Terry Southern of the Monty Python team. Cleese later described McGrath as having "no idea of comedy structure" and complained that the film ended up as "a series of celebrity walk-ons." The film was shot in London between February and May 1969. The cast was headed by Sellers (as Guy Grand) and Ringo Starr as his son Youngman Grand (a new character created for the movie), with cameo appearances by Spike Milligan, Christopher Lee, Laurence Harvey, Raquel Welch, Roman Polanski and Yul Brynner. As with "Dr Strangelove", Sellers habitually improvised on the script during filming. During production McGrath and Southern discussed a
Peter Sellers led to his brief appearance on 1 July 1948 on "ShowTime" and subsequently to work on "Ray's a Laugh" with comedian Ted Ray. In October 1948, Sellers was a regular radio performer, appearing in "Starlight Hour", "The Gang Show", "Henry Hall's Guest Night" and "It's Fine To Be Young". By the end of 1948, the BBC Third Programme began to broadcast the comedy series "Third Division", which starred, among others, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Sellers. One evening, Sellers and Bentine visited the Hackney Empire, where Secombe was performing, and Bentine introduced Sellers to Spike Milligan. The four would meet