Mr. Strangelove_ A Biography of Peter Sellers - Ed Sikov [146]
“Dear Bob,” Peter cabled on January 31. “Since I have directed The Bobo I also want to cut it, but alone with [the editor] Johnny Jympson. Just Johnny Jympson and I, in other words. I hope you will agree to this as I must tell you I intend to go all the way.”
“Dear Bob,” Peter wrote on February 14. “Thank you for your letter in which you state that you do not agree that I directed The Bobo. I wonder if you would now be good enough to let me know upon what facts you base this statement.” There were other less-than-pleasant exchanges with Parrish and others over the musical score, which Peter insisted on reworking as well. In the end, though, Robert Parrish received sole credit for directing The Bobo.
When The Bobo was released, it was not widely slammed. On the contrary. The critic Richard Schickel wrote only one of a number of glowing reviews. Schickel captures the spirit not of that performance, particularly, but of Sellers’s best work nonetheless: “There is in his character a wonderful scramble of guile and innocence, humility and dignity, not to mention a certain wise, romantic rue. . . . What is so good about Sellers’ performance is that he never insists upon these emotional generalizations at the expense of specific characterization, is never excessively sweet or sour and never, never tries obviously to turn the Bobo into an Everyman, as so many lesser actors have when they have tried to work a vein that is so trickily laced with fool’s gold. . . . Peter Sellers may be the finest comic actor of his time, and it is a boon to be able to study him at length and at leisure instead of merely glimpsing his face in the crowd of those all-star productions where he has lately been lurking so much of the time.”
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“A certain wise, romantic rue” was indeed what Peter Sellers radiated onscreen. But offscreen, there was little wisdom, and his romances inevitably turned sour—all that was left was rue. An “atrocious sham” is the way Britt Ekland describes her marriage to Peter at this point. Like Anne, she was the object of his increasingly incendiary rages and follow-up periods of deep remorse. One day, for instance, she returned home at the end of her day to find Peter in a white-hot jealous fury. Convinced that she was with another man, Peter grabbed her gold Cartier watch, stomped on it, threw the pieces in the toilet, and flushed. Soon awash in guilt, he bestowed more gifts.
One of his favorite domestic games was the treasure hunt—“Treasure Trove,” he called it—in which he would hide valuables around the house or apartment and watch delightedly as Britt searched for them. On one of these hunts, which took place in their suite at the Dorchester, Britt found a scarf, a cigarette lighter and case, perfume, luxury soaps, and another gold watch. Yet they spent less and less time together.
Despite the fact that the Sellerses’ time in England now had to be strictly limited for tax reasons—the jet set was largely a group of celebrity tax refugees—Peter bought another new apartment, a four-bedroom affair on Clarges Street in Mayfair. When the couple was together and not at Brookfield, or Mayfair, or Los Angeles, or sailing in the Mediterranean, they paused at Saint Moritz, where, in April, Britt and Peter threw a birthday party for Michael. Spike Milligan came with his wife and children, and everyone had a great time, except for Peter, who went to bed.
His behavior was finally becoming too much for Britt, so one day she swallowed a fistful of sleeping pills. “It wasn’t a deliberate attempt to commit suicide, but I wanted to find oblivion.”
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As with any big star, there were many blanks for every bullet. One of the projects Peter was involved in that year was The Russian Interpreter, to be directed by Michael Powell. They met at the Dorchester on March 4, 1967, at which time Peter told Powell, the director of such classics