Peter Medak’s ‘The Ghost of Peter Sellers’
The Business
KCRW
4.6 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the new documentary “The Ghost of Peter Sellers,” director Peter Medak revisits the nightmarish production of his 1974 film, “Ghost in the Noonday Sun.” The biggest challenge was the behavior of Medak’s star, Peter Sellers. “The Ghost of Peter Sellers” reveals how Sellers stymied and manipulated Medak and his crew, even faking a heart attack to get time off.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business. |
| 0:05.0 | In the early 1970s, Peter Medek was an up-and-coming director who couldn't believe his luck when comedy legend Peter Sellers asked him to direct his next film, Ghost in the Noonday Sun. |
| 0:16.6 | But this pirate caper movie quickly ran into so many troubles, with sellers, foremost among them. |
| 0:22.9 | I had no idea until the first day of shooting on the water. |
| 0:27.3 | But then I learned it very quickly, you know. |
| 0:30.9 | To have Peter on one side, then to have the boat, then to have the weather, |
| 0:36.9 | then to have a crew of 130 people, you know, |
| 0:41.5 | and to have no producer. |
| 0:43.7 | Because Peter fired the producers before we started shooting the film. |
| 0:48.0 | From the minute the crew arrived in Cyprus, the shoot was such a disaster that the experience |
| 0:52.7 | haunts medic to this day. |
| 0:54.9 | He revisits that nightmare in the new documentary, The Ghost of Peter Sellers. |
| 0:59.6 | But first on the news banter, Peacock unfurls its tail feathers. |
| 1:04.0 | Stick around. It's the business from KCRW. I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany. |
| 1:18.4 | Hello, Matt. |
| 1:19.5 | Hi there. |
| 1:20.3 | So Peacock, NBC Universal's streaming service, is coming online. |
| 1:26.2 | People mocked Peacock, Matt, in the months when it was first |
| 1:29.8 | announced, they were like, oh, it's just like not going to happen. It's free. It's too late. |
| 1:35.5 | People aren't going to care about it. And I thought this from the start, I thought free is good. |
| 1:39.8 | People love free. You have to watch some ads if you want it for free. But guess what? |
| 1:43.9 | A lot of people have been trained to watch ads. And free, even if you haven't been have to watch some ads if you want it for free. But guess what? A lot of people have |
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