A Tale of Two Peters: How Narcissistic Abuse Lasts Long After the Director Yells “Cut!”

The search results tell the story:

“The genius of Peter Sellers”

“The Comic Genius of Peter Sellers”

“Peter Sellers: A Genius Haunted by Demons”

“The World and Genius of Peter Sellers”

“‘A Genius but Very Difficult’: the strange legacy of Peter Sellers”

“The Godlike Genius of Peter Sellers”

“The Tragic Genius of Peter Sellers”

Okay, that’s probably sufficient to make my point. From the 1950’s, alongside fellow “Goons” Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan, and Michael Bentine through the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, in a wheelchair with an out-of-control Heil Hitler arm in black and white to bumbling his way through crimes-of-the-century in full color and with a ridiculous French accent, to perhaps his quietest, crowning achievement, a probably autistic gardener in Hal Ashby’s “Being There”, Peter Sellers seemed to somehow magically own the moniker, “genius”, probably unlike any English comic actor since Charlie Chaplin.

Why? I’m not exactly sure. I don’t know who bears the authority to dub someone a genius, like bestowing a knighthood (he was never honored in this way, though he wanted it and had no problem openly expressing that desire. He did get the ol’ CBE in 1966). I suppose it’s rather like the oft repeated Joseph Goebbels quote, “Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the…