Peter Ustinov
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"Ustinov at Large"
(book cover) |
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov,
CBE (
April 16,
1921 â€"
March 28,
2004), born
Peter Alexander von Ustinov, was an
Academy Award-winning
British actor, writer,
dramatist and
raconteur.
Childhood and early life
Ustinov was born in
Swiss Cottage,
London. His father, Iona (Jona) von Ustinov, known to his friends as "Klop" (bedbug), was of
Russian and
German descent, and had served as a German fighter pilot in
World War I, worked as a press officer at the German Embassy in London in the 1930s, and was a reporter for a German news agency. In
1935 he began working for the British intelligence service
MI5 and became a British citizen, thus avoiding internment or deportation during the war. (
Peter Wright mentions in his book
Spycatcher that Klop was possibly the spy known as U35; Ustinov says in his autobiography that his father hosted secret meetings of senior British and German officials at their London home.) The distinguished Swedish tenor
Nicolai Gedda, whose father was another Ustinov, is related to this part of the family.
Peter Ustinov's mother, Nadia (Nadezhda) Leontievna Benois, was a painter and ballet designer of
Russian,
French and
Italian ancestry. She also had
Ethiopian royal ancestry.[
1] Her father
Leon Benois was an imperial Russian architect and owner of
Leonardo's painting
Madonna Benois. His more famous brother
Alexandre Benois was an outstanding stage designer who worked with
Stravinsky and
Diaghilev. Their paternal ancestor
Jules-CĂ©sar Benois was a chef who had left France for
St Petersburg during the
French Revolution and became a chef to
Tsar Paul.
Ustinov was educated at
Westminster School and had a difficult and uncertain childhood because of his parents' constant bickering and personality clashes. After training as an actor in his late teens, he made his stage début in 1938 at the
Players' Theatre, becoming quickly established.
A car enthusiast since the age of four, he owned a succession of interesting machines ranging from a Fiat Topolino, several Lancias, a Hispano-Suiza, a pre-selector Delage and a special-bodied Jowett Jupiter. He made records like Phoney Folklore which included the song of the Russian peasant "whose tractor had betrayed him" and his Grand Prix of Gibraltar was a vehicle for his creative wit and ability at car engine sound-effects and voices.
Career highlights
Following military service as a private soldier during
World War II, during which he had made propaganda films with actors such as
David Niven, he began to branch out into writing. His first major success was with
The Love of Four Colonels in 1951. His career as a dramatist continued alongside his acting career, his best-known play being
Romanoff and Juliet (1956). His film roles include Roman emperor
Nero in
Quo Vadis? (1951), Captain Vere in
Billy Budd (
1962),
Lentulus Batiatus in
Spartacus (1960), an old man surviving a totalitarian future in
Logan's Run (1976), and in several films as
Hercule Poirot, a part he first played in
Death on the Nile (1978). He also worked on several films as writer and occasionally director, including
The Way Ahead (1944),
School for Secrets (1946),
Hot Millions (1968) and
Memed My Hawk (1984).
He won
Oscars for Best Supporting Actor for his roles in
Spartacus (1960) and
Topkapi (1964). He also won two
Golden Globe awards (he famously set the Oscar and Globe statues up on his desk as if playing doubles tennis; the game was also a love of his life, as was ocean yachting).
Between 1952 and 1955 Ustinov starred alongside
Peter Jones in the much-loved
BBC radio comedy
In All Directions. The show featured Ustinov and Jones as themselves in a car in
London perpetually searching for Copthorne Avenue. The comedy derived from the characters they met along the way, often also played by themselves. The show was unusual for the time as it was largely improvised rather than scripted. Ustinov and Jones improvised on to a tape which was then edited for broadcast by
Frank Muir and
Denis Norden who also sometimes took part. Possibly the favourite characters were Morris and Dudley Grosvenor, two rather stupid
East End spivs who's sketches always ended with the phrase "Run for it Morry" (or Dudley as appropriate.) Sadly no recording is known to survive.[
2]
His autobiography,
Dear Me (1977), was well received and saw him describe his life (ostensibly his childhood) whilst being interrogated by his own ego.
In the later part of his life (from 1969 until his death), his acting and writing tasks took second place to his work on behalf of UNICEF - the United Nations Children's Fund, for which he was a Goodwill Ambassador and fundraiser. In this role he visited some of the neediest children and made use of his ability to make just about anybody laugh, including many of the world's most disadvantaged children. "Sir Peter could make anyone laugh," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy is quoted as saying. "His one-man show in German was the funniest performance I have ever seen – and I don't speak a word of German."
Ustinov also served as President of the
World Federalist Movement from
1991 until his death. He once said, "World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest, in its only sense, the patriotism of men who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good" (see [
3]).
He is most well-known to many British people as a chat-show guest, a role to which he was ideally suited - his multicultural background made it possible for him to criticise the British character with good humour. Towards the end of his life he undertook some one-man stage shows in which he let loose his raconteur streak - he told the story of his life and of his frequent alienation in British society (as just one example, he took a test as a child which asked him to name a Russian composer; he wrote
Rimsky-Korsakov but was marked down, told the correct answer was
Tchaikovsky since they had been studying him in class, and told to stop showing off).
He spoke
English,
French,
German,
Italian,
Russian,
Spanish fluently, as well as some
Turkish and
modern Greek.
In the late 1960s, he became a
Swiss citizen to avoid the
British tax system of the time which taxed the earnings of the wealthy at up to 90 per cent. However, he was
knighted in 1990, and was appointed
Chancellor of the
University of Durham in 1992, having previously served as
Rector of the
University of Dundee in the late 1970s (a role in which he moved from being merely a figure-head to taking on a political role, negotiating with militant students).
He received an honorary doctorate from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium).
Ustinov was a frequent defender of the
Chinese government, stating in an address to the University of Durham in 2000, "People are annoyed with the Chinese for not respecting more human rights. But with a population that size it's very difficult to have the same attitude to human rights."
In 2003,
Durham's
postgraduate college (previously known as the Graduate Society) was renamed
Ustinov College when it moved to a new site.
He died on
March 28,
2004, due to
heart failure in a clinic in
Genolier, near his home in
Bursins,
Vaud,
Switzerland. He was so well regarded as a goodwill ambassador that
UNICEF Executive Director
Carol Bellamy spoke at his funeral and represented
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
When, in an interview, he was once asked what he would like it to read on his
tombstone, Ustinov replied "Please keep off the grass".
Amongst his lesser known works, Ustinov presented and narrated the official video review of the 1987 F1 season. His commentary proved highly entertaining.
*
Angela Lansbury is the younger half-sister of Ustinov's widow, Isolde.
* Ustinov was 5'9".
* On
October 31,
1984, the then Prime Minister of
India, Mrs.
Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in the garden of her home in Delhi, as she was walking to be interviewed by Peter Ustinov. Bizarrely, at the time of the assasination Ustinov was on an overseas phone call with his theatrical producer (and later manager)
Douglas Urbanski, who heard all of the commotion in the background.
* Ustinov is referenced in the
Sheryl Crow song "
There Goes the Neighborhood" along with Sunshine Sally (Sally Strouth), a children's show host in west
Texas during the 1970's.
*
Sir Peter Ustinov, President of the World Federalist Movement from 1991-2004, Dies at Age 82, World Federalist Movement, Mar. 29, 2004.
*
Obituary (UNICEF)*
The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families*
An address by Ustinov to the Durham History Society 2000 conference on The United Nations: Past, Present and Future.*
"In All Directions"Critical viewpoints
*
"I Can Only Speak Ill of Sir Peter" (Telegraph article)
