Did Alexander Mackendrick fit into Ealing?
He didn’t fit into anything. Usually people who are exceptional don’t. He had a charming habit of losing his temper very frequently, but exclusively with the bosses, never with his cast. How was it working with Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness? First of all, Peter Sellers was then more or less a beginner. He was young and fat, and not star-like apart from his new Bentley outside. And I remember Alec teaching me not to rehearse too much. Because I am a bit of a pedestrian, I like to rehearse until I know it all backwards. That was my school, but Alec taught me. He said, “If you know too much about it, it ceases to be fun.” Sellers must’ve been pretty different by The Pink Panther? He was quite different. When we met again on The Pink Panther he was a big star. Not that he was ever anything but charming. He knew, for instance, that the star makes presents to all his friends in the cast after the movie. At the end of The Ladykillers, he gave us all a farewell present: a tape where he playe
