Born Richard Henry Sellers, this son of comedians began appearing onstage with his parents while still a child. At 13 he won a talent contest, then was a camp entertainer with the Royal Air Force, which he joined at 17. In 1949 Sellers began appearing on the BBC Radio comedy series "The Goon Show" with Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan; he also appeared with them in his screen debut, Penny Points to Paradise (1951). He worked on British TV and made short films in the early '50s. He began to be noticed as a film actor after his performance in The Ladykillers (1955) with Alec Guinness. Sellers' popularity in America greatly increased after he played three different roles in the popular comedy The Mouse that Roared (1959); the same year he appeared in I'm All Right, Jack (1959), which became a huge hit in England and for which he won the British Film Academy Award for Best Actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the bumbling French detective Inspector Clouseau in a series of films beginning with The Pink Panther (1963). He further increased his reputation for versatility by playing three roles in Stanley Kubrick's classic Dr. Strangelove (1963), by which time he had firmly established himself as an international star. For one of his last roles (and the one of which he was proudest), as the TV-addled Chauncey Gardener in Being There (1979), he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Sellers was known as a workaholic who pushed himself to the limit despite heart attacks; he died of one in 1980. His four marriages included one to actress Britt Ekland.