzzles: he created his own cryptic crosswords, and could spend hours with a jigsaw puzzle. He also loved to talk (he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world) and most of all, laugh. Displeased with how Peggy Lee improvised the ending of ''While We're Young'', he wrote her a note: "The next time you come to the bridge [of the song], jump!" He often maintained that music publishers "stole everything", but in a reflective moment, noted that as badly as he had been treated by the powers-that-be of the music industry, black artists had been treated worse.

Wilder is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Avon, New York, outside Rochester.

Selected works

;Opera

''The Lowland Sea'' (1952)

''Miss Chicken Little'' (1953)

''Sunday Excursion'' (1953)

''Kittiwake Island'' (1954)

''The Long Way'' (1955)

''The Impossible Forest'' (1958)

''The Truth about Windmills'' (1973)

''The Tattooed Countess'' (1974)

''The Opening'' (1975)

''The Churkendoose'' (?)

''Rachetty Pachetty House'' (?)

''Herman Ermine in Rabbit Town'' (?)

;Musicals

''Pinocchio'' (1957)

''Hansel and Gretel'' (1958)

''Miss Chicken Little'' (1953).

''Nobody’s Earnest'' (1978).

;Film Music

''The Fall of the House of Usher'' (1928)

''Lot in Sodom'' (1933)

''Make Mine Music'' (1946)

''Albert Schweitzer'' (1957), documentary by Jerome Hill

''The Sand Castle'' (1961), directed by Jerome Hill

''Open the Door and See All the People'' (1964), directed by Jerome Hill

;Large Ensemble

''A Child’s Introduction to the Orchestra'' (1954). Text by Marshall Barer. A musical primer. Eighteen movements featuring individual instruments of the orchestra. [Ludlow]

''Children’s Plea for Peace'' (1968). Children’s SSAA chorus, narrator and wind ensemble. Text by Wilder, adapted from writings of Avon, New York schoolchildren. Dedicated to Rev. Henry Atwell. [Margun]

;Chamber music and Solo Instruments

Air for Flute and Strings (1945). For Julius Baker.

Air for Oboe and Strings (1945). For Mitch Miller.

Brass Quintets: No 1 (1959) For the New York Brass Quintet; No 2 (1961); No. 3 (1970); No. 4 (1973) For Harvey Phillips; No. 5 (1975) For the Tidewater Brass Quintet; No. 6 (1977) For the Tidewater Brass Quintet; No. 7 (1978) For Frances Miller; No. 8 (1980) For Frances Miller.

Concerto No. 1 for Trumpet and Wind Ensemble (1967). For Doc Severinson.

Effie Suite (1960) for Tuba, Vibraphone, Piano and Drums. For Harvey Phillips

Fantasy for Piano and Wind Ensemble (1974). For Marian McPartland

Jazz Suite for Four Horns (1951). Four horns with harpsichord, guitar, bass, drums.

Octets (1939–41) Flute/Clarinet 2, oboe/English horn/, clarinet 1, bass clarinet, bassoon, harpsichord, bass, drums: Bull Fiddle In A China Shop; The Children Met the Train; Concerning Etchings; Dance Man Buys A Farm; A Debutante’s Diary; Her Old Man Was Suspicious; His First Long Pants; House Detective Registers; It’s Silk, Feel It!; Kindergarten Flower Pageant; Little Girl Grows Up; Neurotic Goldfish; She’ll Be Seven In May; Such A Tender Night; Walking Home In Spring.

Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano (1960). For Donald Sinta.

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1963). For Glenn Bowen.

Sonata for Trumpet and Piano (1963). For Joe Wilder.

Sonata for viola and piano (1965)

Suite for Unaccompanied Flute (1975). For Virginia Nanzetta.

Suite No. 2 for Tenor Saxophone and Strings (1966). For Zoot Sims. [Margun]

Suites for Tuba and Piano: Suite No. 1 (1960) for Harvey Phillips; Suite No. 2 (Jesse Suite), *Suite No. 3 (Suite for Little Harvey) and Suite No. 4 (Thomas Suite)

Three Ballads for Stan [also exists in Wilder’s piano reduction as Suite No. 1 for Tenor Saxophone and Piano] (1963). For Stan Getz. [Margun]

Woodwind Quintets: No. 1 (1954) For the New York Woodwind Quintet; No. 2 (1956); No. 3 (1958); No. 4 (1959) For Bernard Garfield; No. 5 (1959); No. 6 (1960); No. 7 (1964); No. 8 (1966) [also known as Suite For Non-Voting Quintet; No. 9 (1969); No. 10 (ca. 1968); No. 11 (1971) For John Barrows; No. 12 (1975) For the Wingra Quintet; No. 13

Sources

Wilder, Alec, ''American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950,'' ed. James T. Maher. (New York: Oxford Press, 1972; paperback ed., Oxford Press, 1975), xxxix, 536 pp.

Wilder, Alec, David Demsey editor, ''Letters I Never Mailed'' Annotated Edition (University of Rochester Press, 2006).

