Peter Sellers he also said that in Sellers's previous films he had "been at his worst recently". In 1969 Sellers starred opposite Ringo Starr in the Joseph McGrath-directed film "The Magic Christian". Sellers portrayed Sir Guy Grand, an eccentric billionaire who plays elaborate practical jokes on people. The critic Irv Slifkin remarked that the film was a reflection of the cynicism of Peter Sellers, describing the film as a "proto-Pythonesque adaption of Terry Southern's semi-free-form short novel", and "one of the strangest films to be shown at a gala premiere for Britain's royal family". The film, a satire on human nature, was
Peter Sellers to see them again. At the end of 1962, his marriage to Anne broke down. In 1963, Sellers starred as gang leader "Pearly Gates" in Cliff Owen's "The Wrong Arm of the Law", followed by his portrayal of a vicar in "Heavens Above!" After his father's death in October 1962, Sellers decided to leave England and was approached by director Blake Edwards who offered him the role of Inspector Clouseau in "The Pink Panther", after Peter Ustinov had backed out of the film. Edwards later recalled his feelings as "desperately unhappy and ready to kill, but as fate would have