THE road to an Oscar is sometimes long and winding.
For Melvyn Douglas, it led through World War II Burma (now Myanmar) where he met a young British comedian named Peter Sellers.
Douglas, famed at the time as the dapper star of Hollywood comedies such as “Ninotchka” (1939) with Greta Garbo, was entertaining troops.
“And someone decided to introduce him to this very funny young British soldier nobody had ever heard of,” recalls Douglas’ granddaughter, actress Illeana Douglas, who appears in a featurette on a recently released DVD edition of the movie “Being There.”
A quarter-century later, Sellers was an international superstar thanks to the “Pink Panther” movies.
Melvyn Douglas – who had performed mostly on stage and TV during the 1950s – was enjoying a successful second career in Hollywood as a character actor. The roles earned him his first Oscar, for playing Paul Newman’s father in “Hud” (1965).
“Years later, they ran into each other in London,” says the granddaughter. “And Sellers tells him he really wants Grandfather to appear in a movie called ‘Being There’ because he felt they had connection. It really fits in with the whole strange mysticism of the movie.”
Douglas won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Being There” (1979), playing a dying millionaire who hires Sellers’ simple-minded gardener, who is mistaken by everyone for a genius because his utterances are so inscrutable.
“Sellers really deserved an Oscar for ‘Being There,’ ” says Illeana.
“It was the first movie set I ever visited, and it was amazing to watch him in action.”
Though it was hailed by critics as Sellers’ greatest performance, he lost to Dustin Hoffman for “Kramer vs. Kramer” on Oscar night.