- I think it was really when I started watching the "Pink Panther" movies, as much as I loved Peter Sellers, where I started noticing what the director was doing and how the comedy was being done on film.

My next door neighbor, Mike Sampson, who was my best friend, his dad loved the "Pink Panther" movies.

And when they would show up on television, I had never seen one and Mike said one day, he said, "Oh, you gotta come over tonight, one of the 'Pink Panther' movies is on and you gotta watch it with my dad, because he just laughs hysterically the entire time."

So remember going over there and sitting there and watching, for the first time, Clouseau and first of all, it's true, his dad laughed, like he would fall off the couch laughing, literally.

But I was just watching, going like, "This is brilliant!"

Because I love physical comedy and I always did, and again, loved, "Laurel and Hardy" and "Three Stooges" and all that.

But again, they were just funny people who were in this thing that I got to watch, I didn't realize what a director did and I remember then watching the credits and seeing, "Directed by Blake Edwards," and that name just stuck with me.