Stone, Desmond, ''Alec Wilder In Spite of Himself: A Life of the Composer'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 244 pp.

Demsey, David and Ronald Prather, ''Alec Wilder: A Bio-Bibliography'' (Greenwood Press, 1993) Bio-Bibliographies in Music, No. 45.

Zeltsman, Nancy, ed., ''Alec Wilder: An Introduction to the Man and His Music'' (Newton, MA: Margun Music, 1991).

Alec Wilder page from Classical Net

Alec Wilder Collection 1939-2000, from The New York Public Library site

Alec Wilder at IMDB

Alec Wilder Archive at Eastman School of Music

Alec Wilder Centennial site

100 records to celebrate 100 years of Alec Wilder...and more!

Opera Glass

Notes

Category:1907 births Category:1980 deaths Category:American composers Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Opera composers Category:Cancer deaths in Florida Category:Guggenheim Fellows

de:Alec Wilder fr:Alec Wilder nl:Alec Wilder

name	Peter Sellers
birth name	Richard Henry Sellers
birth date	September 08, 1925
birth place	Southsea, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
death date	July 24, 1980
death place	London, England, United Kingdom
death cause	Heart Attack
nationality	British
occupation	Actor, comedian
ethnicity	Jewish
years active	1948–1980
spouse	Anne Hayes(m. 1951-1961; divorced)Britt Ekland(m. 1964-1968; divorced)Miranda Quarry(m. 1970-1974; divorced)Lynne Frederick (m. 1977-1980; his death)
children	Michael (deceased), Sarah, Victoria }}

Richard Henry Sellers, CBE (8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980), known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in ''The Pink Panther'' film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in ''Dr. Strangelove'', as Clare Quilty in ''Lolita'', and as the man-child and TV-addicted Chance the gardener in his penultimate film, ''Being There''. Leading actress Bette Davis once remarked of him, "He isn't an actor—he's a chameleon."

Sellers rose to fame on the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show''. His ability to speak in different accents (e.g., French, Indian, American, German, as well as British regional accents), along with his talent to portray a range of characters to comic effect, contributed to his success as a radio personality and screen actor and earned him national and international nominations and awards. Many of his characters became ingrained in public perception of his work. Sellers' private life was characterized by turmoil and crises, and included emotional problems and substance abuse. Sellers was married four times, and had three children from the first two marriages.

An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played, but he left his own portrait since, "he obsessively filmed his homes, his family, people he knew, anything that took his fancy right to the end of his life—intimate film that remained undiscovered until long after his death in 1980." The director Peter Hall has said: "Peter had the ability to identify completely with another person, and think his way physically, mentally and emotionally into their skin. Where does that come from? I have no idea. Is it a curse? Often, I think it's not enough, though, in this business to have talent. You have to have talent to handle [your] talent. And that I think Peter did ''not'' have."

Early life

Sellers was born in Southsea, Portsmouth, to a family of entertainers. Though christened Richard Henry, his parents always called him Peter, after his elder stillborn brother, and, according to Bryan Forbes, "was, during his formative years, totally smothered in maternal affection". He attended the North London Roman Catholic school St. Aloysius College, although his father, Yorkshire-born Bill Sellers, was Protestant and his mother, Agnes Doreen 'Peg' ''née'' Marks was Jewish. His great-great-grandfather was Daniel Mendoza, the 18th century British prizefighter of Jewish ancestry. As an adult, notes film critic Alexander Walker, Mendoza was the ancestor Sellers "most revered," and he usually kept an engraving of him hanging in his office. At one time he planned on having Mendoza's image for his production company's logo.

According to Sellers' biographer Roger Lewis, Sellers was intrigued by Catholicism, but soon after entering Catholic school, he "discovered he was a Jew—he was someone on the outside of the mysteries of faith." Sellers says that teachers referred to him as "The Jew", which led to his subsequent sensitivity to anti-semitic innuendos. He was a top student at the school, and recalls that the teacher once scolded the other boys for not studying: "The Jewish boy knows his catechism better than the rest of you!"

Later in his life, Sellers is quoted as saying "My father was solid Church of England but my mother was Jewish—Portuguese Jewish—and Jews take the faith of their mother." Film critic Kenneth Tynan noted after his interview with Sellers that one of the main "motive forces" for his ambition as an actor was "his hatred of anti-semitism." Tynan explained:

In scholars, lawyers, doctors and vaudeville comedians, Jewishness is tolerated. In legitimate actors, much less often. . . . Hence [Peter Seller's refusal] to be content with the secure reputation of a great mimic and his determination to go down in history as something more—a great actor, perhaps, or a great director.

Sellers was of the opinion that "becoming part of some large group never does any good. Maybe that's my problem with religion," he said during an interview. He explained:

"I wasn't baptized. I wasn't Bar Mitzvahed. I suppose my basic religion is doing unto others as they would do unto me. But I find it all very difficult. I am more inclined to believe in the Old Testament than in the New . . . .

