She thought Sellers worldly and suave, but she “didn’t have a clue” about his career. She wore “a lot” of clothes to go to his suite, she says wryly. Photograph: Allan Grant/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty ImagesĮkland knew his name only from gossip magazines as a beauty pageant judge who had reportedly tried it on with Miss Sweden. As he put it once: “I thought that I would like to meet what I saw.”Įkland with Peter Sellers. They met in January 1964 after Sellers saw Ekland’s photograph in the newspaper and sent his valet round to her room. That Ekland is still best known as Sellers’ former wife is testament to the star power – and infamous intensity – of their pairing. Even since lockdown began, she has appeared in BBC One’s The Real Marigold Hotel (where a group of older celebrities live out a retirement fantasy in India) and in the BBC Two documentary Peter Sellers: A State of Comic Ecstasy, about the comedian’s mental health problems, and his alcohol and substance misuse. “If you want publicity, you’ve got to do something to deserve publicity,” she says. That she remains so prolific today – a fixture of reality television, talkshows and the panto circuit – is down to her work ethic. She would go on to become one of the most-photographed women of the 1970s: as Sellers’ young bride, Roger Moore’s Bond girl in The Man With the Golden Gun and in high-profile relationships with the record exec Lou Adler and rock stars Rod Stewart, Phil Lewis and Slim Jim Phantom. But, as a “ totally nonessential worker”, life has slowed dramatically.Įkland’s career began when she was a teenager, appearing in chewing gum adverts and doing modelling jobs. She is coping well in lockdown in London, walking her dog and cleaning. Ekland sighs, audibly relieved.Īlthough she lives mostly in Sweden and Los Angeles, Ekland was in the UK touring in the play The Cat and the Canary when the coronavirus hit. A woman wrote to Ekland’s agent, saying she had taken Pepper, and that he lived a “long and happy life”. “All these years, I always wondered: what happened to Pepper?” says Ekland, now 77. Just 10 days after their first date, Ekland and Sellers – 17 years her senior – were married, and the puppy was lost in the whirlwind.
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