Slightly OT - Imagining Peter Sellers on DS

[Ben]

I was reading a local Chicago newspaper feature on a Peter Sellers film festival underway this month.  The reviewer pointed out Sellers' penchant for playing multiple characters in the same film, and it got me thinking how versatile the well regarded Sellers might have been on DS, which had the same actors playing different characters in ever-changing storylines.  

If we take it a step further, a Blake Edwards-produced DS might even have found Sellers playing multiple characters in a single episode -- including, say, a vampire resting in his coffin as well as the brave soul who stakes him later in the show.

Imagine the quips Sellers and Thayer David could have exchanged about their numerous, widely varying roles.  I can hear Sellers saying, "So, you've got Matthew Morgan, Count Petofi, and Prof. Eliot Stokes?  Well, I'm doing Constable Carter, Sam Evans, AND Burke Devlin -- tomorrow!"

DS did have actors doing more than one role in a single ep: Grayson Hall playing Hoffman the maid and Dr. Julia Hoffman (1970 PT), and Lara Parker playing Alexis Stokes and Angelique Stokes Collins (1970 PT), even though the physical resemblance between the characters in each case was intended.

Sellers, with self-effacing humor, once said that he was able to absorb so many divergent personalities because he didn't have one of his own.

Ben

[RingoCollins]

Ben,
did ya see my post under 'french accents'
what a co-inky-dink!

....and I was gonna try to not MINKEY around so much!

PS was one of the best! [and a Beatlefan, too!! as documented in Let It Be, and several bootlegs]

[dsannabelle]

Ben, that was a good thought on Peter Sellers. Now
think about this. Mia Farrell playing the part of
Angelique

I can picture Mia with her short hair back in 1795
brewing up those spells.

Annabelle

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Ben,

If Dark shadows had continued on beyond April, 1971, wouldn't it have been great to have seen Sheriff Paterson enlist the aid of that renowned European detective, Inspector Clouseau, in the sheriff's seemingly unending investigation into all of those unsolved murders in Collinsport?

I can just see the wily Inspector Clouseau questioning, among others, Roger Collins, Willy Loomis, Angelique Rumson, Buzz Hackett, the Eagle Hill Cemetery Caretaker and, of course, Barnabas Collins in the inspector's own inimitable style.  It would be like a veritable, intended assortment of Dark Shadows blooper sequences!

Bob the Bartender, a big fan of "After The Fox."

[Ben]

I can just see the wily Inspector Clouseau questioning, among others, Roger Collins, Willy Loomis, Angelique Rumson, Buzz Hackett, the Eagle Hill Cemetery Caretaker and, of course, Barnabas Collins in the inspector's own inimitable style.  It would be like a veritable, intended assortment of Dark Shadows blooper sequences!

Hi, Bob:

Yes, I can see him bumbling his way through Collinwood, unwittingly smothering a fire started by Laura Collins, grabbing Vicki's hand during a seance and being transported to 1795 with her, making Barnabas choke by accidentally sitting on his toy soldier, confusing the ghost of Quentin Collins by answering the magic telephone in his French accent, and accidentally locking Barnabas out of his coffin right before sunrise.  

Of course, he doesn't have a clue about the impact of his actions ... Clouseau is really Clou-less.  Unfortunately, he would end up solving way too many mysteries for the writers to keep up with him.

Ben