"The cultured cad - that is the lingering image of George Sanders, kept alive by his appearances in dozens of famous films. Despite an impeccable English accent, he was a Russian aristocrat, born in St. Petersburg. His family moved to England in 1917, narrowly escaping the Russian Revolution." "Success in show business came to him without much apparent effort. Noel Coward once said of Sanders, "He has more talents than any of us, but he doesn't use them."".

"Sanders won an Oscar for his performance as the acerbic, haughty drama critic in All About Eve and was a convincing cad in Rebecca and The Moon and Sixpence, but mostly he ambled through films with a strangely appealing insouciance that fascinated even those he worked with. Perhaps it was the way he spoke - like a well-tuned cello voicing aphorisms.".

"His autobiography, The Memoirs of a Professional Cad, first published in 1960, is most probably the wittiest book ever written by an actor. He talks with endearing superficiality about his early life in England and Latin America, his second wife Zsa Zsa Gabor and her hairdryers, the art of being a successful bachelor (complete with butler), romance, sex, women, and his career, which included shooting films with King Vidor, Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, Yul Brynner, Tyrone Power, and many others.".

"Sanders' last years saw a swift decline in his physical and mental health. In 1972, at age 65, he took an overdose of pills, washed down with alcohol. His suicide note said he was bored, almost as much in character as if the scene had been written for a film."--BOOK JACKET.