... but not in that order, and not all by those names.
In 1950, Sellers married Anne Howe, an Australian actress who was working in London under the name Anne Hayes. They had two children – Michael (born 1954) and Sarah (born 1958) – but divorced in 1963. The alleged cause of the breakdown was that Sellers fell in love with Sophia Loren while they were filming The Millionairess together.
Nothing came of Sellers's alleged love for Sophia Loren; but in 1964 he met the Swedish actress Britt Ekland, and they married ten days later. They had one daughter: Victoria, born in 1965. Britt Ekland famously went on to have a relationship with Rod Stewart, after they were introduced by Joan Collins. Her best remembered acting role is probably that of Bond girl Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). She was allegedly portrayed in Stewart's song You're In My Heart (1977) as "the big–bosomed lady with the Dutch accent, [who] tried to change my point of view".
It was shortly after his marriage to Ekland that Peter Sellers suffered his first heart attack. In fact he was said to have suffered a series of eight, over the course of three hours, reportedly as a result of inhaling amyl nitrites (poppers) as a sexual stimulant, in search of "the ultimate orgasm". He was 38 years old at the time.
Sellers and Ekland divorced in 1969. The following year, Sellers married Miranda Quarry, the daughter of a minor aristocrat. They divorced in 1974; her third husband was Alexander Macmillan, 2nd Earl Stockton – the grandson of former prime minister Harold Macmillan. (Harold Macmillan's son and Alexander's father, Maurice Macmillan, predeceased his father by two years.) Alexander Macmillan served as Euro MP for South West England from 1999 to 2004.
In 1973, Sellers became entranced with Liza Minnelli after seeing her perform on stage. They became engaged three days later, despite Minnelli's current engagement to Desi Arnaz, Jr, and Sellers still being married to Miranda Quarry. The relationship broke up after a month. By this time, Sellers's friends were concerned that he was having a nervous breakdown; he was described as "a deeply troubled man, distrustful, self–absorbed, ultimately self–destructive. He was the complete contradiction."
Peter Sellers's fourth and last wife was Lynne Frederick, an actress whose best remembered acting role is probably that of Catherine Howard in Henry VIII and his Six Wives (a 1972 film version of the BBC television series The Six Wive of Henry VIII). According to Wikipedia she was "known for her classical beauty and delicate, 'fairytale princess' features". In 1977, when she married Peter Sellers, she was 22 and he was 51.
Also in 1977, Sellers suffered a second (or ninth) major heart attack, and was fitted with a pacemaker. His next major heart attack, in 1980 – the day before his wife's 26th birthday – proved fatal. He was 54 years old.
At the time of his death, Sellers was reportedly in the process of excluding Lynne Frederick from his will. But because the changes hadn't been finalised, she inherited almost his entire estate, worth an estimated £4.5 million (£17.4 million in 2017) while his children, whom he had disinherited, received £800 each. Despite appeals from a number of Sellers's friends to make a fairer settlement, Frederick refused to give her stepchildren anything. She later won almost £1 million in a lawsuit against the makers of The Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), made after Sellers's death, which she claimed tarnished her late husband's memory.
Lynne Frederick married David Frost in 1981. They divorced in 1982. She reportedly suffered from severe depression because of Sellers's death, and attempted suicide numerous times. She appeared to be obsessed by his memory, and kept a shrine to him at their Swiss chalet in Gstaad, which she had inherited from him.
On 27 April 1994, Lynne Frederick was found dead in her West Los Angeles home. She was 39 years old. There was no evidence of foul play, and although suicide was suspected by some, a post–mortem failed to determine the cause of death. Her remains were cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in London, after which her ashes were mingled and interred with those of her first husband, Peter Sellers.
Victoria Sellers reported seeing her stepmother three weeks before her death: "I was so shocked. Lynne was sitting in her kitchen, dressed in a filthy kaftan. She could hardly move. She was swigging vodka directly from a jug with a handle on the side."
The sole beneficiary of Lynne Frederick's estate, the great bulk of which consisted of her inheritance from Peter Sellers, was Cassie Unger – her only biological child, born of her third marriage. Even at this time, Peter Sellers's own children received none of their father's money. (Reading of this on Wikipedia, one gets the distinct impression that the words may even have been written by Michael, Sarah and/or Victoria themselves.)
Film maker Blake Edwards, who directed the Pink Panther movies, said after Sellers's death, "One lived with the realisation that Peter could go at any time. But he was a very courageous man who refused to let his heart problems interfere with his personal life." Sellers himself lived up to this description in public: when asked about his heart attacks during an interview in 1978, he answered, "I plan to give them up. I'm down to two a day."
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2017