What happened to Peter Sellers’ missing fourth character in ‘Dr Strangelove’?
It takes a lot to master the art of the dual performance. Playing two (or more) different characters in the same movie isn’t as easy as it sounds, but there have been a few great examples of the trick working. Nicholas Cage’s portrayal of both Kaufman brothers in Adaptation comes to mind, as does Lupita Nyong’o’s bone-chilling turns in Jordan Peele’s Us. For the comedy fans out there, does it get much better than Mike Myers as both Austin Powers and Dr Evil? However, when it comes to mastering multiple personalities in the same project, the undisputed king has to be Peter Sellers, specifically in Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
In Stanley Kubrick’s insane, accidental Cold War dark comedy, the British comedian takes on not two, but three different roles. In his native accent, he portrays RAF officer Lionel Mandrake, who gets unexpectedly caught up in Ripper’s plan to bomb the Soviets. As an American, he brings to life meek US President Merkin Muffley, who struggles to bring control to his war room. Finally, with one of the greatest German accents in cinematic history, he plays the titular Dr Strangelover, the maddest of mad scientists who slowly loses his ability not to break out into a Nazi salute as the movie runs on.
Taking on three different characters is not an easy feat, and the fact that Sellers not only did it but also turned in some of the best performances of his life in the process is testament to his ability as a performer and his determination as a human being. As it turns out, though, his workload was almost even higher.
Columbia Pictures, the studio that financed Dr Strangelove, looked at Kubrick’s most recent picture when deciding whether or not to hand over the cash, which was Lolita, also starring Sellers, this time in a single role but, crucially, with multiple personalities. Based on this, and his appearance in The Mouse That Roared, which also tripled him up, Columbia only agreed to back the director if Sellers played four different characters in his new film.
In addition to the three parts he ended up taking, the funnyman was also due to play T J ‘King’ Kong, the Major in charge of the B-52 bomber at the centre of the plot. This worried Sellers. Not only would this mean more lines to learn, but he feared that he would be unable to pull off a convincing Texan accent. In the end, however, fate intervened.
While shooting scenes as Kong, Sellers fell on set and injured his ankle. This was the final straw. It was decided that he could no longer continue as the Major, so a new face was needed to fill the void. They settled on veteran cowboy actor Louis Lindley Jr, better known by his stage name, ‘Slim Pickens’. According to Terry Southern, one of the co-writers of the screenplay, “Kubrick’s response was an extraordinary tribute to Sellers as an actor: ‘We can’t replace him with another actor, we’ve got to get an authentic character from life, someone whose acting career is secondary—a real-life cowboy’.”
Pickens’ performance as Kong is so good that it’s hard to imagine anyone else riding that bomb. It’s possible that a fourth role would have detracted from Sellers’ other outstanding performances, so it’s for the best that he didn’t over-extend himself, or he probably would have snapped more than his ankle.