Accompanying his family on the variety show circuit, Sellers learned stagecraft, which proved valuable later. He performed at age five at the burlesque Windmill Theatre in the drama ''Splash Me!'', which featured his mother. However, he grew up with conflicting influences from his parents and developed ambivalent feelings about show business. His father lacked confidence in Peter's abilities to ever become much in the entertainment field, even suggesting that his son's talents were only enough to become a road sweeper, while Sellers' mother encouraged him continually.

Sellers got his first job at a theatre in Ilfracombe, when he was 15, starting as a janitor. He was steadily promoted, becoming a box office clerk, usher, assistant stage manager, and lighting operator. He was also offered some small acting parts. Working backstage gave him a chance to see serious actors at work, such as Paul Scofield. He also became close friends with Derek Altman, and together they launched Sellers' first stage act under the name "Altman and Sellers," where they played ukuleles, sang, and told jokes. They also both enjoyed reading detective stories by Dashiell Hammett, and were inspired to start their own detective agency. "Their enterprise ended abruptly when a potential client ripped Sellers' fake moustache off."

At his regular job backstage at the theatre, Sellers began practising on a set of drums that belonged to the band "Joe Daniels and His Hot Shots." Joe Daniels began noticing his efforts and gave him some practical instructions. Sellers' biographer Ed Sikov writes that "drumming suited him. Banging in time Pete could envelop himself in a world of near-total abstraction, all in the context of a great deal of noise."

World War II period

As war broke out in Europe, Sellers continued to develop his drumming skills, which strongly impressed even his father and landed Sellers his first drumming job with a band in Blackpool.

He later enlisted, and during World War II Sellers was an airman in the Royal Air Force, rising to corporal, though he had been restricted to ground staff because of poor eyesight. His tour included India and Burma, although the duration of his stay in Asia is unknown and its length may have been exaggerated by Sellers himself. He also served in Germany and France after the war. As a distraction from the life of a non-commissioned officer, Sellers joined the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), which his father had earlier also signed up with, allowing him to hone his drumming and comedy. By the end of the war in 1945, more than four out of five British entertainers had worked for ENSA, whose focus was on boosting morale of soldiers and factory workers.

He occasionally impersonated his superiors, and his portrayal of RAF officer Lionel Mandrake in the film ''Dr. Strangelove'' may have been modelled on them. He bluffed his way into the Officers' Mess using mimicry and the occasional false moustache, although as he told Michael Parkinson in the 1972 interview, occasionally older officers would suspect him. The voice of ''Goon Show'' character Major Dennis Bloodnok came from this period.

Early career

The Goon Show

After his discharge and return to England in 1948, Sellers supported himself with stand-up routines in variety theatres whose impresarios needed to legitimise their business. Sellers telephoned BBC radio producer Roy Speer, pretending to be Kenneth Horne, star of the radio show ''Much Binding in the Marsh'', to get Speer to speak to him. Speer reportedly called Sellers a "cheeky young sod" for this.

As a result, Sellers was given an audition, which led to his work on ''Ray's a Laugh'' with comedian Ted Ray. His principal radio work was on ''The Goon Show'' with Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and (originally) Michael Bentine. Sellers followed this with television work.

Records

In the late 1950s, Sellers released two comedy records produced by George Martin: ''The Best of Sellers'' and ''Songs for Swinging Sellers''. ''The Best of Sellers'' album cover (first released in 10" format in 1958 and his debut LP) pictured him polishing a Rolls-Royce motor car. The most popular tracks on this album were "Balham, Gateway to the South" (a parody travelogue) and "Suddenly It's Folksong" where a group of people end up smashing up a pub after a row over someone playing a bum note. The ''Songs for Swinging Sellers'' album, released in 1959, whose title parodied Frank Sinatra's album Songs for Swinging Lovers, contained material written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, and featured Sellers performing "Puttin on the Style" (a parody of the skiffle movement's performer Lonnie Donegan). Sellers also appeared with guest Irene Handl on the track "Shadows on the Grass" where he played the part of a Frenchman befriending a lady in the park. Musical direction was by Ron Goodwin.

In 1963, Sellers worked with Anthony Newley, Leslie Bricusse and Joan Collins to produce the LP ''Fool Britannia''. This comprised a series of sketches satirizing the British political scandal the Profumo Affair, in which the Minister for War was revealed to have lied about his relationship with a prostitute who was also involved with a Russian diplomat. The album was controversial, in part perhaps because of material involving the royal family, and would-be buyers in the United Kingdom found it especially hard to obtain.

A 1965 hit was a spoof spoken version of the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night", in the style of Laurence Olivier. This followed up various pieces of Olivier-style speech in the Goons.

In 1979 he released a new gatefold album entitled ''Sellers' Market'' (the cover shows him standing next to traders reading the ''Financial Times'' and the ''Wall Street Journal'' whereas Sellers is reading the ''Finchley Press'') which included comic singing and a feature called the "All England George Formby Finals" where he parodies the late George Formby and his ukulele playing. Also featured was the ''Complete Guide to Accents of the British Isles''. The album was not as popular as his first two in 1958 and 1959 although it is still sought after by collectors. All of his albums exploited Sellers's ability to use his flexible voice to comedic effect.

