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| Peter Ustinov. Photo courtesy Britannica |
Peter Ustinov, the Oscar-winning film actor, writer, humorist and self-described "citizen of the world", has died near his Swiss home at the age of 82, friends said today.
Ustinov died late on Sunday at a clinic close to the western Swiss village of Bursins where he had lived in recent decades, they said.
The British-born actor had lived in Switzerland since 1957, and had been a goodwill ambassador for the UN Children's Fund UNICEF for almost 40 years.
Ustinov, a diabetic, fell ill on returning from a New Years holiday in Thailand, according to friends.
"I had seen him several times this past week and I saw the end was approaching. His heart gave way," said friend Leon Davico.
The actor, who won two Oscars, had been too ill to attend a prize-giving ceremony at the Bavarian film awards in Germany in January, where he had been awarded a prize.
His latest film was Luther, a US film that came out in 2003 about the 16th century German reformer.
In a transatlantic career spanning 60 years, Ustinov played in more than 70 films and was first nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of the Roman emperor Nero in Quo Vadis in 1951.
He twice won the Academy Award for best supporting actor -- in Spartacus (1960) and Topkapi (1964), while during the 1970s and 1980s he was well known for his role as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot in films such as Death on the Nile.
Ustinov, born in London of a journalist father of Russian descent and a painter mother of French descent, never forgot his multicultural roots, and was acclaimed for his humorous lectures and TV talk show appearances in many countries.
"He was an adorable man," Davico commented.
Ustinov's London agent Steve Kenis said: "He had a breadth of vision of himself and of the world that few people have. