Peter Ustinov

From Philosopedia

Ustinov, Peter Alexander [Sir] (16 Apr 1921 - 28 March 2004)

Ustinov, a humorist, actor, dramatist, writer, and humanitarian, was born in Swiss Cottage, London. His father, Iona (Jona) Baron von Ustinov, was of Russian and German descent - during World War I, he had served in World War I as a press officer at the German Embassy in London in the 1930s. In 1935 he worked for M15, the British intelligence service, and became a British citizen.

His mother, a painter and ballet designer, was of Russian, French, and Italian ancestry.

Ustinov was educated at Westminister School. A soldier during World War II, he made propaganda films with actors such as David Niven, starting with One of Our Aircraft is Missing. In 1955, he starred in We're No Angels with Humphrey Bogart and Aldo Ray. His roles include having been the Roman emperor Nero in Quo Vadis? (1951), Captain Vere in Billy Budd (1962), and Lentulus Batiatus in Spartacus (1960). He also was in Logan's Run (1976) and Death on the Nile (1978). He won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his roles in Spartacus and Topkapi.

He was in over fifty movies, and in the 1990s he was in the following: The Bachelor (1999); Alice in Wonderland (1999); Stiff Upper Lips (1999); Animal Farm (1999); The Phoenix and the Magic Carpet (1995); An Evening with Sir Peter Ustinov (1995); The Old Curiosity Shop (1994); and Lorenzo’s Oil (1992).

He received Emmy Awards for his performance in Barefoot in Athens and Omnibus, and in 1979 he received the award for Best Actor from the Variety Club of Great Britain.

UNICEF

In the latter part of his life, Ustinov worked on behalf of UNICEF as its Goodwill Ambassador and fundraiser. He considered his ancestral mix - Russian, German, French, and Italian - a source of pride, saying, “I really have automatic loyalty to something like the United Nations. . . .”

Although he achieved international acclaim as an actor, producer, playwright, novelist, and raconteur, his role in the latter part of his life as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador was equally distinguished.

Appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1968, he traveled to China, Russia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Kenya, Egypt, and Thailand, among other countries, and he lobbied governments at the highest levels to recognize the rights of children worldwide.

Several of his missions to visit UNICEF projects, such as his 1986 visit to child health and education projects in China, were filmed for television. A two-week filmed mission to the Russian Federation in 1993 gave him the opportunity to help build awareness of the situation facing children in that country. In schools, hospitals, shelters, and care facilities in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other cities, he met with children who had been abused, children with disabilities, children living on the streets and children whose lives had been blighted by environmental degradation.

Sir Peter represented UNICEF in numerous international television specials over the years and his inimitable style contributed to several award-winning radio and television commercials. Premieres of several of his films have benefited UNICEF National Committees. Throughout his long career as a Goodwill Ambassador, he actively supported National Committees by participating in advocacy and fund-raising events and through media interviews.

A 1995 Interview

In a 1995 interview, Warren Allen Smith wrote the following:

• Upon first meeting Sir Peter Ustinov, the Goodwill Ambassador-at-Large for UNICEF and president of the World Federalist Movement, one hears the voice of Peter and the Wolf. One feels the presence of Beethoven (from his stage performance in Beethoven’s "Tenth"); of Carabosse (from the play, The Love of Four Colonels); of the General (from the film and play, Romanoff and Juliet); and of Nero (from his film role in Quo Vadis).

• Surprisingly, Ustinov, who amusingly responds "Your Excellency" when addressed as "Sir Peter," comes across as friendly, witty, ready to imitate the facial expressions of François Mitterand, eloquent when discussing the world’s children, and sincere when lamenting intolerance, bigotry, flag-waving, self-importance, idleness, and superstition. He is not intimidating, yet this is the man who has worked with Jack Paar, Steve Allen, Pavarotti, Herbert von Karajan, André Kostelanetz, David Niven, Yvonne de Carlo, Maggie Smith, Helen Hayes, Bette Davis, Nick Nolte, and John Gielgud. And the man who, in 1990, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

• Asked if his father, a liberal Lutheran and a journalist, was closer to Greek or Judeo-Christian thinking, Ustinov replied, “Oh, the Greeks! He was absolutely unpracticing in his belief. In point of fact, it was his father who was so religious. His mother, and I remember her vividly because she was half Ethiopian, held religion very close, and for her the Crucifixion happened yesterday. I sat on her knee in my pajamas and had to listen to the history of the Crucifixion as though it had been brought in from Pittsburgh, and she used to cry copiously and my pajama tops were wet from her tears.”

• Smith then asked, “In the 1930s, Humanists were alarmed about the growth in the world’s population. Then there were 2 billion humans. In 1970 there were 3.7 billion. Now there are almost 6 billion. Sir Peter,” and this he demanded with a straight face, “why did you allow this to happen?” Ustinov stammered, humorously, then with theatrical embarrassment responded, “Well, yes, I didn’t take the precautions, I know, I know.”

• He then lambasted the Pope for his stand on population control and the use of condoms but praised the Chinese for their admittedly Draconian methods to limit their births. “I’m depressed that once children are born they’re so often neglected. And what is life then, something that is lived in third gear or only in first gear? Our responsibility should be with children, not merely with embryos.”

Ustinov, who holds that humanists are united by their doubts, has been on the Advisory Panel of the British Humanist Association. In 1993 the Council for Secular Humanism elected him as a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism.

Ustinov’s autobiography is entitled Dear Me (1977). His collection of newspaper articles from The European - which he phoned in from wherever in the world he was, adding that he used a yellow pad to write - is Ustinov Still At Large (1995). In one article, he wrote, “If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.”

{CE; TYD; WAS, Free Inquiry, Summer 1995}