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Peter Sellers and Lynne Frederick, bizarre story
Gusto Brunt
Posts: 12,351 Forum Member
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I was watching an old horror movie called Vampire Circus (1972), and decided to look up the actress Lynne Frederick who appeared in the movie.
She married Peter Sellers but divorce papers were being filed just before he died of a heart attack in 1980. The thing is, months prior to his death he had been looking into changing his will to exclude Ms Frederick from it.
However, he was too late and she inherited a reported £5 million or more from his estate. She also didn't give a penny to his kids. So they got nothing.
Quite a shambles. But something really bizarre apparently happened.
After Ms Frederick died in 1993 aged just 39 (from drink and drugs), she was apparently cremated and her ashes mixed with Sellers' ashes in a weird ceremony.:o:o
I don't know if this is true, but if you have any information I'd love to know.
Thanks.
She married Peter Sellers but divorce papers were being filed just before he died of a heart attack in 1980. The thing is, months prior to his death he had been looking into changing his will to exclude Ms Frederick from it.
However, he was too late and she inherited a reported £5 million or more from his estate. She also didn't give a penny to his kids. So they got nothing.
Quite a shambles. But something really bizarre apparently happened.
After Ms Frederick died in 1993 aged just 39 (from drink and drugs), she was apparently cremated and her ashes mixed with Sellers' ashes in a weird ceremony.:o:o
I don't know if this is true, but if you have any information I'd love to know.
Thanks.
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There was no evidence of foul play, and although suicide was suspected by some,[5] there was no hard evidence for this and a post-mortem failed to determine the cause of death.[6] She was survived by her mother, Iris, and her daughter, Cassie. Her remains were cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in London and her ashes were mingled and then interred with those of Peter Sellers. Her estate passed into a trust fund, the Lynne Unger Children's Trust, which was administered by accountants in Santa Monica, California; her daughter was the beneficiary.'
I hadn't heard it before but Wikipedia (and many other sites I googled) confirm the story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynne_Frederick
Its hard to believe from interviews where he puts on the charm, but having read some biogs he seems like an utterly dislikable character. An arse to his wives & children (who don't have many complimentary things to say about him, Will or not)
Thanks for that. The ashes thing is really odd considering they were on the brink of divorce. Utterly weird.:o
In Roger Lewis's biography, it was Iris who forced her daughter to reconsider on marrying Peter when he had cheated on Lynne with another woman while they were engaged to be married at the time. Iris was considered to be a negative influence on Lynne, forcing her only daughter into the world of showbusiness in her early teens instead of becoming a teacher which she had originally wanted to be.
Lynne was quite young, almost the same age as Sellers's oldest daughter, Sarah when they married. So sad really...
Well, who actually made that decision to merge the ashes? Was it in Sellers' will?
Was it in Frederick's will?
That is issue.
I've seen a picture of Sellers and Frederick when they had only been together for a few months.
Seriously, she looks about 20 and he looks about 65 - although I think he was about 53 at the time.
He actually looked more like her grandfather than her father, or her boyfriend.
Sorry, I have problems with old men dating and marrying very young ladies.
The picture I saw of Sellers - dirty old man sprang to mind.
Half of the landed gentry and showbiz slept with mad maggie,
Yes she slept with gangsters, a few high profile aristos and was linked to quite a few showbiz names some of who are still alive, she liked her coq au van, the film the bank job is about a raid on a bank in which raunchy snaps of mad maggie in various naked embraces with men of distinction and fame were stored in a safe deposit box which the robbers had no idea bout until they looked at their spoils, the robbers were never brought to justice because of the pictures, she was a right goer.
And John 'big willy actor/gangster' Bindon.
The marriage was over and she knew very well Peter Sellers was in the process of changing his will, even on the day of his death, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/7892368/Peter-Sellers-changed-his-will-on-the-day-he-died-legal-papers-show.html
His 3 children, who he put through a lot emotionally, barely got an inheritance, whilst Lynne pretty much copped for the lot. Spike Milligan, good friend of Peter, tried to reason with Lynne and fulfil Peter's wishes but she wouldn't budge.
And now the estate has gone to her daughter from her first marriage Cassie Unger. No blood relation of Sellers, she has his film rights. Just plain wrong.
Morally wrong in every sense that an unrelated person gets his estate, but we're talking about Peter Sellers here and this is in line with how he treated his children and what kind of father he was. Well he was not a father at all to them was he?
They challenged the legalities for a while but obviously the Frederick offspring has since shown as little regard for them as their own father did, the daughter could easily have worked something out with Seller's children but few people want to share an unearned goldmine. I reckon Sellers is looking down smugly too. If I had such a lousy a parent as him I'd not want a brass razoo from him.
Wow!!:o
You may find this interesting! - http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ztuwYTMPmZk
I did see a documentary about her ex Lord Snowdon though who was just as unfaithful to her and managed to charm the royal family into thinking the sun shone out of his posterior and blame her for the failure of their marriage. She was also talked out of marrying Peter Townsend because he was divorced - I do wonder if she'd have been a much happier woman if she just been allowed to marry the man she originally wanted to in the first place - in any case I kinda of feel sorry for her. Bizzy Lizzy was pretty good at screwing with people's chances of marrying people who would actually make them happy and leading them to marry people who wouldn't.
There was a TV documentary about him some years ago, and they said his allusions to having had sexual relationships with both of them was largely in his own head.
He claimed he had a fling with Princess Margaret. Not quite the same thing.
Once again, he claimed he had shagged Sophia Loren. Not quite the same thing. The guy was, after all someting of a fantasist. I remember years ago watching Parkinson interview him and he went through at least eight different accents, in no particular order, returning to one then the other. It was as though there was no Peter Sellers, just the characters he played. He seemed not to have existed outside his characters.
I'm sure I once read that he went out of his way to meet her/seduce her after seeing her in "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" where she played desperately young Katherine Howard opposite Keith Michell's "old man" (achieved by makeup) Henry VIII. She looked like a little girl in the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jWzK4xxMOE