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The unfunny life of Peter Sellers
11/10/2002
He was a winner in his many classic roles, but a loser as a family man
"There is no such person." The late filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, known as a sagacious seer of the human
condition, made that observation about one of his favorite actors, Peter
Sellers. "He was the only actor I knew who could really improvise," Kubrick
added. Indeed, the multi-talented Sellers did some of his best work in two Kubrick
films: Lolita (1961) and Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love the Bomb (1963). Ed Sikov, author of a biography of director Billy Wilder, obviously had that
latter film in mind when he titled his Sellers biography, Mr. Strangelove, which
turns out to be a workmanlike yet probing account of one of the most unusual
figures to step in front of a movie camera. Sellers, who died of heart failure in 1980 at the age of 54, was an acting
chameleon. He could convincingly fit himself into the guise of a bumbling French
gendarme (The Pink Panther movies), a ragtag busker (The Optimists, 1972), a
middle-aged attorney with a hippie girlfriend (I Love You, Alice B. Tokas, 1968)
or a lousy Brooklynesque concert pianist with a phony French accent designed to
woo the ladies (The World of Henry Orient, 1964). And he was perfectly up to the task of playing multiple characters in a
single film. In Lolita, Sellers was the shadowy antagonist Claire Quilty, who in
turn morphed into three disguises, including a hilarious German psychologist,
"Dr. Zemf." But it was Sellers's stunning performance(s) in Dr. Strangelove that truly
showcased his genius. There he convincingly took on the appearance and accent of
three entirely different characters: the milquetoast American President, Merkin
Muffley; a stiff-upper-lip British officer (Group Captain Lionel Mandrake) and
the neo-Nazi with the uncontrollable right arm, Strangelove himself. Sikov's book -- the product of three years' research -- meticulously traces
Sellers's unique style to the early 1950s and his days with Spike Milligan and
Harry Seacombe on BBC radio's Goon Show. Seller's many voice characterizations were "the boilerplate of his talent,"
Milligan is quoted as saying. Sellers didn't just do the voices, he became the
characters. "He physically changed as he did the voice," Sikov quotes
Seacombe. Despite his obvious respect for his subject, Sikov is not afraid to swing a
harsh lamp in Sellers's direction. "His ego was made up of multiplying electrons
around no nucleus," he writes. And, "He had a dependence on his mother that
verged on obscenity." Sellers was a notorious womanizer. He was married four times, in each case to
a nubile beauty. He had three children and cut all of them from his will.
Indeed, a son, Michael, was the frequent recipient of physical abuse from his
father. "Peter used Mike as a punching bag," says Sellers's first wife, Anne. When
she announced to Sellers that she was leaving him, Sellers "wrecked the entire
living room. Have you ever seen a child lose its temper and go beserk and pick
up things and throw them?" Sellers could also be difficult on a movie set. Sikov reports that, while
filming Alice B. Toklas, he demanded that guards be posted outside the set to
keep people away. Yet when he worked for a director he respected, like Kubrick,
he was a completely different person. On Lolita, Kubrick allowed Sellers free
reign to improvise. Sellers's most celebrated performance was the last great one he gave: that of
the child-like "Chance the Gardener" in Hal Ashby's Being There (1979). For this
part, Sikov reports, Sellers became Chance not only on the set, but off:
"Throughout Being There Peter achieves the pinpoint-sharp exactitude of
nothingness . . . a performance of extraordinary dexterity." Arguably, no one but the eccentric Sellers could have played Chance. Sikov
devotes a good deal of space to this film, including Sellers's understandable
rage at Ashby's decision to include outtakes at the end of Being There, and his
disconsolate state after losing his bid for an Academy Award. Like all great funnymen, Sellers was, in reality, a decidedly unfunny man.
But, as Sikov points out, the actor's legacy to us is solely what he left on
film. And what a multifarious legacy it is. Bob Leddy has a passion for movies, which he indulges more easily now that he
is retired as a Journal sportswriter.
MR. STRANGELOVE: A Biography of Peter Sellers, by Ed Sikov. Hyperion.
433 pages. $27.95.