"I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world."
"Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first."
Raconteur, wit, author, playwright, actor, director, multi-linguist, musician and former military batman to David Niven, the wonderful Sir Peter Ustinov died five years ago today...
Born into a bizarre background - his father was the WW2 MI5 agent Baron von Ustinov, his mother a painter and ballet designer, and he could trace his heritage to Russian, French, Italian, German and even Ethiopian nobility - the young Ustinov was destined to become a theatrical individual.
And indeed his tutelage in drama led him to appear in a multitude of major films alongside such top actors as Humphrey Bogart, Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Terence Stamp, Kirk Douglas (in Spartacus) and of course the cavalcade of stars who made up the cast of his blockbuster Agatha Christie movies.
Although he won Best Supporting Actor Oscars for both Spartacus and Topkapi, it is of course for his wily portrayal of Hercule Poirot in the magnificent Death On The Nile and Evil Under The Sun (and in four lesser-known follow-up Christie films) that he became most famous across the globe.
Despite his international renown as goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, Peter Ustinov was adopted by the British public as "a national treasure" largely as a result of his many fascinating and entertaining appearances as a guest on chat shows such as Parkinson, and Parky himself rated him as one of his top five guests - "God's gift to the chat show host".
In an interview, he was once asked what he would like it to say on his tombstone, Ustinov replied "Please keep off the grass".
RIP - a great man.
Peter Ustinov on IMDB
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