George Sanders

Sanders (1906-1972) is best remembered as one of the silver screen's consummate cads (his portrayal of cynical theater critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve won him an Oscar in 1951) and for his suicide note: ``I am leaving because I am bored.'' In this biography authorized by Sanders's sister and including previously unpublished material from family letters and journals, VanDerBeets, who teaches English at San Jose State University in California, covers Sanders's privileged early childhood in czarist Russia, his upbringing in England after the Bolshevik Revolution, his movie career--which declined as he tired of the profession--his four marriages (including an entertainingly tempestuous one to Zsa Zsa Gabor), his financial debacles and his final decline in the late '60s. The author offers few startling insights but does show, in Sanders's own words, how his family's sudden loss of wealth after fleeing Russia led the actor to mask his resulting insecurity and unhappiness with a public facade of misanthropy. Photos. (Oct.)