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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 13, 1962)
X MOVIES H GEN. LEO fitzjohn, ret, late of His Majesty's Hussars, creaked down the huge staircase, his paunchy figure stiff with age and lumbago. The director yelled "Cut!" but the gen eral didn't pause. He lumbered up to a beautiful blonde in a cool, green sheath and hoisted an arm around her shoulders. "Hello, Darling," wheezed Peter Sellers. "Good of you to pick me up." This baggy-eyed old general wasn't the same husband Mrs. Anne Sellers had driven home from work a few weeks ear lier. But then, she gets a new husband every three or four months all named Peter Sellers. Sellers, 36, is the one-man film festival who has become the hottest thing in Brit ish movies. His uncanny ability to be dozens of different people has producers everywhere clamoring for him. But Peter Sellers is as many people off screen as on. Take the man Mrs. Sellers met that evening on the set of "The Waltz of the Toreadors," one of Peter's recent movies. That was Sellers the Actor. There aren't many like him. For Peter acts with unbelievable intensity, and almost liter ally becomes the character he plays. Sellers moves, talks, reacts, and even thinks like the character he's portraying. On the "Toreadors" set, the director and fellow-actors call him "General," not "Peter." Off camera as well as on, Peter's clipped military voice and creaky move ments are the general's, not his own. The trouble is that Sellers can't quit. He takes off his character's make-up at night, but he can't shake the character itself. When he played an Indian doctor in "The Millionairess," he used his Indian accent on his family. He bossed them around while winning the British Acad emy Award as a union-shop steward in "I'm All Right, Jack" and a period his wife recalls as "awful" while he played a sadistic villain in "Never Let Go." ABOUT His own personality, Sellers in sists that he's a "minus quantity." But his friends would put up an argument about that for Peter Sellers is just as fascinating a character, or characters, off stage as he is on. Take Sellers the Eccentric. This partic ular Sellers has a passion for gadgets. Once he bought several miniature espres so coffee-making machines. Nobody ever learned why. Another time he brought home a life-sized mechanical elephant be cause "it's a nice thing to have." So are cars. And Peter buys and sells cars as other people trade postage stamps. He has had "well over 50" cars in the past dozen years, he admits. Some he keeps only a few days; one he owned for 15 minutes just long enough to drive it around the corner. His current automotive love is a $22,585 drop-head Bentley. Peter changes his mind with dazzling swiftness. And not only about cars. Witness another of Peter's private lives, that of Village Squire. For two years. Sell ers played lord of a 16th-century Tudor manor house in a village 23 miles north of London. Only a short time ago, he de scribed his 400-year-old home with affec tion, but two weeks later he put it up for sale to move closer to London. This sudden decision involved more than throwing a few things into a suit case. It meant uprooting himself, his wife, and the children, Michael, 7, and Sarah Jane, 4 not to mention several dogs, cats, tropical fish, a canary, a 500-foot model railroad, and what has been called "the largest set of trap drums in captivity." Playing jazz drums is one of the amaz ing variety of things Sellers does well: he used to be a professional at it. He's also an expert photographer, a hi-fi bug, a blue-belt-rank judo expert, a "very, very keen" cricket player, and a superb rally entering auto driver. Peter sellers the Mimic is yet another creature of fantastic talents. He is a master of uncounted dialects and can mimic anyone he meets. In fact, he got his first big job through a mimic's trick. He telephoned a BBC producer and spoke in the voices of two top BBC stars, who wildly praised a young vaudeville actor named Sellers. Peter was hired at once, and before long he was playing dozens of voices on a zany radio program called "The Goon Show," which became a na tional institution overnight. Many people still consider Peter goony. A Sellers creation like "The Running, Jumping, and Standing Still Film" bears them out. So do Peter's occasional tele vision shows, named with characteristic wackiness: "A Show Called Fred," "Son of Fred," or "Yes, It's the Cathode-Ray Tube Show!" His idol is Sir Alec Guinness. Sellers got his first big movie part as a member of the Guinness gang in "The Ladykillers," and, like Guinness, Peter made his name doing multiple roles, as in "The Mouse That Roared," and in comedy parts. Both men deny that Sellers is "a second Alec Guin ness," although a knighthood seems a sure bet for Sellers, too, some day. But first, Mrs. Sellers will have to pick up a lot more husbands at work. And only two things are certain about them : they'll be a wildly varied lot (though they won't include Napoleon, Freud, a garbage col lector, or King Henry VIII roles which Peter has recently turned down), and they'll all be named Peter Sellers. . Soft plastic cushion -holds dentures tighter Eases Sore Gums! CompUl Ml ot two cuihiont for both vppi and lwft $1.30. Acctpr no iwbilftMfoi lor mw Stive lh onlr lotting toll plaitic donluro (Million. Cushions the mouth yet grips plates like "Living Tissue!" Now, quickly stop pain and trou--ble due to loose fitting plates with new Snug brand Denture Cushions. Amazing soft plastic grips plate firm and tight yet feels soft and comfort able, like "Living Tissue." Gums feel wonderful. You eat, talk, laugh in comfort Snug stays cushion-soft. Can't harden and ruin plate. Peels right out when ready to replace. " Tasteless, odorless, cleaned in a jiffy. 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