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One can hardly fail to note that bringing Lionel Meadows home with him was not wholly a Method-acting technique on Peter’s part, since he’d clearly been able to break character whenever he and Carol White were alone together in one of their dressing rooms. According to Guillermin, Peter’s Method didn’t even extend to the set, where it belonged. The director does add, however, that “he was unto himself quite a bit. Peter wasn’t that relaxed, as it were.”

Still, the unparalleled viciousness of his character in Never Let Go gave Peter Sellers an excuse, however unconscious, to vent even more wrath than usual at home with his family. One evening, for example, he came home from the studio, made some phone calls, turned on Anne, screamed “What the bloody hell is the matter with you,” and threw a vase at her, after which he destroyed a bathroom towel bar and some pictures in the dressing room. On another evening he tried to bean her with a bottle of milk. She called David Lodge and begged him to drive over quickly and help calm Peter down. Lodge, a staunch friend to both of them, obliged.

• • •

Peter was big in New York in late April 1960, when he made his second trip across the Atlantic. The Mouse That Roared had just closed after its phenomenal twenty-six-week run at the Guild. (“Wow!” “Smash!” Variety applauded.) The Battle of the Sexes was opening; I’m All Right, Jack took Mouse’s place at the Guild. American newspapers were full of lavish profiles of Peter, not to mention helpful observations about the United Kingdom—clarifications meant to explain quaint customs. For example, in regard to The Battle of the Sexes, the New York Times declared that “the scene has been moved to Scotland because kilts are comical.”

Peter traveled first class on Air France, with dining service courtesy of Maxim’s, and he took along his trustworthy companion Graham Stark. They were greeted at Kennedy Airport (then called Idlewild) by a fleet of Cadillac limousines and whisked to the Hampshire House on Central Park South, where Peter nabbed the penthouse. A bevy of blue-suited film executives occupied the other cars, and when the entourage arrived at the hotel, Peter overheard one of them place a phone call with a one-line message: “The property has arrived.”

Fame could be demeaning. “The property has arrived” was a line he never forgot.

When Peter wasn’t being hustled to and from interviews and parties, the actor Jules Munshin was taking him out on the town. Munshin, who had appeared with Peter in Brouhaha, was blown away when they arrived at Sardi’s and were presented with an A-list table. “Pete, you bastard,” Munshin blurted, “I never got this table before.” Munshin pointed to a man in the outer-Yukon-like back corner. Peter recognized the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz (1939). “Yeah, Ray Bolger,” Munshin said. “He ain’t got what you got. He ain’t got four pictures playin’ on Broadway. Come to think of it, he ain’t got no picture playin’ anywhere.” Peter had bested the Scarecrow. Gossip columnists were swarming around him. Having imitated Americans since childhood, he was now a star among them. The evening was a complete success.

The next morning, one of the many public relations people hovering around Peter shrieked with joy when she picked up one of the New York papers: “Leonard Lyons gave you four inches!”

• • •

Peter’s nightlife was glittering. Peter appeared with Jack Paar on his popular late-night talk show. Kenneth Tynan interviewed him and introduced him to Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who in turn introduced him to Kay Thompson. (Tynan later noted that the meeting between Nichols and Sellers had been more or less a disaster; neither understood the other’s sense of humor.) The film brass introduced him to Walter Reade, the immensely wealthy owner of a film distribution and exhibition company, who hosted Peter and Graham at a drunken bash at his Long Island estate. Peter also met James Thurber at a party thrown in celebration of the New York premiere