My Idea of a Father's Day Card...

I was a movie fanatic from a very early age. My dad enjoyed a good flick, but was never as crazy about the celluloid as I was. There were, however, three things we could almost always agree on to sit down and watch together: any Bond film, the Clint Eastwood catalogue, and anything starring the late great Peter Sellers...especially the Pink Panther films. I couldn't say what it was, but I remain a fan of all three to this day...and we do still take one in from the above categories over the holidays and whatnot.

So abhorring most anything to come out of the card section of the local drug store, and being able to draw, I laid down this illustration on some nice watercolor paper to serve as my card. I believe it's from The Pink Panther Strikes Again, which features what is probably the best of Inspector Clouseau's training duels with his man servant, Cato (Burt Kwouk).

"If I were my father. I'd have you tortured..."

Claudia Cardinale was born in Tunis to Sicilian immigrants to the Northern coast of Africa.  In 1957, she won the Italian embassy's "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia" pageant which sent her on excursion to the Venice film festival where she began her work as an actress.  A sex symbol of the 60's, Cardinale appeared in two of my favorite western films, Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, d. Sergio Leone) and The Professionals (1966, d. Richard Brooks) as well as playing the lovely Princess Dala in Blake Edward's The Pink Panther (1963).  (Her "drunk" scene with David Niven is incredibly charming.)