Mr. Strangelove
A Biography of Peter Sellers
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Peter Sellers's explosive talent made him a beloved figure in world cinema and continues to attract new audiences. With his darkly comic performances in Dr. Strangelove and Lolita and his outrageously funny appearances as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films, he became one of the most popular movie stars of his time. Sellers himself identified most personally with the character he played in Being There -- an utterly empty man on whom others projected what they wanted, or needed, to see.
In this lively and exhaustively researched biography, Ed Sikov offers unique insight into Sellers's comedy style. Beginning with Sellers' lonely childhood with a mother who wouldn't let go of him, through his service in the Royal Air Force and his success on BBC Radio's The Goon Show, Sikov goes on to detail his relationships with co-stars such as Alec Guinness, Sophia Loren, and Shirley MacLaine; his work with such directors as Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder, and Blake Edwards; his four failed marriages; his ridiculously short engagement to Liza Minnelli; and all the other peculiarities of this eccentric man's unpredictable life.
The most insightful biography ever written of this endlessly fascinating star, Mr. Strangelove is as comic and tragic as Peter Sellers was himself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sellers was undoubtedly one of the 20th century's funniest people. From his first star-making turns in Lolita and Dr. Strangelove (in which he played three different characters), to the bumbling but strangely dignified Inspector Clouseau of the Pink Panther movies, Sellers never failed to send audiences rolling in the aisles. But as Sikov shows in this hip, unblinking biography, there was a downside to his genius. Sellers abused drugs, beat his wives and neglected his children. On set, he was a nightmare prima donna, insisting on special treatment and embroiling himself in ridiculous feuds with costars and directors. Moreover, his compulsive need to do impressions verged at times on multiple personality disorder (his first wife said, "It's like being married to the United Nations"). Sikov shows that no one, not even his friends, really knew Sellers. The actor was, in Sikov's estimation, a comic tabula rasa on which he could inscribe any character or personality. This mutability gave Sellers his first break, as he bluffed his way onto radio by impersonating a BBC star on the telephone. He later became the star of the hugely influential radio program The Goon Show, whose eccentric, Dadaist humor predated Monty Python by a decade. An avid party-goer (jet-setting friends included Roman Polanski and the Beatles), Sellers enjoyed a go-go lifestyle finally that caught up with him in 1980, when he suffered a massive heart attack. Sikov, whose previous work includes a Billy Wilder biography, treats Sellers with just the right mix of awe, irritation and sympathy, giving readers a clear-headed, respectful tribute to a disturbed genius.
