Customer Reviews

Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Peter Sellers has been the subject of more than a few books, some significantly better than others. Aside from Graham Stark's beautiful memoir "Remembering Peter Sellers" (still only available in the U.K., unfortunately), this is the best. Certainly it is the most comprehensive, in part because it works from, and builds upon, the many books that came before it.

In more ways than one, "Mr. Strangelove" is not a light read. Sikov's research is extensive and detail is heavy, but his writing is surprisingly nimble over the 300+ page length.

The life of Sellers was fraught with private and public turmoil, and a significant career dry spell. Some previous studies of him and his work treated both with almost cruel insensitivity (and I haven't even read Roger Lewis' much-pilloried "Life and Death of..."), emphasizing the pain he brought into the lives of others. Meanwhile, memoirs like his son Michael Sellers' "P.S. I Love You" and Stark's book, while certainly willing to admit to Peter's faults, made a case for his personal pain and his virtues.

Happily Sikov understands Sellers' good side as well as his bad one. Though this is definitely a warts-and-all portrait of the man - his bad behavior on sets and his unhappy relationships with wives and children are not spared us - and sometimes painful to read, it is also sensitive, careful to stress Peter's humanity. (His fresh interviews with some of Sellers' colleagues do much to acheive this end.) In the end, this is the story of a man who, in Sikov's words, had an "essentially good heart".

Understandably some will be (and have been, to judge from other reviews) frustrated by the extremely detailed coverage Sellers' work, especially his films, are given. But to do justice to the life of such a gifted performer requires a close look at his work, and "Mr. Strangelove" covers his work more compellingly than any previous biography has, particularly where his more obscure films are concerned.

"Mr. Strangelove" is a full, rich portrait of a tragicomic life, one that will be compelling reading for those with even a mild interest in its subject...though once it's been read, "mild" may well turn to "major".

If all you know about Peter Sellers consists of what you've seen in his films, and you want to keep things that way, then stay away from this biography. It will permanently alter your regard for him, when after reading it you see him onscreen -- conceptually similar to the way you can't truly concentrate on a movie, any more, when Woody Allen or O.J. Simpson or (for wholly different reasons) Christopher Reeve appears. Sellers' childhood life, monstrously mismanaged by his mother, gave rise to both his immense talent and atrocious immaturity/impropriety as an adult. He comprehensively lived a child's life during his childhood, wholly unstructured and unorganized and undisciplined, propagating a glorious sense of fun, imagination and mimicry which formed the foundation of his adult career. Simultaneously, as the author points out, he never developed the "inhibitors" that prevent normal grown-ups from losing emotional control and/or unpredictably launching into violent behavior. Sellers' sporadically terrible behavior toward his first wife and children, were it to occur today and become public knowledge, would completely taint his career. He behaved abominably toward them and, objectively speaking, should have been brought to justice as an abusive husband and father.

This is a good bio to read, but be aware it will add another, and not too pleasant, layer to your thoughts about its subject.

I'm a HUGE fan of Peter Sellers, so I've read everything I could find on him over the years. But this is the first biography that really captures the comedic genius of Sellers' legendary radio broadcasts and classic film work while delving equally deeply into the actor's tragic personal life. The author unearthed all sorts of tidbits that were new to this fan, too. What really surprised me, though, was how much information was transmitted without bogging down in the usual mire of biographical facts and dates. It's really a lively read that's true to Sellers' spirit. Sikov is a new name to me, but once I finish buying all of Seller's movies on DVD, I'm going to check out his book on Billy Wilder.

Peter Sellers was a genius and I love to watch his movies. I was wary about reading a biography of him, however, simply because he was such an impossible human being. But this book treats his life as the stuff of black comedy, and it works. We're not expected to love or sympathize with him, which is liberating. We just watch him rip through the world like a supernatural phenomena, making jokes, marriages, movies, divorces, heart attacks and headlines. Yet, by the time the book was over, I found myself weirdly fond of Sellers and sorry that he was gone.

Sikov is wonderful with the details of show business. He's especially good on The Goon Show. If the book has a voice of wisdom, it's the great, irrepressible Spike Milligan. The accounts of the movies are terrific, not just the obvious ones like the Pink Panther films or LOLITA, but forgotten gems like I'M ALL RIGHT, JACK. Sikov's descriptions were good enough to send me back to the video store more than once. And his social history is terrific, too, a great, cracked history of the world of Sixties jet setters.

This is a very, very funny book and easily the best actor biography since NOTES OF A COWARDLY LION by John Lahr. I can't recommend it too highly.

I've always been a big Peter Sellers fan. His work in DR. STRANGELOVE is beyond comic: it's still one of the great comedy performances of all time. And his work in the PINK PANTHER films still scares away every comic actor from ever reviving that successful series.
But I've also always had a deep curiosity as I've watched his career. How could someone so brilliant in LOLITA and DR. STRANGELOVE end up in something like WHERE DOES IT HURT? or SOFT BEDS, HARD BATTLES? Why was there a ten-year gap in the Pink Panther films?
Why the heck does he disappear halfway through CASINO ROYALE?

Ed Sikov's bio provides a lot of answers while painting Sellers as a mad, bratty genius.
I'd read the English edition of the Roger Lewis book, THE LIFE & DEATH OF PETER SELLERS (a difficult read if you're a Yank) and a lot of the same info is found here as well, so all the details appear to jibe.
Peter Sellers had what we'd now call "issues."