Acting technique and preparation

In an October 1962 interview for ''Playboy'', Sellers described how he prepared for acting roles once he agreed to play the part:

Film career

Sellers' film success arrived with British comedies, including ''The Ladykillers'', ''I'm All Right Jack'' and ''The Mouse That Roared''. In his early film roles, he continued to exploit his ability to do accents and different voices, often in character parts and occasionally playing several distinct roles in a single film. In his second movie, he played two parts; in his third, six (see chart below).

In ''The Smallest Show on Earth'', the 27-year-old actor played a doddering, drunken elderly projectionist twice his actual age. In ''The Mouse That Roared'', set in a small European country, he played three major and distinct roles, the elderly queen, the ambitious Prime Minister, and the innocent and clumsy farm boy selected to lead an invasion of the United States. In the United States he received considerable publicity for playing three parts, a stunt he would do again in ''Dr. Strangelove''.

He began receiving international attention for his portrayal of an Indian doctor in ''The Millionairess'' with Sophia Loren. The film inspired the George Martin-produced novelty hit single ''Goodness Gracious Me'' and its follow-up ''Bangers and Mash'', both featuring Sellers and Loren.

''Lolita''

In 1962, Stanley Kubrick asked Sellers to play the role of Clare Quilty in ''Lolita'' opposite James Mason and Shelley Winters. Kubrick had seen Sellers in his earlier films and was intrigued by his range, also demonstrated during ''The Goon Show'' period when Sellers had done impressions of famous people, such as Winston Churchill, the Queen, and Lew Grade.

However, Sellers felt the part of a flamboyant American television playwright was beyond his ability, mainly because Quilty was, in Sellers' words, "a fantastic nightmare, part homosexual, part drug addict, part sadist...". He became nervous about taking on the role, and many people came up to him and told him they felt the role believable. Kubrick eventually succeeded in persuading Sellers to play the part, however. Kubrick had American jazz musician and producer Norman Granz record Sellers' portions of the script for Sellers to listen to, so he could study the voice and develop confidence.

Unlike most of his earlier well-rehearsed movie roles, Sellers was encouraged by Kubrick to improvise throughout the filming in order to exhaust all the possibilities of his character. Moreover, in order to capture Sellers at his most creative heights, Kubrick often used as many as three cameras. Sellers and Kubrick created the multiple disguises used by Sellers, such as a state trooper and a German psychologist. As filming progressed, the other actors and the crew would notice Sellers' greatly enjoying his acting and, according to Kubrick, reaching "...what can only be described as a state of comic ecstasy". The movie's cinematographer, Oswald Morris, further commented that, "the most interesting scenes were the ones with Peter Sellers, which were total improvisations."

Because of this experience, Sellers found that his relationship with Kubrick became one of the most rewarding of his career.

''Dr. Strangelove''

{{Image gallery |title= |lines=1 |width=200 |height= |Dr. Strangelove - Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.png||Group Captain Mandrake |Dr. Strangelove - President Merkin Muffley.png||President Merkin Muffley |Dr. Strangelove.png||Dr. Strangelove }} In Kubrick's next film, ''Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'' he asked Sellers to be in the leading role. Sellers played three extremely different characters: U.S. President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove, a heavily German-accented nuclear scientist, and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake of the RAF. Sellers was initially hesitant about taking on the task, but Kubrick convinced him that there was no better actor that could play these parts.

Muffley and Dr. Strangelove appeared in the same room throughout the film, with the help of Kubrick's special effects. Sellers was originally also cast to play a fourth role as bomber pilot Major T. J. "King" Kong but although script contributor Terry Southern (a native Texan) taped his own voice reading Kong's lines to coach the actor in the strong Texas accent required, Sellers was unable to master it. Shortly before he was to shoot the scenes as Kong, he reportedly fell and fractured his ankle, forcing Kubrick to recast the part with Slim Pickens. For his performance in all three roles, Sellers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Kubrick again gave Sellers a free rein to improvise throughout the filming. Sellers once said, "If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am."

''Pink Panther''

thumb|left|175px|Peter Sellers as [[Inspector Clouseau|Chief Inspector Clouseau in the ''The Pink Panther'']] From 1963, Sellers was cast as the bumbling Chief Inspector Clouseau in the ''The Pink Panther'' movies. This character gave Sellers a worldwide audience, beginning with ''The Pink Panther'' and its sequel, ''A Shot in the Dark'', in which he featured more prominently. He returned to the character for three more sequels from 1975 to 1978. ''The Trail of the Pink Panther'', containing unused footage of Sellers, was released in 1982, after his death. His widow, Lynne Frederick, successfully sued the film's producers for unauthorized use. Sellers had prepared to star as Chief Inspector Clouseau in another Pink Panther film; he died before the start of this project, ''Romance of the Pink Panther''.

