Peter Sellers, Roger Moore, and the speedboat drug bust: “Gift for the Honeymoon”
According to Roger Moore, his pal Peter Sellers was such a solitary soul that he felt like he never got to know the real man behind his many on-screen masks.
Indeed, Moore recalled that Sellers once told him, “To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience,” demonstrating exactly how little he thought of himself when he wasn’t transforming into madcap characters like Inspector Clouseau and Dr Strangelove.
Still, this reluctance to truly let anyone in on his private life didn’t stop Moore and Sellers from having fun on the occasions their paths crossed. Take, for example, when Moore was in France’s Cap Ferrat in 1970 shooting his short-lived action-comedy series The Persuaders! He discovered he was staying in the same hotel as Sellers and his new bride, Miranda Quarry, who were enjoying their Honeymoon, and the two men quickly came up with a practical joke to play on another of Moore’s showbiz buddies.
In the pages of Moore’s customarily ribald memoir Last Man Standing, the man who played the most winky James Bond revealed that his friend Leslie Bricusse, a playwright, had Johnny Gold, founder of the swanky London nightspot Tramp, on his speedboat, and would be swinging by the hotel on their way to the bay of Villefranche. Moore and Sellers put their heads together and pondered the best way to fuck with Bricusse, and settled on a jape that almost resulted in several arrests.
“Sellers and I spoke with one of the customs patrol boats and suggested they pull Leslie over on the pretence of him coming into the bay too fast,” Moore wrote. “We cried with hysterics as their boat was pulled over and we could see Leslie’s face turning red with embarrassment.” You see, Moore and Sellers had supplied the customs officials with some contraband they could pretend they’d found below decks on Bricusse’s boat: “a few hundred cigarettes and a couple of bottles of Scotch.”
At this point, though, Gold – who must have worked out what was going on – began waving an envelope in the air. “We’re here to see Peter Sellers!” he yelled, pointing out that the envelope was addressed to Sellers by way of his London tailor. Perhaps sensing that this practical joke could get away from them if the customs guys actually looked in that envelope, Sellers and Moore came out of hiding and waved to the officials to let the unassuming “pirates” go.
Thankfully, customs did just that, because when Bricusse and Gold got to shore and handed the envelope to Sellers, Moore found out it was filled with “a big bag of a white powdered substance” and a note that declared the bag was a “gift for the honeymoon.” A wide-eyed Moore realised the lucky escape he’d just had, and admitted, “That’s the closest I’ve ever come to being arrested, let me tell you.”
Later that very evening, Sellers invited Moore to his hotel room to share in the illicit delights of his honeymoon gift, but when he arrived, he saw the Pink Panther star was already high as a kite. In fact, he could barely keep a straight face as Sellers waxed lyrical about his bed being a magic carpet he could use for zipping around Cap Ferrat’s harbour. He wanted to know if Moore would join him on his night flight. Naturally, the Live and Let Die star politely declined.
