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Ed Sikov is a film scholar, author, and
lecturer. Sikov's latest book, Dark Victory, a biography of Bette Davis, will be published by Henry Holt & Co. in 2006. [MORE] |
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Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers Mr. Strangelove is the first American biography of one of the cinema's greatest comedians. It's the story of a screamingly funny, desperately unhappy soul - a man who thought he was empty. Sellers, who could mimic anyone and don any mask at will, was privately convinced that his personality had no core - that there was no personal substance under the put-on characters he so readily and hilariously assumed. The Goon Show made him famous; the Pink Panther films made him rich; Lolita and Dr. Strangelove gave him artistic respectability; I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and What's New, Pussycat? turned him into a 60s flower-power icon that still resonates today. Sellers himself identified most personally with the character he played in Being There -- an utterly empty man on whom others projected what they wanted, or needed, to see. [MORE] |
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On Sunset Boulevard Built on extensive new research and interviews, On Sunset Boulevard combines detailed biography with in-depth criticism of Wilder's work, from his journalism in Vienna and Berlin to his German film scripts and Hollywood feature films.New interviews with people who knew and worked with him (from Susan Sarandon and Joan Fontaine to some unsung people who knew him way back when) round out this picture of one of the American cinema's most blazingly talented, articulate, and quirky filmmakers. [MORE] |
Screwball
out of print
"The definitive study of screwball comedy. Movie by movie, Ed Sikov brings his theories to luminous life." —Andrew Sarris, New York Observer [MORE]
Queer
Representations
paperback
Queer Representations, edited by Martin Duberman, celebrates the eclectic nature of gay and lesbian culture and scholarship. [MORE]
Laughing
Hysterically
paperback
"Rejecting the notion that the 1950s was a bleak, conformist decade in the U.S., this engaging, sophisticated study argues that the era's film comedies reflect the period's underappreciated artistic and social rebelliousness." — Publishers Weekly [MORE]
Boys Like Us
paperback
"Chemistry," Ed Sikov's essay, traces his ridiculously repressed college days at Haverford, his experimentation with mind-altering substances, and his eventual coming out in New York City, thanks to his straight best friend. [MORE]