''Being There''

In 1979, Sellers played the role of Chance, a simple gardener addicted to watching TV, in the black comedy ''Being There'', considered by some critics to be the "crowning triumph of Peter Sellers's remarkable career," as well as a great achievement for novelist Jerzy Kosinski. During a BBC interview in 1971, Sellers said that more than anything else, he wanted to play the role of Chance.

Kosinski, the book's author, felt that the novel was never meant to be made into a film, but Sellers succeeded in changing his mind, and Kosinski allowed Sellers and director Hal Ashby to make the film, provided he could write the script. According to film critic Danny Smith, Sellers was "naturally intrigued with the idea of Chance, a character who reflected whatever was beamed at him".

Sellers's performance was praised by some critics as achieving "the pinpoint-sharp exactitude of nothingness. It is a performance of extraordinary dexterity", and "...[making] the film's fantastic premise credible".

Sellers's experience of working on the film was both humbling and powerful for him. During the filming, in order not to break his character, he refused most interview requests, and even kept his distance from other actors. He tried to remain in character even after he returned home. Sellers considered Chance's walking and voice the character's most important attributes, and in preparing for the role, Sellers worked alone with a tape recorder, or with his wife, and then with Ashby, to perfect the clear enunciation and flat delivery needed to reveal "the childlike mind behind the words."

Critic Frank Rich noted the acting skill required for this sort of role, with a "schismatic personality that Peter had to convey with strenuous vocal and gestural technique. . . . A lesser actor would have made the character's mental dysfunction flamboyant and drastic. . . . [His] intelligence was always deeper, his onscreen confidence greater, his technique much more finely honed."

''Being There'' earned Sellers his best reviews since the 1960s, a second Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe award. A few months after the film was released, ''Time'' magazine wrote a cover-story article about Sellers, entitled, "Who is This Man?" The cover showed many of the characters Sellers had portrayed, including Chance, Quilty, Strangelove, Clouseau, and the Grand Duchess Glorianna XII. Sellers was pleased by the article, written by critic Richard Schickel, and wrote an appreciative letter to the magazine's editor."

Final projects

Sellers' last movie was ''The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu'', a comedic reimagining of the classic series of adventure novels by Sax Rohmer. In this new version, Sellers played both "Fu Manchu" and his arch nemesis, police inspector Nayland Smith. Production of the film ran into problems from the start, with Sellers' poor health and mental instability causing long delays and bickering between star and director Piers Haggard. With roughly 60% of the movie shot, Sellers had Haggard sacked and took over direction himself. Haggard later complained that the reshoots Sellers ordered added nothing to the production, and had resulted in the film being incoherent and unfocused. The movie contains references to Sellers' serious heart troubles, including scenes where Fu revives his ancient body with large electric shocks.

Sellers died shortly before ''Fu Manchu'' was released, with his very last performance being that of conman "Monty Casino" in a series of adverts for Barclays Bank. In 1982, Sellers returned to the big screen as Inspector Clouseau in ''Trail of the Pink Panther'', which was composed entirely of deleted scenes from his past three ''Panther'' movies, in particular ''The Pink Panther Strikes Again'', with a new story written around them. David Niven also reprised his role of Sir Charles Lytton in this movie. Along with what many, notably his widow Lynne Frederick, saw as exploitation of Sellers, the manner in which Niven's cameo was handled has earned the movie a lasting unsavoury reputation. Edwards continued the series with a further instalment called the ''Curse of the Pink Panther'', which was shot back to back with the framing footage for ''Trail'', but Sellers was wholly absent from this film.

After ''The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu'', Sellers was scheduled to appear in another Clouseau comedy, ''The Romance Of The Pink Panther''. Its script, written by Peter Moloney and Sellers himself, had Clouseau falling for a brilliant female criminal known as 'The Frog' and aiding her in her heists with the aim to reform her character. Blake Edwards did not participate in the planning of this new Clouseau instalment, as the working relationship between him and Sellers had broken down during the filming of ''Revenge Of The Pink Panther''. The final draft of the script, including a humorous cover letter signed by "Pete Shakespeare", was delivered to United Artists' office less than six hours before Sellers died. Sellers death ended the project, along with two other planned movies for which Sellers had signed contracts in 1980. The two films—''Unfaithfully Yours'' and ''Lovesick''—were rewritten as vehicles for Dudley Moore; both performed poorly at the box office upon release. Trade papers such as ''Variety'' carried an elaborately curlicued advert for the former movie, with Sellers at the top of the cast list, in early June 1980.

Other roles

Director Billy Wilder hired Sellers to co-star with Dean Martin for the ribald 1964 comedy ''Kiss Me, Stupid'', but six weeks into filming, Sellers suffered a heart attack. Wilder replaced him with Ray Walston.

Sellers was a versatile actor, switching from broad comedy, as in ''The Party'', in which he portrayed a bumbling Indian actor Hrundi Bakshi, to more intense performances as in ''Lolita''.

Sellers appeared in an episode of the American television series ''It Takes a Thief'' in 1969. By the early 1970s he faced a downturn, however, and was dubbed "box office poison". Sellers never won an Oscar but won the BAFTA for ''I'm All Right Jack''.

