The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

For one man to have been behind the completely mad roles of Inspector Clouseau, Dr. Strangelove, and Clare Quilty in Lolita is nuts in itself. Any surprise then that Peter Sellers, the comic genius who pulled it all off, was himself a bit of a mad bugger? Roger Lewis recounts the details of Sellers's rise to fame and the sordid mess he made of it in this telling biography. The book succeeds at depicting the actor's artistic genius while also describing the myriad obsessions that ruled his personal life. Drugs, domestic abuse, womanizing, mysticism, and unbridled ruthlessness all fit into the story. As Lewis himself describes it, "What made Sellers an artist on the grand scale was what made him mad: the intensity and excitement of his imagination."