Roger Lewis (biographer)

Roger Lewis (born 26 February 1960) is a Welsh academic, biographer and journalist. He is best known for his biographies, ''The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'', and ''Erotic Vagrancy'', about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Biography

Lewis was born in Caerphilly, Glamorgan in 1960. He was raised in Bedwas, Monmouthshire, and educated at Bassaleg School in Newport. He then attended the University of St Andrews, graduating MA, then Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained the MLitt degree, both with first class honours. He became a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, in 1984.Stephen Masty
"Roger Lewis – Modernist, Moralist and Wit"
''The Imaginative Conservative'', 30 May 2012, accessed 28 October 2021

Lewis has contributed literary journalism to the ''Daily Express'', ''Daily Mail'' and ''Daily Telegraph''. He has written biographies of Peter Sellers (1994), 1108 pages. Charles Hawtrey (2001), Anthony Burgess (2003), and Laurence Olivier (2007). His book on Sellers was dramatized by HBO as ''The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'', which won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

In the introduction to his Sellers biography, Lewis admits Norman Wisdom was his first "movie love". Wisdom was displaced in the young Lewis's affections one Saturday afternoon when he chanced upon a Peter Sellers double bill on television. Lewis was full of cold and had been left at home by his parents.

"Wrapped in my mother's Glenurquart tartan travelling rug, eating custard creams and drinking Ribena through a straw, I settled, in a bored sort of way, to watch a double bill on the only channel not killing time with sports commentaries."

The double bill - 'Peter Sellers Holiday Double: Two Way Stretch followed by Wrong Arm of the Law' - was broadcast on BBC2 on Saturday, 26th May 1973. Lewis was aged 13 at the time. Seeing these films sparked a lifelong love of Sellers, in particular his work in The Goons.

''Seasonal Suicide Notes'' (2009) chronicles five years of the author's life.Stephen Moss.
'Roger Lewis: My father died and I thought, I'll try and make that funny
, in ''The Guardian'', 8 December 2009 It was followed up by a second volume of "dyspeptic musings", ''What am I Doing Here? My Years as Me'', in 2012.

''Erotic Vagrancy'', his massive joint biography of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, took him 13 years to complete, and was published to generally positive reviews in October 2023. In a talk to The Oldie Literary Lunch in January 2024, Lewis said he pitched the book to his publisher as "Roland Barthes meets The Wolf Man".

In the book's author details it was revealed ''Erotic Vagrancy'' is being turned into an ITV drama series.

In the endpapers of ''Seasonal Suicide Notes'' (2009) Lewis listed 'forthcoming' books. These include:

* ''The Kill Fees Trilogy'', comprising ''Growing Up With Comedians'' -- on clowns, ''Ratbags and Sleazeballs'' -- on women and men, and ''Get A Life!'' -- on the art and science of biography.
* ''Mister Jesus'' -- a gospel
* ''When I Was Young and Twenty and I Had a Dainty Quim'' -- madrigals.

Of these, only ''Growing Up With Comedians'' has since appeared in print, in 2010.

Reinvention of the biography form

Lewis has claimed that he tries to find a unique structure, voice and tone suited to the subject of each of his biographies. This often results in his adoption of an idiosyncratic biographer's persona, which can sometimes be misunderstood by readers who are looking for a more conventional cradle-to-grave approach. This was most clearly apparent in the reaction to his experimental biography of author Anthony Burgess. Following its publication Blake Morrison declared himself "appalled by Roger Lewis's 20-year quest to destroy Anthony Burgess". In defense, Lewis told Stephen Moss: "What I was trying to do with all my biographies was find a form that would suit the subject matter...Anthony Burgess was a great charlatan, so the book is full of all these mock-scholarly footnotes. I thought I'd pulled it off, and then the reviews came out and they were homicidal".

Journalist Tanya Gold credits Lewis with reinventing the biography as a form and genre, during a discussion about ''Erotic Vagrancy'' at the Jewish Literary Foundation in March 2024.

Other controversies

Writing a book review for the ''Daily Mail'' in August 2011, Lewis expressed a dislike of the Welsh language, calling it an "appalling and moribund monkey language". Plaid Cymru politician Jonathan Edwards reported Lewis's comments to the police and to the Press Complaints Commission.

In 2014 comments about lesbians Lewis made in a ''Spectator'' article led to publishers Biteback Publishing withdrawing an offer of a book deal.

Personal life

Lewis is married – to Anna, an educational psychologist – with three sons, and lives in Hastings, with a holiday apartment in Bad Ischl, Austria. He is a lover of good art and bullfighting. In 2023 he suffered a heart attack in the car park at Morrisons supermarket in Hastings and had to be airlifted to hospital.

Books

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References

External links

www.telegraph.co.uk
(subscription required)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Roger
1960 births
Living people
People from Newport, Wales
People from Caerphilly
People educated at Bassaleg School
Alumni of the University of St Andrews
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford
Welsh scholars and academics
Welsh biographers
Welsh journalists
Daily Mail journalists