Sellers appeared on ''The Muppet Show'' television series in 1977. He chose not to appear as himself, instead appearing in a variety of costumes and accents. When Kermit the Frog told Sellers he could relax and be "himself," Sellers (while wearing a Viking helmet, a girdle and one boxing glove, claiming to have attempted to dress as Queen Victoria), replied, "There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed."

Personal life

Sellers was reticent about discussing his private life. He was invited to appear on Michael Parkinson's eponymous chat show in 1974, but agreed under the condition that he could appear in character. Sellers appeared dressed as a member of the Gestapo, impersonating the Kenneth Mars character in ''The Producers''. After a few lines in keeping with his assumed character, he stepped out of the role and settled down for what is considered one of Parkinson's most memorable interviews.

Marriages

Sellers was married four times and fathered three children:

Anne Hayes (née Howe, 1951–1961). They had a son, Michael, and a daughter, Sarah.

Swedish actress Britt Ekland (1964–1968). They had a daughter, Victoria Sellers. The couple appeared in three films together: ''Carol For Another Christmas'' (1964), ''After the Fox'' (1966), and ''The Bobo'' (1967).

Australian model Miranda Quarry (now the Countess of Stockton; 1970–1974).

English actress Lynne Frederick (1977–1980), who was briefly married to Sir David Frost shortly after Sellers' death.

Spike Milligan wrote Sellers' multiple marriages into his scripts, referring in one 1972 radio show to "The Peter Sellers Discarded Wives Memorial". At the time, Sellers was married to Quarry.

Depression, substance abuse, and health problems

It has been suggested that Sellers suffered depression spurred by deep-seated anxieties of artistic and personal failure and exacerbated by substance abuse. It is believed that his drug use, especially amyl nitrites, contributed to heart attacks in 1964 (see below). Sellers' difficulties in his career and life prompted him to seek periodic consultations with astrologer Maurice Woodruff, who seemed to have held considerable sway over his later career.

Relationships

Other celebrities

Sellers had casual friendships with two Beatles, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Harrison told occasional Sellers stories in interviews, and Starr appeared with him in the anarchic movie ''The Magic Christian'', which was based on Terry Southern's novel and whose theme song was Badfinger's "Come and Get It", written by Paul McCartney. Starr's two-week hiatus from the Beatles during the ''White Album'' recordings was spent aboard Sellers's yacht, where he wrote "Octopus's Garden". Starr also gave Sellers a rough mix of songs from the Beatles' ''White Album''; the tape was auctioned and bootlegged after his death. Sellers recorded a cover version of "A Hard Day's Night", in the style of Laurence Olivier's interpretation of Richard III, as well as various versions of "She Loves You", including as Dr. Strangelove, a cockney, and an Irish dentist.

Sellers's friends included actor and director Roman Polanski, who shared his passion for fast cars. Sellers had a close relationship with Sophia Loren, but accounts differ on whether or not their relationship was consummated. Sellers was the first man on the cover of ''Playboy''—he appeared on the April 1964 cover with Karen Lynn.

Sellers was a Freemason and belonged to Chelsea Lodge No 3098, a lodge whose membership consists of celebrities and performers, through which means he socialised with a number of other actors and comedians.

Royal Family

In her autobiography ''True Britt'', Britt Ekland described Sellers' close relationship with the Royal Family. "I was completely unaware of his (Sellers) connection with the British monarchy. One afternoon before we married he had disappeared saying that he had to do something 'important'. I was to learn he had spent afternoon tea with the Queen Mother at Clarence House." He was a close friend of Princess Margaret, who appears in one of his home movies.

Obsession with automobiles

Sellers had a lifelong obsession with cars, briefly parodied in a fleeting cameo in the short film ''Simon Simon'', directed by friend Graham Stark. His love of cars was also referenced in ''The Goon Show'' episode "The Space Age," where Harry Secombe introduces Sellers by saying, "Good heavens, it's Peter Sellers, who has just broken his own record of keeping a car for more than a month." In "The Last Goon Show of All", announcer Andrew Timothy cued him with "Mr. Sellers will now sell a gross of his cars and take up a dramatic voice."

Personal conflicts

Sellers' personality was described by others as difficult and demanding and he often clashed with fellow actors and directors. He had a strained relationship with friend and director Blake Edwards, with whom he worked on the ''Pink Panther'' series and ''The Party''. The two sometimes stopped speaking to each other during filming.

His work with Orson Welles on ''Casino Royale'' deteriorated as Sellers became jealous of Welles's casual relationship with Princess Margaret. The relationship between the two actors created problems during filming, as Sellers refused to share the set with Welles, who himself was no stranger to strident behaviour.

Sellers could be cruel and disrespectful, as demonstrated by his treatment of actress Jo Van Fleet on the set of ''I Love You, Alice B. Toklas''. On one occasion, Van Fleet had declined an invitation to his house, soon followed by a misunderstanding between the two actors during filming. This prompted Sellers to launch a tirade against Van Fleet in front of actors and crew.

