Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE FRSA (16 April 1921 – 28 March 2004) was an English actor, writer, and filmmaker. He was the winner of numerous awards during his life, including two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, and BAFTA Awards for acting. He also won a Grammy Award for best recording for children. He served as a private in the British Army during the Second World War, including time spent as batman to David Niven while writing The Way Ahead.
About Peter Ustinov in brief
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE FRSA (16 April 1921 – 28 March 2004) was an English actor, writer, and filmmaker. He was the winner of numerous awards during his life, including two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, and BAFTA Awards for acting. He also won a Grammy Award for best recording for children, as well as the recipient of governmental honours from, amongst others, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. In 2003, Durham University changed the name of its Graduate Society to UStinov College in honour of the significant contributions Ust inov had made as chancellor of the university from 1992 until his death. His father, Jona Freiherr von UstInov, was of Russian, Polish Jewish, German, and Ethiopian descent. His paternal great-great-grandparents were the German painter Eduard Zander and the Ethiopian aristocrat Court-Lady Isette-Werq in Gondar. He served as a private in the British Army during the Second World War, including time spent as batman to David Niven while writing the film The Way Ahead. He died in 2004 at the age of 80, and was buried at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He is survived by his wife, Nadezhda Leontievna Benois, a painter and ballet designer of French, German,. Italian, and Russian descent, and a son, Peter Alexander von Benois.
He had a son with actress Emma Watson, who went on to become one of the most successful actresses of the 20th century. His daughter, Victoria, was married to actor David Walliams, and they had two children, David and Victoria. He wrote a book about his experiences as a soldier and a play about his time as a batman in the Army. He has also written a biography of David Lean, who he called “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. He was awarded the CBE for services to literature and the arts in 2003. He received a knighthood in 2004 for his work on the novel “The Way Ahead” and a CBE in 2006 for his contribution to the field of film and television. His great-grandfather Moritz Hall, a Jewish refugee from Kraków and later a Christian convert and collaborator of Swiss and German missionaries in Ethiopia, married into a German-Ethiopian family. His grandmother was Magdalena Hall, of mixed German- Ethiopian-Jewish origin. In his late teens he trained as an actor at the London Theatre Studio. While there, on 18 July 1938 he made his first appearance on the stage at the Barn Theatre, Shere, Waffles in The Wood Demon, and his London stage début later that year at the Aylesbury Theatre. He later wrote, “I was not irresistibly drawn to the drama. It was an escape from the dismal rat race of school”
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