Peter Sellers was an actor best known for playing the terminally incompetent and bumbling Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther series. A role he was so closely associated with during his lifetime that he reprised the role over a year after coming down with a severe case of being dead.
To explain, despite unexpectedly and tragically dying of a heart attack at age 54 in 1980, Sellers was somehow still able to appear in a 7th and final Pink Panther film released some two years later. Specifically, Trail of the Pink Panther, a horrible critical failure that flopped harder than wet mattress being dropkicked into a pool. With the majority of the criticism aimed at the film singling out the ham-fisted manner in which they handled the death of Seller’s.
You see, Sellers’ died before a single second of footage had been shot and it was initially assumed that he’d either have to be replaced or written out of the film. That was until they realised that they had several hours worth footage of Sellers in character as Inspector Clouseau cut from previous films as well as outtakes and archive footage. Footage they took and cobbled together into a somewhat cohesive plot. A tactic you know was a bad idea considering the only other notable franchise to use it is the Power Rangers.
Anyway, the film was, as mentioned, a huge piece of shit that pretty much everyone hated which kind of sucked for Sellers because the film was dedicated to his memory. Something his widow was apparently incensed about. So much so she sued the studio for damages. No wait, that’s not entirely accurate because she successfully sued the studio with a judge awarding her a million dollars for the emotional distress caused by having her husband’s legacy shat on so publicly from such a great height.
Now admittedly Sellers’ widow had another reason for suing the studio, mainly that she was pissed that the studio used archive footage of her husband. Something he’d objected to during his lifetime. This said her primary motivation was preserving her husband’s legacy, with her being quoted as saying –
It was an appalling film: Not a tribute to my husband but an insult to his memory.
Something that, as you imagine, didn’t exactly help the studio sell the film because it’s kind of hard to sell a movie as a tribute to an actor when his own widow is publicly suing you for damages.
