Infernal Affair

After the filming of Cleopatra, the notorious flop epic that cemented the union of the actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the Vatican was driven to make a public condemnation of the two, declaring, "You will finish in an erotic vagrancy, without end or without a safe port." Whether or not this clerical opprobrium lost something in translation, it captured something of the enduring appeal of the 20th century's most notorious star-crossed lovers, whose tempestuous marriages—both to each other, and to others—have long since eclipsed their acting careers in the public imagination. Now, Roger Lewis, biographer of Peter Sellers, Laurence Olivier, and Anthony Burgess, has attempted, over the course of this monumental, unique, and exhausting book, to put their strange and ostentatious existence into context.