No one could play someone else better than Richard. Born into a vaudeville family, he began performing onstage while still a toddler. By the time he was a teenager, he was a master impressionist who could transform himself into a variety of characters. But it was at home that Richard honed the fine art of the masquerade. Dominated by an overprotective mother, he learned to play whatever role made her happy. By the time he was an adult, Richard didn’t know who he was anymore. Maybe that’s why he plowed through four marriages and his children complained that they never really knew their father.
Who would have guessed that this master impressionist and comic genius was lost and miserable? Toward the end of a brilliant career spanning sixty films, Richard was interviewed by Kermit the Frog on The Muppet Show. The puppet said, “Just relax and be yourself.”
Richard responded, “I can’t be myself, because I don’t know who I really am anymore.”
After years of cardiac trouble brought on by anxiety, alcohol, and drugs, Richard was told that his heart was dying. Racing against the clock, he tried to mend fences. He confessed to a son that he shouldn’t have abandoned his first wife. He deeply regretted alienating his kids. Mostly, he wished he hadn’t wasted his life trying to be what others wanted him to be.
Not long after that, Richard collapsed of a heart attack. He was rushed to a London hospital, where he died on July 24, 1980. He was only fifty-four years old. His son Michael tearfully spoke to the reporters about the last days he shared with his dad: “It marked the beginning of an all-too brief closeness between us.”
Michael’s dad was born Richard Henry Sellers. But the world remembers him by his screen name, Peter Sellers. He portrayed such memorable characters as Dr. Strangelove and Inspector Clouseau, the bumbling master of disguise in the Pink Panther movies. Before Sellers died, an article in Time magazine quoted one of his friends as saying, “Poor Peter! The real Peter disappeared a long time ago. What remains is an amalgamation of all the characters he has played, and he is frantically trying to unsnarl the mess to find out who he really is.”
Film critics agree that Peter Sellers was the greatest comedic genius since Charlie Chaplin. No one was funnier than Inspecter Clouseau. Nothing is sadder than the story of the actor who played him. His life is summed in a Smokey Robinson song: “Ain’t too much sadder than the tears of a clown when there’s no one around….I’m hurt and I want you to know, but for others I put on a show.” Hopefully these words aren’t your story too. Don’t settle for brief moments of closeness such as those Michael shared with his dad at the end. You can experience authentic relationships with those who matter, if you remember this: To try to be someone else is to waste the person you were created by God to be.
Psalms 139:13-14 reminds us, “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it.”
Pastor Seth Wilkerson 