Mr. Strangelove_ A Biography of Peter Sellers - Ed Sikov [212]
At Waugh’s prompting, Peter named the four films of which he was proudest: I’m All Right, Jack; Dr. Strangelove; The Party; and Being There. Waugh noted that, for Peter, Spike “remained—usually by telephone, and often at very long distance—the chief guru in his life.” The other, of course, was Swami Venkesananda, who kept an ashram in Mauritius. But Waugh was skeptical of Peter’s devotion to the swami: “I could not avoid the suspicion that part of his fascination is that Mr. Sellers could study his accents, his intonations and gestures, and practice them quietly to himself in the bathroom afterwards.”
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On Monday, July 21, Peter and Michael Jeffery flew to London from Geneva in Peter’s private plane. They landed at Stansted Airport in Essex (Peter preferred to avoid Heathrow), drove down to London, and checked into the Dorchester. He wanted to stay in the Harlequin Suite, but it was already booked, so he made do with the Oliver Messel suite, named for—and designed by—the noted theater designer. In addition to his clothes, he made sure to bring along the script-in-progress for The Romance of the Pink Panther.
Peter had spoken to Spike before arriving in London, and Spike, rather morbidly, had told him, “ ‘We’re all getting old. How about one more dinner?’ ‘Yes, of course!’ he said. ‘One more dinner.’ ” Harry Secombe got “a message from Spike saying ‘Let’s go and have dinner with Peter before one of us is walking behind the coffin.’ ” The three old friends set up their reunion for the following night.
Before turning in, Peter, accompanied by Jeffery, climbed into a limousine, drove to North London, and paid his first visit to the Golders Green crematorium and memorial garden where Peg and Bill’s ashes lay.
He woke up early the next morning, showered and shaved, put on his loose blue workout suit, ordered some coffee and melba toast, called Michael Jeffery’s room, ordered a massage, and then called Sue Evans, who arrived around 9 A.M. Peter took a nap while Evans and Jeffery went over the day’s affairs. His lawyer, Elwood Rickless, showed up and got Peter to sign a document setting up the long-delayed trust for the fifteen-year-old Victoria, and then it was time for lunch. Peter asked for a double order of grilled plaice, a salad, and a little cheese; he requested the double order of plaice because he was convinced that the Dorchester was stingy with its fish. After finishing his meal, Jeffery helped Peter select his outfit for the evening—black, black, and black (pants, shirt, lizardskin shoes)—topped with a black and white check jacket. Sue Evans got ready to leave. “Sue, don’t go yet,” he asked. “Sit on for a bit and talk to me.”
Then, “I do feel frail. Really, I feel faint,” he said, and before he got a chance to get back into bed, his face turned deep purple and then very pale, he closed his eyes, and he died.
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“It’s hard to say this, but he died at the right time,” said Spike.
“Anything to avoid paying for the dinner,” said Harry.
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To be pedantic about it, Peter’s clinical death was actually a more protracted process. He was rushed to Middlesex Hospital and hooked up to machines that kept him going for another thirty-six hours. Sue Evans called Michael, who was in London. Sarah was in Portugal. Victoria was in Sweden with her mother. They all had time to assemble at the hospital before the Widow Sellers arrived in dark glasses, fresh from the Western Hemisphere.
Peter’s body didn’t give up easily, but this time it had no choice. A little after midnight on July 24, it was over.
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“Peter was a well-loved actor in Britain,” Burt Kwouk observes. “The day he died, it seemed that