Peter Sellers

Felony drug charges were filed Wednesday against Victoria Sellers, Heidi Fleiss' friend and daughter of the late actor Peter Sellers. Sellers, 30, was arrested Monday in West Hollywood for possession of methamphetamine for sale and possession of a controlled substance--diazepam--said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Fisch. She was also charged with one misdemeanor count of being under the influence of methamphetamine, Fisch said.

After spending 13 days in jail, Victoria Sellers was freed on her own recognizance Wednesday, her lawyer said. Sellers, the 29-year-old daughter of British comic actor Peter Sellers and actress Britt Eckland, had been held at Sybil Brand Institute on $100,000 bail after failing to appear for booking on a receiving stolen property charge. But, after postponing her preliminary hearing on the matter, Van Nuys Municipal Court Judge Michael S. Luros agreed to let Sellers go free.

Victoria Sellers was sent back to jail Wednesday after a judge declined to hold a hearing on her bail status. Defense attorney Barry Hammond had asked Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg to free Sellers, contending that a Municipal Court judge had illegally jailed her without bail. But bail was set at $100,000 on Tuesday. Weisberg said he would not overrule Municipal Court Judge Michael S. Luros without knowing what evidence he had heard.

Wearing a wrinkled shift and jacket with the downscale "LA County Jail" label, celebrity offspring Victoria Sellers took the witness stand in Municipal Court on Tuesday and said five days at Sybil Brand Institute had taught her a lesson. She promised to obey the court if she were granted low bail. She shed a tear or two. But Judge Michael S. Luros was unmoved.

The party's over, at least until Tuesday, for Victoria Sellers, the nightclub-hopping, celebrity progeny and longtime gal pal of alleged Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss. An irate Van Nuys Municipal Court judge, observing that "Miss Sellers has about as much interest in complying with the orders of this court as does a cat," ordered her jailed Thursday without bail after Sellers failed to show up this week for police booking on a charge of receiving stolen property. Judge Michael S.

There are obscure performances . . . and then there are obscure performances. Here's one that's even escaped most biographers of Peter Sellers: Using the nom de cinema A. Queen, Sellers played a homosexual shopkeeper in "A Day at the Beach," a Paramount picture that only recently was uncovered in the studio's London vaults, where it had been lost for 23 years. The picture was never released.

"Oh Amy, yer warin' glasses, it's the bookish look . . . wait a minute, Amy, take yer glasses ooofff. Why Amy, yer beeeoooootiful." With a ludicrous leer and a Scottish burr thick enough to rattle the china, Mike Myers has reduced a normally composed assistant director to helpless giggles before the cameras have even begun to roll on the set of "I Married an Axe Murderer."

I enjoyed Mathews' article, and I have my own film-Perot comparison to share: namely, to the character Chauncey in the film "Being There." I am not comparing Perot to Chauncey, because I understand that Perot is a bright man and Chauncey was a simpleton. But what I find so strikingly similar is the public's reaction to each. Peter Sellers' brilliant portrayal has stuck with me through the years. People react to Chauncey as if he were a mirror or blank screen. Instead of hearing what he tells them--he doesn't read, he's really a gardener--they attach some greater meaning to his words to suit their needs.

As a modern movie comic, Peter Sellers was peerless. Nobody could do what he did--turn good manners and absurd dignity into the classiest of slapstick--nearly as well. His prime performances were so frequent and individual that it's hard to pick any that easily defined him. I'd have to put Sellers' work with Stanley Kubrick in "Dr. Strangelove" and "Lolita" at the top, simply because it showed how sophisticated his talents could be. But his Pink Period probably stands out to most people.

Remember the cocktail party segment of television's "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," where everybody in bell-bottoms and miniskirts danced to "hip" late-'60s music, pausing only long enough for somebody to tell a joke? Well, that's essentially the plot of "The Party," directed by Blake Edwards. The team of comic genius Peter Sellers and Edwards brought to life one of the screen's most unforgettable characters, Inspector Clousseau, in 1964's "The Pink Panther" and "A Shot in the Dark."