Mr. Strangelove_ A Biography of Peter Sellers - Ed Sikov [181]
Hilda Parkin and her husband, Ted, were in show business, too, and Ted was active in the benevolent British theatrical club the Water Rats; Hilda was in the women’s auxiliary, the Lady Ratlings. “I told Peter I was a Lady Ratling and that Ted was a Water Rat, and he said, ‘You know, Peg always wanted me to be a Water Rat.’ Within no time at all he approached the Water Rats to become one.”
He was accepted. “Ted went to his ‘making.’ When they introduced him, he just looked up at the sky and cried. It’s what his mother wanted him to do. Ted said it was a bit embarrassing, really, because he couldn’t speak—he was just looking up and crying.”
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Nine years earlier, in late 1964, Peter and Britt had spent some time in the company of Judy Garland, her companion Mark Herron, and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Liza Minnelli. In May of 1973, Liza, twenty-seven, was back in London and starring at the Palladium. Peter was in the audience, entranced, at Liza’s Friday evening performance, and three days later they were engaged to be married.
Billie Whitelaw reintroduced them after Friday’s show. She remembers that Peter was in one of his peculiar moods that night: “Liza kept looking at me, as if to ask, ‘Hey, is this guy putting me on?’ I told her I wasn’t sure, but if I were her, I’d watch it. Anyway, they went home together.” On Saturday night the giddy couple dined at Tratou and adjourned to the piano after dinner, where Liza soloed on “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man.” It was true; she couldn’t help it. On Sunday, Liza held a press conference at the Savoy to announce their love. “I’m going to marry Liza,” Peter said on Monday.
This news came as a surprise to Liza’s other fiancé, the one in Hollywood. “My engagement to Desi Arnaz [Jr.]—well, the relationship has been deteriorating for some time. There is no engagement,” Liza told the press. Desi’s mother, Lucille Ball, responded by exclaiming, “Peter Sellers? Who’s kidding who? Liza must be crazy!”
Liza showed up one day at Shepperton, where Peter was shooting his new comedy, Soft Beds, Hard Battles (1973). During a break, they talked again to the press. “I’m in love with a genius,” Liza stated. Peter mentioned that his and Miranda’s divorce “would go through the courts in its own time.” Liza was asked if she was worried about becoming Peter’s fourth wife. She replied in the voice of Sally Bowles: “Oh, no! Four is my lucky number, my dear.”
Peter and Liza—and Charles Chaplin, Laurence Olivier, Lord Snowdon, David Niven, Ralph Richardson, and David Frost—were among the mourners at Noel Coward’s funeral May 24, 1973, at St. Martin in the Fields. Niven recalled Peter’s mood at the end of the service—an inexplicable one, given the extraordinary interest his new romance was generating at the time. “As we walked out into the sunshine, Peter said, ‘I do hope no one will ever arrange that sort of thing for me.’ Niven asked why. ‘Because I don’t think anyone will show up.’ ”
Liza had to return to the States briefly at the end of May for a scheduled concert, but in less than a week she was back in London and moving into Peter’s Eaton Muse house, where she competed for space with Peter’s multimedia equipment and toys as well as pictures of his children and Sri Swami Venkatesananda. Liza’s godmother, the irrepressible actress and author Kay Thompson, moved in, too. (Kay Thompson appeared with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in Stanley Donen’s Funny Face, 1957, and wrote the children’s book Eloise and its several sequels.)
Eccentricity reigned. One night, at three o’clock, Liza declared that she simply had to see the gravesite of the fictional dog Bella from The Optimists, so Peter picked up a bottle of chilled champagne and