Sellers' difficulties to maintain civil and peaceful relationships also extended into his private life. He assaulted his then wife, Britt Ekland, prompted by jealousy. Sellers sometimes blamed himself for his failed marriages. In a 1974 ''Parkinson'' interview, he admitted that "I'm not easy to live with".

Death

In the spring of 1964, at age 38, Sellers suffered a series of heart attacks (13 in a few days) while working on the set of Billy Wilder's ''Kiss Me, Stupid'', and he was replaced by Ray Walston. At one point, Sellers was pronounced dead. Sellers reportedly saw a loving, bright white light, but then looked down at the operating table where he saw a doctor attempting to resuscitate him. He also reportedly heard a voice which told him that it wasn't his time, and he returned back to his body. Although Sellers survived, his heart was permanently damaged. Sellers chose to consult with psychic healers rather than seek Western medical treatment, and his heart condition continued to deteriorate over the next 16 years. In late 1977, he suffered a second major heart attack, resulting in his being fitted with a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat. Once again, Sellers refused to slow down, nor did he follow doctors' orders and consider open heart surgery, which could well have extended his life by several years.

A reunion dinner was scheduled in London with his ''Goon Show'' partners, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, for 25 July 1980. But around noon on 22 July, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack in his Dorchester Hotel room and fell into a coma. He died in a London hospital just after midnight on 24 July 1980, aged 54. He was survived by his fourth wife, Lynne Frederick, and his three children. At the time of his death, he was scheduled to undergo heart surgery in Los Angeles on 30 July 1980.

Although Sellers was reportedly in the process of excluding Frederick from his will a week before he died, she inherited almost his entire estate worth an estimated £4.5 million while his children received £800 each. When Frederick died in 1994 (aged 39), her mother Iris inherited everything, including all of the income and royalties from Sellers' work. When Iris dies the whole estate will go to Cassie, the daughter Lynne had with her third husband, Barry Unger. Sellers' only son, Michael, died of a heart attack at 52 during surgery on 24 July 2006 (26 years to the day after his father's death). Michael was survived by his second wife, Alison, whom he married in 1986, and their two children.

In his will, Sellers requested that the Glenn Miller song "In the Mood" be played at his funeral. The request is considered his last touch of humour, as he hated the piece. His body was cremated and he was interred at Golders Green Crematorium in London. After her death in 1994, the ashes of his former widow Frederick were co-interred with his.

Legacy and influence

The stage play, “Being Sellers,” premiered in Australia in 1998, three years after release of the biography by Roger Lewis, “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.” The play premiered in New York in December 2010. In 2004, the book was turned into an HBO film, ''The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'', starring Geoffrey Rush.

The film ''Trail of the Pink Panther'', made by Blake Edwards using unused footage of Sellers from ''The Pink Panther Strikes Again'', is dedicated to Sellers's memory. The title reads "To Peter ... The one and only Inspector Clouseau."

In a 2005 poll to find "The Comedian's Comedian", Sellers was voted 14 in the list of the top 20 greatest comedians by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen frequently referred to Peter Sellers "as the most seminal force in shaping his early ideas on comedy". Cohen was considered for the role of the biopic ''The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'' (the role went to Australian actor Geoffrey Rush).

