Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers

How do you write the biography of a cipher? That's the daunting challenge veteran Hollywood biographer Ed Sikov tackles in exploring the life of one of the 20th century's most acclaimed comic actors. Peter Sellers's uncanny talents as a mimic informed everything from English radio's Goon Show and the highly profitable--if increasingly broad--cycle of Inspector Clouseau Pink Panther films to his brilliant turn as Chauncey Gardiner in Being There, a role that had all too many discomforting parallels to Sellers' own cryptic personality. Sikov reveals that the man long hailed as comedy's greatest chameleon was in fact a tragic, troubled personal vacuum, the only child of a literal stage mother who indulged his every whim, yet left him a distinct void for a soul. Sikov interviews many of the relatives, intimates, and survivors of Sellers that filled his alternately strange and spectacular life, while thoroughly chronicling every professional triumph and more than a few missteps. Sikov's straightforward reporting, seasoned by his dry wit, details the parts that made up the man, but the sum remains a compelling enigma. As Lolita and Dr. Strangelove director Stanley Kubrick, a riddle himself, once said of Sellers: "There is no such person." --Jerry McCulley