[gcruse]

It was a Hollywood conceit that "Being There," the Peter Sellers
film about a retarded recluse who is taken for a mystical
genius and becomes president, was a metaphor for Reagan.

Nit-pick of the day: Sellers' Chauncy Gardener became the advisor to the president, not the president.

Also, the movie was based on a 1971 Kosinski book.  So any metaphor
for Reagan was not only a Hollywood conceit, but to the extent it
existed at all, their own creation.

[Nogbad]

Also, the movie was based on a 1971 Kosinski book.

And the theme of Kosinski book was lifted from a famous earlier Polish novel.

By the way, I believe that Peter Sellers, himself, was rather conservative politically.
Does anyone have any information on this?