Mr.Strangelove

by Ed Sikov

The first American biography of one of film’s greatest comedians, MR. STRANGELOVE is the story of a screamingly funny, desperately unhappy soul—a man who thought he was empty. Sellers, who could mimic anyone and don any mask at will, was privately convinced that his personality had no core—that there was no personal substance under the put-on characters he so readily and hilariously assumed. “The Goon Show” made him famous; “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas” and “What’s New, Pussycat?” turned him into a 60s flower-power icon that still resonates today. And yet Sellers, whose blistering improvisations could ruin takes by sending the casts and crews of his films into peals of uncontrollable laughter while the camera was running—remained confused and lonely, difficult to work with, volatile one minute and hopelessly lethargic the next.In this exhaustively researched book based on tons of interviews, Dudley Moore, John Cleese, Christopher Plummer, Goldie Hawn, Shirley MacLaine, Sophia Loren and