"Weegee"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz2AwyJ1FYs&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OIcefopi_M&NR=1

WeeGee is said to have been the nickname of a man, a photographer, employed on the sets behind the scenes of movie-making during the 50's and 60's. At the very end of the video (part 2 #5 - the second from top) and continuing into the beginning of the second video (part 2 #6 - first from top) is the conversation between Peter and Weegee, recorded by Peter, wherein Weegee explains how he had been given the name Ouija during a time - the 1920's, a time when it was popular in parts of American culture for people, playing a game as it were, attempting to establish contact with and receive messages from the _______ (the dead ... the spirit world, ... "the world of psychism", etc) via a wooden board laid out with arcane symbols and such. This is what others would come to characterize as "... some sort of talent ... marketable ..... that pleased and delighted an audience..." . Weegee says that some people who knew him claimed he was psychic. He mentions the time he showed up at a murder scene to take photos (ostensibly at the behest of the authorities "Murder Inc") before the murder had occurred. The nickname stuck - Ouija, but over time there would come to be some people out there in the culture who were not enthused about the trend of popular culture associating with practices long said to be involved with the arts of the occult.... apparently Ouija had started to get negative fan mail. So, he changed the spelling (spell 'ing ) from Ouija to Weegee. It is left unsaid if this was enough to appease at least that one vocal segment of society.

Peter then goes on to describe how, when he was searching for a character he adapted the voice of Weegee to a broken-English German accent - Dr. Strangelove - strange glove. Later in the second video (and throughout the 3 part series) he is caught in rare moments of clarity wherein describes how, yes, in his view, acting and psychism are connected "... as far as actors .... people who delve into a character they are searching for .... may leave themselves open .. as does a medium .... who perhaps may be inhabited by the spirit of ........"

Plus or minus the potentially mysterious aspects of the occult here, these videos are pieces from a 3-part documentary done by Arena (BBC) and as such provide a nice, nostalgic look at the past life of Peter Sellers. Sellers himself, was recorded (videos and or documentary, many available on the Internet) and quoted on multiple occasions to have said of himself " outside of the characters I inhabit, I have no personality of my own ... there is no identifiable me". The first one of these I stumbled on was during a scene on the Muppets wherein his character confided same to Kermit. Perhaps this insight helps explain some of the train wrecks left in the wake of the life of Peter Sellers. It might also explain why, during the last decade of his life, Sellers had become so obsessed in seeking to bring to the screen the story of the character - Chance the gardener, he had found in a paperback novel years earlier . During the last years of his life this dream finally came to fruition. Backers were found to put book to movie. Afterwards, Sellers came away speaking of the feeling that he was left with, that Chance represented and embodied who the identifiable he - Peter Sellers, really was. The movie was named "Being There". Ironically, it told the the story of the man - Chance, who for all practical purposes was not there at all, but instead was the mind of a simple child-like person inhabiting the body of a middle-aged adult who knew little if nothing about the real world other than that gotten from the ubiquitous medium he's spent his life in contact with; television.

PS - Being there released December, 1979. Peter Sellers died July 1980.