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 Sellers's difficulties in getting his film career to take off, and increasing problems in his personal life, prompted him to seek periodic consultations with astrologer Maurice Woodruff, who held considerable sway over his later career. After a chance meeting with a North American Indian spirit guide in the 1950s, Sellers became convinced that the music hall comedian Dan Leno, who died in 1904, haunted him and guided his career and life-decisions. Sellers was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats, the same exclusive theatrical fraternity founded by Leno in 1890. In 1958 Sellers starred with David Tomlinson, Wilfrid