I found this to be a well-written bio and look forward to seeing Sellers's films again with a new perspective.
Quoting this book: "He (Sellers) remains to this day the master of playing men who have no idea how ridiculous they are."
He was genius and he was a lunatic. And we'll always have his films to entertain us.

(Like another reviewer on here, I'll also check out Sikov's book on Billy Wilder).

Many of the other reviewers on this page complain that Sikov's book is stuffed with too many details on the movies and other show biz background and doesn't give enough on Sellers' personal life; others love the movie details and think Sikov gives just enough info on Sellers' mother and wives and kids and so on. The thing to remember, I think, is that Sikov is a film critic, not a psychologist. He writes what he knows, and he really does know film. His discussions of the often chaotic details of the development, production, marketing, and reviewing of the Sellers movies are in fact wonderful, if that's what you're mostly looking for in a biography of a movie star. I had the same reaction as another reviewer: his plot summaries and quotations from the movies made me want to go out and buy the DVDs.

If you're looking for the dirt, well, there's enough of it here for many readers, but Sikov isn't really interested in all the sordid details of Sellers' life, and it's easy to understand why some readers grew frustrated. Sikov tends to pass over the steamier moments of his story with a quick quotation from a friend of Sellers, or somebody he was working with at the time. The book you want if you're interested in the dirt is Roger Lewis's The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, on which Stephen Hopkins' 2004 movie starring Geoffrey Rush was based.

Lewis is also much more interested in psychoanalyzing Sellers than Sikov. I must admit that I would have liked to see a bit more of that in Sikov's book. How exactly did bad mothering make Sellers the depersonalized terror that he became? Sikov quotes a number of Sellers' friends as "diagnosing" him as "manic-depressive," but we never get any background for or comment on that claim; it's just something that several people say about Sellers. Once again: Sikov really isn't interested in such matters. He's interested in the performances, and uses stories about Sellers' personality or private life as occasional fillers to get us from one movie story to the next.

Another aspect of Sellers' life that doesn't particularly interest Sikov is money. We are told about Sellers' love of money, his need to be rich and to flaunt his wealth, and we do hear of his salary negotiations on many films; but in the seventies, before he and Blake Edwards get back together to start making Pink Panther movies again, he goes into a slump, makes six or seven dogs in a row, and Sikov tells us "the money was running out." Really? What does that mean, exactly? Shortly afterwards, we begin to hear that Sellers had to move around a lot, and eventually settled in Ireland, because of "tax difficulties"--what tax difficulties? Sikov never tells us; that just isn't interesting.

Still, if you love movies (and why would you be reading about Peter Sellers if you didn't?), and are endlessly fascinated by how movies get made, this is an excellent biography. Sikov's light touch, flawless journalistic style (which often borders wonderfully on the grotesque, as when he writes of Sellers' Chauncey Gardiner in Being There that "He is a mental earlobe trying to be a fin"), and cheerful cynicism about marriage, love, happiness, and so on give the reader a reassuring (I want to say MORAL) standpoint from which to view the miseries of Peter Sellers' life.

I'm a huge Peter Sellers fan, so I had some doubts about this book. Nobody ever seems to be able to get at the heart of Sellers's comedy style. But MR. STRANGELOVE turns out to be really great. It is full of wonderful details about his life, and the author really understands and appreciates Sellers as a performer. Its also very funny at times. Peter Sellers had a lot of problems, and the book covers them, but he was also a very gifted comedian, and it's nice to see that the author gets that fact.

There is so much information in this book on the characters Peter played, but not so much follow through about his children and his wives. I don't need to read dialogue excerpts from movies; I can watch them. (There is even an anecdote about ski technique gone awry, with an expanation, while we are reminded elswhere on how many Beatles there were, and things like tension during their break up.) I suppose it might have been difficult to get some in depth information from Peter's children and former wives. What we do have reads like a travel log of a jetsetter gone bad. I wish there was more from his children's POV. The book covers more about his characters in the movies and on shows than about his encounters in his real life. To say that there was no Peter Sellers or that the man off stage was often depressed or on drugs is not enough for me. I know there must have been tons of horrific tales or encoutners, but it seems not everyone was talking to these authors.

Certainly not a bad book, but sometimes just too one sided in its expose of the famed comic actor. Sellers, well known for his strange behavior (both eccentic & nasty at various times) is too often portrayed as a misunderstood genius and author Ed Sikov seems to forgive him for his failings. There are blow by blow accounts of the making of some classic films (DR. STRANGELOVE, THE PARTY, THE PINK PANTHER) and a lot of gossipy chatter about the jet-set in the 1960s. Roman Polanksi, Mia Farrow & all four Beatles are given a lot of coverage while Sellers' collaborators such as Blake Edwards, Spike Milligan and Paul Mazursky are relagated either to the fringes or come across as catty and bitter (note how Sikov makes a point of disregarding Mazursky's account of Sellers' irrational behavior on the set of I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS). Still, it's a thorough look at Sellers life and work, one that includes brilliant work in DR. STRANGELOVE, LOLITA, THE PARTY, and BEING THERE.

Sellers is a cipher to himself, but not to Sikov who paints a vivid portrait of a man whose talent is his instability. Wonderfully demented on-screen, Sellers is just plain demented off-camera. His family and friends soldier on as his co-stars coddle his eccentricities. Sellers appears to have become as crazy as his success would allow...and he was amazingly successful. After reading, I sat down and watched many of Sellers' films that I had not seen before, all now with more interest!