LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Geoffrey Rush: Peter Sellers
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Geoffrey Rush is no stranger to playing true-life characters. The Australian actor has taken on Leon Trotsky in Frida, the Marquis De Sade in Quills, and, crucially, pianist David Helfgott in his breakthrough film Shine, which won him a Best Actor Oscar in 1997. But even he was daunted by playing the chameleon-like comic genius that was Peter Sellers, famed for his collaborations with Stanley Kubrick, his time with 'The Goons' and, of course, his bumbling gendarme Inspector Jacques Clouseau.
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In “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers†(2004), a made-for-cable biography on the strange life of the enigmatic and egotistical actor, Rush used all his talents to give an accurate and amusing performance. The result of his efforts earned Rush his second Golden Globe Award in 2005, this time for Best Actor in a television miniseries or movie. Rush continued to earn awards for his performance by snaring a 2005 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie. He rounded out the successful year with a perfectly measured performance as the Israeli official who "unofficially" assigned a Mossad operative (Eric Bana) to head up a covert team to exact retribution against the terrorists responsible for the slaying of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in director Steven Spielberg's masterful "Munich" (2005). Rush then made a cameo appearance in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest†(2006), an energetic and worthy addition to the swashbuckling franchise. His cameo as Captain Barbossa toward the end of “Dead Man’s Chest†set himself up to be a major character for the third installment.
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Rush's film debut was in the Australian film Hoodwink in 1981. His next film was in Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck, the following year. In 1996, he starred in Shine, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Australian actor to win an Oscar since Peter Finch. From that point on, his film career skyrocketed.
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Rush won an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for his captivating performance in HBO Films’ The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, in which he portrays the title character. This November he can be seen starring in Candy, opposite Heath Ledger, for director Neil Armfield. Rush was most recently seen in the box office giant Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, where he revisited his role as Captain Barbossa and the Academy Award nominated film Munich for director Steven Speilberg. Rush recently completed production on Universal Studio’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and is now filming Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End.
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Rush's career continued at a fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 through 2003. He starred in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and has reprised his role in the third title. Rush ... played actor Peter Sellers in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. For this performance, he won an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Mini-series or Movie.
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Rush, 56, approaches his work with the joy and sheer enthusiasm of a man to whom success came later in life. At 45, he was a struggling stage actor, with just four small film credits, when he won a best actor Oscar for Shine, 11 years ago. Since then, he has been Oscar-nominated for Quills and Shakespeare in Love, and won a Bafta for Elizabeth and an Emmy for The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.
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