What's Nude, Pussycat?

What's new, pussycat? marks my filmic debut--both as an actor and screenwriter--so I suppose I shouldn't admit that I wrote the whole thing as a joke, never once believing that the Charles K. Feldman who commissioned me to do the script was actually the Charles K. Feldman, or that anyone in their right mind would ever produce such a film. The final version of Pussycat is the result of a 200-page filmscript that blew out of a taxicab window and was never put back in its original order after its retrieval from a passing chestnut vendor's pushcart, my typist having forgotten to number the pages. That Peters O'Toole and Sellers agreed to play the lead roles in the film is a miracle, and I'm certain that neither would have touched it in its original form. Therefore, credit must be given to the cabdriver who helped me put the script into its present order--especially since the loss of certain pages provided the plot with just the proper shade of incoherence. My initial story described the search of a psychotic gynecologist and a Lithuanian jockey for stable values in a world threatened by the influx of bad singing groups--with Romy Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss and Ursula Andress cast as the 1936 Notre Dame backfield. United Artists felt this was a little too "offbeat," and made a few subtle changes. The present plot involves a Paris fashion editor (O'Toole) and a horny Viennese psychiatrist (Sellers) in search of Romy, Capucine, Paula, Ursula and a clutch of strippers from the Crazy Horse Saloon--with a special role written in for me to give the film an earthy appeal.