Being There

Peter Sellers triumphs in his classic performance as an illiterate gardener who is hilariously catapulted into the fast lane of political power. A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television. After a run-in with a limousine, he ends up a guest of a woman (Shirley MacLaine) and her husband Ben (Melvyn Douglas), an influential but sickly businessman. Now called Chauncey Gardner, Chance becomes friend and confidante to Ben, and an unlikely political insider. (Warner Bros.)