The Goons: The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d; A Show Called Fred; and Son of Fred. The shows aired on Britain's new ITV channel. In 1957 film producer Michael Relph, impressed with Sellers's portrayal of an elderly character in Idiot Weekly, cast the 32-year-old actor as a 68-year-old projectionist in Basil Dearden's The Smallest Show on Earth, supporting Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna and Margaret Rutherford. The film was a commercial success and is now thought of as a minor classic of post-war British screen comedy. Following this, Sellers provided the growling voice of Winston Churchill to the BAFTA award-winning film The Man Who Never Was. Later in 1957 Sellers portrayed a television star with a talent for disguises in Mario Zampi's offbeat black comedy The Naked Truth, opposite Terry-Thomas, Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton and Dennis Price. Sellers's difficulties in getting his film career to take off, and increasing problems in his personal life, prompted him to seek periodic consultations with astrologer Maurice Woodruff, who held considerable sway over his later career. After a chance meeting with a North American Indian spirit guide in the 1950s, Sellers became convinced that the music hall comedian Dan Leno, who died in 1904, haunted him and guided his career and life-decisions. Sellers was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats, the same exclusive theatrical fraternity founded by Leno in 1890. In 1958 Sellers starred with David Tomlinson, Wilfrid Hyde-White, David Lodge and Lionel Jeffries as a chief petty officer in Val Guest's Up the Creek. Guest later claimed that he had written and directed the film as a vehicle for Sellers, and thus had started Sellers's film career. To practise his voice, Sellers purchased a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The film received critical acclaim in the United States and Roger Lewis viewed it as an important practice ground for Sellers. Next, Sellers featured with Terry-Thomas as one of a pair of comic villains in George Pal's Tom Thumb (1958), a musical fantasy film, opposite Russ Tamblyn, Jessie Matthews and Peter Butterworth. Terry-Thomas later said that "my part was perfect, but Peter's was bloody awful. He wasn't difficult about it, but he knew it". The performance was a landmark in Sellers's career and became his first contact with the Hollywood film industry. Sellers released his first studio album in 1958 called The Best of Sellers; a collection of comic songs and sketches, among them Balham