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1950	''The Black Rose''	Alfonso Bedoya	Voice (uncredited)
	''Penny Points to Paradise''	The Major/Arnold Fringe
	Groucho/Giuseppe/Cedric/Izzy/Gozzunk/Crystal Jollibottom
1952	''Down Among the Z Men''	Major Bloodnok
1953	''Our Girl Friday''	Parrot	Voice (uncredited)
1954	''Orders are Orders''	Private Griffin
	''John and Julie''	Police Constable Diamond
''The Ladykillers''	Mr. Robinson
	''The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn''	Narrator/Supt. Quilt/Asst. Commissioner Sir Jervis Fruit/Henry Crun
''The Man Who Never Was''	Winston Churchill	Voice only
	''Insomnia Is Good for You''	Hector Dimwiddle	Short film
''The Smallest Show on Earth''	Leslie Quill
	Sonny McGregor
		CPO Doherty
	Antony
	''Carlton-Browne of the F.O.''	Prime Minister Amphibulos
''The Mouse That Roared''	Grand Duchess Gloriana XII / Prime MinisterCount Rupert Mountjoy / Tully Bascombe	Three roles.
''I'm All Right Jack''	Fred Kite
	Mr. Martin
	''The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film''	Photographer
''Never Let Go''	Lionel Meadows
''The Millionairess''	Dr. Ahmed el Kabir
''Two-Way Stretch''	Dodger Lane
1961	''Mr. Topaze''	Auguste Topaze	Also Director
	''Only Two Can Play''	John Lewis
	General Leo Fitzjohn
''The Road to Hong Kong''	Indian Neurologist	Uncredited
	Clare Quilty	Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
	Wilfred Morgenhall
	''The Wrong Arm of the Law''	Pearly Gates
''Heavens Above!''	The Reverend John Smallwood
	Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau
	''Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb''	Group Captain Lionel Mandrake / President Merkin Muffley / Dr. Strangelove
''The World of Henry Orient''	Henry Orient
	Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau
	''Birds, Bees and Storks''	Narrator	Voice
''What's New Pussycat''	Doctor Fritz Fassbender
	''The Wrong Box''	Doctor Pratt
''After the Fox''	Aldo Vanucci
		Evelyn Tremble	Also (Uncredited) Writer
''Woman Times Seven''	Jean
''The Bobo''	Juan Bautista
		Hrundi V. Bakshi
''I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!''	Harold
1969		Sir Guy Grand KG, KC, CBE	Also Writer
	''A Day at the Beach''	Salesman
	Benjamin Hoffman
''Simon, Simon''	Man with two cars
''There's a Girl in My Soup''	Robert Danvers
	''Where Does It Hurt?''	Dr. Albert T. Hopfnagel
	The March Hare
	''Ghost in the Noonday Sun''	Dick Scratcher
''The Blockhouse''	Rouquet
	Sam
	''Soft Beds, Hard Battles''	Général Latour / Major Robinson / Herr Schroeder / Adolf Hitler / The President / Prince Kyoto	Played six roles.
	Queen Victoria
1975	''The Return of the Pink Panther''	Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau
	''Murder by Death''	Sidney Wang
''The Pink Panther Strikes Again''	Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau	Fourth film by Sellers in the Pink Panther seriesNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
			Episode 43 originally aired February 27, 1978 in New York, and February 24, 1978 in Los Angeles
''Kingdom of Gifts''	Larcenous Mayor	Voice only
''Revenge of the Pink Panther''	Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau	Fifth film by Sellers in the Pink Panther series
		Rudolf IV / Rudolf V / Syd Frewin	Played three roles.
''Being There''	Chance	Fotogramas de Plata for Best Foreign PerformanceGolden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyLondon Film Critics Circle Award
1980	''[[The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu''	Dennis Nayland Smith / Dr. Fu 'Fred' Manchu	Last film. Played two roles.Also (Uncredited) Director
1982	''Trail of the Pink Panther''	Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau	Footage of Sellers used.

Comedy singles

Sellers released several comedy singles, many of them produced by George Martin and released on the Parlophone record label. These include the following hits:

"Any Old Iron" (1957) UK # 17

"Goodness Gracious Me" (1960) with Sophia Loren UK # 4

"Bangers and Mash" (1961), a follow-up also featuring Sophia Loren UK # 22

"A Hard Day's Night" (1965) UK # 14. This consisted of him speaking the lyrics using the stereotypical voice of an actor playing Shakespeare's Richard III. He also performed the song in costume on television. The recording was re-issued in 1993 and reached Number 52 in the UK Top 75 Singles chart.

He covered several other Beatles hits, including "Help!" and "She Loves You". Sellers also recorded a parody version of "Unchained Melody", which long went unreleased.

When asked in 1960 what he thought the music business would be like in ten years' time, Sellers retorted: ''NME'', November 1960.

Albums

Sellers made several albums, mostly of comedy pieces using his talent for voices.

Discography:

''The Best of Sellers'' (1959) UK # 3

''Songs For Swinging Sellers'' (1959) UK # 3

''Peter & Sophia'' (1960) UK # 5 with Sophia Loren

''Fool Britannia'' (1963) UK # 10 with Anthony Newley and Joan Collins.

''How To Win An Election'' (1964) UK # 20 with Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan (Note: unlike ''The Last Goon Show Of All'' this release was not credited to The Goons.)

''He's Innocent of Watergate'' (1974) with Spike Milligan

''Sellers Market'' (1979) his final album

Further reading

1108 pages. Published in the U.S. via Applause Books Roger Lewis's biography of Sellers is very comprehensive, and includes a very comprehensive index. ''Mr Strangelove;A Biography of Peter Sellers'', a book by Ed Sikov ''P.S. I Love You'' by Michael Sellers 1981 ''A Hard Act to Follow'' Michael Sellers (with Gary Morecambe, 1996). '' Sellers on Sellers'' Michael Sellers (2000, co-written with Gary Morecambe)

See also

''The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'' (2004), HBO/BBC movie with Geoffrey Rush in the title role.

References

External links

John Atrobus recalls his memorable Christmas with Peter Sellers Daily Mail Dec. 27, 2009.

Video clips

"The Unknown Peter Sellers", documentary

Peter Sellers tribute

Peter Sellers on "The Goon Show," playing drums

in stage skit of "A Hard Day's Night"

in ''Lolita''

as U.S. president in ''Dr. Strangelove''

as Dr. Strangelove

as British captain Mandrake in ''Dr. Strangelove''

in ''The Party''

in ''Being There''

Category:1925 births Category:1980 deaths Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best British Actor BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:English comedians Category:English film actors Category:English impressionists (entertainers) Category:English Jews Category:English radio actors Category:English television actors Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish comedians Category:People from Southsea Category:People from Portsmouth Category:Royal Air Force airmen

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