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On April 18, Peter was in New York attending—and performing at—a tributary dinner in honor of Sir Lew Grade at the Hilton. He was on television that night, too, on Julie Andrews’s prerecorded special, Julie—My Favorite Things, directed by Blake in London. “I must be the squarest person in the world,” the white–bell-bottomed Julie realizes, so she seeks the advice of a psychiatrist—Peter as Dr. Fritz Fassbender from What’s New Pussycat?, only now, in combination with his dark 1970s glasses, Peter’s wig makes him resemble less Prince Valiant than Yoko Ono.

JULIE: Aren’t you the famous Fritz Fassbender?

PETER: Yes, of course I am! Heidelberg, Class of ’39! Ph.D., LLD, SS. . .

JULIE: SS?!

PETER: No, no, it’s a lie! Liar liar, pents on fire! I vas only following orders!

Dr. Fassbender demands that she prove that she’s really Julie Andrews. “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” Julie gamely responds, so Peter offers her a joint and says, “Have a dreg on zis and try saying zat again! Zupakelafragalidzniks. . . . Lizzen, Julie, you are getting hipper and hipper all ze time by ze minute! One more drag on this and you’ll be practically Cheech and Chong!”

If Cheech and Chong served as the ideals of hipness in 1975, Peter himself was there. Here is an entry from Kenneth Tynan’s diaries that year:

“The phrase to remember is: ‘The necessary tinge of wham.’ This is how Peter Sellers (I think it was) summed up, tonight, the salient quality of Terry Southern. . . . Peter taught us how to get the best out of pot by spreading tinfoil across the top of a wine glass, prodding holes in it (and a gash) with a needle, then crumbling the pot over the holes, igniting it, and sucking the fumes in through the gash.”

Another entry dated a few days later: “More reminiscences of the pot-smoking night with P. Sellers. As one sucks the smoke through the gash in the tinfoil, the hash embers glow, and the close-up view is exactly like that of a burning city seen from the air. This led me into an improvisation, accompanied by Peter, of a Bomber Command navigator talking to the rest of the crew as they go in through the flak to prang Dresden.”

• • •

On May 5 Peter and Titi, accompanied by Michael Sellers, arrived at the La Costa resort in San Diego for three days of Return of the Pink Panther previews for select press and guests (including Fred MacMurray and Dick Martin). Sellers, Plummer, and Catherine Schell were each trotted before the horde of gorging reporters; what with the hotel rooms, cocktail parties, dinners, entertainment, limousines, and gift bags, the three-day junket cost United Artists over $125,000. On May 11, Peter was driven back to Los Angeles for several more days’ worth of publicity work, after which he flew to New York to appear on The Merv Griffin Show. Mervin devoted his entire ninety-minute program to The Return of the Pink Panther.

While in New York, Peter, dressed and accented as Clouseau, was named an honorary detective by the New York Police Department. He and Titi hightailed it out of the city on May 22, bound for Heathrow.

“All I’m trying to do is get through the day—that’s all,” he told a British journalist before flying back to Los Angeles in July to appear on The Tonight Show.

• • •

In August, there was a special premiere in Gstaad. Peter requested of United Artists that they provide a few round-trip tickets: one for Michael Sellers, one for Sarah Sellers, one for Victoria Sellers, one for Bert Mortimer, one for Peter Sellers, two for George Harrison, and one for Peter’s as-yet-unknown date—unknown because, by that point, Titi was history. During their acrimonious breakup in July, Peter demanded that Titi return the £2,000 Cartier watch he gave her while Titi frantically attempted to retrieve a stuffed dog.

The Gstaad junket’s locus was the Palace Hotel. Peter flew in along with his family and George Harrison, Lew Grade, Catherine Schell, Christopher Plummer, Henry Mancini and his orchestra, and, for some reason, John Boorman. Liz and Dick