The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
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Narrated by:
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Justin Avoth
Summary
'A fascinating, tragic and instructive story, vividly told' Sunday Telegraph
Roger Lewis, in his no-holds-barred biography, exposes a Peter Sellers the world little knows. Recognized as the greatest British comic since Charlie Chaplin, Sellers was the grand master of fifty-five films - from Dr. Strangelove, to Being There and the Pink Panther hits.
But shadowing his phenomenal career was a history of increasingly bizarre behaviour involving psychotic violence, compulsive promiscuity, drug abuse and humiliating self-destructive obsessions with people including Princess Margaret, Sophia Loren, Liza Minnelli and each of his four wives (Ann Hayes, Britt Ekland, Miranda Quarry and Lynne Frederick). He alternately showered his wives and children with gifts and then threatened to kill them. Sellers' fluidity as an actor made for a terrifying madness that grew like a slow metastasizing cancer throughout his adult life.
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers concludes with his premature death at the age of 54, 'sick at heart and alone in those sunless hotel rooms', so recoiled from intimacy that no one really knew him anymore.
PRAISE FOR THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS
'It is a mad book - but then the subject is a madman. I love Lewis's passion ... I recommend it' Sunday Times
'Reinventing the genre as well as reassessing its subject with formidable intelligence, this book is a remarkable achievement' Literary Review
A masterpiece
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Thorough and pulls no punches
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The Best Telling of Peter Seller’s Life and Death
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Magnificent
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I do not like this book, the author is all too eager to criticise and demean actors who Sellers encountered or worked with and contemporary films. He almost seems vindictive at times. I accept that 40s and 50s films are very much of their time but the author seems unwilling to accept that these were hugely popular at the time as were the stars that he criticises.
Some people may say that this is a comprehensive account of Seller’s life but to me it comes across as an over long exercise in repeating over and over and over what an unpleasant person Seller’s was.
Watch Seller’s films, enjoy his talent and give this unpleasant read a miss.
Never meet your heroes
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