Played by Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
“Strangelove, what kind of name is that? That ain’t no kraut name, is it?”
“He changed it from Merkwurdichliebe when he became a citizen.”
As the world stands at the brink of nuclear annihilation, a couple of War Room attendants speculate about the most bizarre “expert” in the joint—the wheelchair-bound, chain-smoking German with the dark glasses and one black-gloved hand whose theories on apocalyptic gamesmanship represent the point where realpolitik gets real, real gone. His creators were inspired by Wernher Von Braun. But he is ultimately sui generis, one of the greatest comic mutations Kubrick and Sellers—or anybody else, for that matter—ever conceived.
Defining Moment: His final proposal in the War Room, delivered as he’s trying to prevent his gloved hand from strangling him.
