Almost 45 years after his death on July 24, 1980, Peter Sellers still remains something of an enigma. He hasn't always been portrayed in a flattering light - not least in the 1994 biography The Life and Death of Peter Sellers by Roger Lewis in which he decribed him as a "monster". The subsequent 2004 movie adaptation starring Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush did nothing to asuage this. However another Sellers biographer Robert Ross is keen to dispel this belief in his book Best Sellers - Peter Sellers A Life in Comedy, which has just been reissued.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk he explained he wanted to remind people about Sellers' talent rather than drag him through the mud. "My one agenda, if I had an agenda, was to celebrate the funniness of Peter Sellers, because maybe three or four years ago some people said, 'Oh, we shouldn't be celebrating Peter Sellers because he was, a monster.' And he wasn't a monster. I mean, he was mentally troubled. I think he had, in 21st century parlance, mental health issues if he'd had the right medication I think he might have been a slightly more together person," Robert oipined.

"But having said that, I'm a great believer of, along the lines of Spike Milligan and Tony Hancock and Robin Williams, it's that sort of madness that makes them a genius really. So I think Peter Sellers very cleverly channelled it into comedy and that's why the book's called A Life in Comedy - it's purely that, although it references the waves and the weirdness and the wealth, as I call it, because that is part of Peter's life." he said.

Continuing his defence of the often maligned late actor he said: "He was always the first to make people laugh. That was his main aim in life, really. So the book really was an antidote to all those other sort of cobbled together biographies that just paint him as this nasty person, which he wasn't really.

"I mean, he was a very complicated person, but over the last 20 odd years, I've spoken to a lot of people who knew him and worked with him, including Burt Kwouk from the Pink Panther films, and one of his closest friends, David Lodge, his other close friend, Graham Stark - so people that knew him well.

Asked what Sellers immediate family think of his work Robert points to their reaction to the Roger Lewis autobiography. "Two of his wives have died, and his son, Michael has passed away but he has kids still who really revere him and all the surviving children who read that book sort of disowned it and said, that is not the that is not my dad. And most of the people that were with him on a regular basis disowned it," he said.

Indeed Seller's children were so upset by the portrayal in the film of Lewis' book they appeared in documentary Somebody's Daughter, Somebody's Son to set the record straight while his ex wife Britt Ekland threatened to take legal action against the film's producers.

"I mean, he was a complicated character," Robert acknowledges. "And let's not forget that he was of that generation of the war years. He served king and country in the Second World War. A lot of them came back quite damaged by that experience, where every day could be your last.

"He was a British boy, Hampshire born boy who became one of the biggest, if not the biggest film star in the world. He was a comedian talked about in the same breath as Michael Cain and Roger Moore and these action heroes. That is unique for him in the 60s and 70s, to be this famous. He worked so hard to become famous. And it's, that it's that sort of, that hunger for comedy fame, which I found fascinating, and even his cliche doldrum years of the early 70s, he's never less than 100% watchable and entertaining and giving as an actor."

Best Sellers - Peter Sellers A Life in Comedy by Robert Ross, was published by Great Northern Books, 15th October, 2024, and is widely available in hardback edition and on Kindle.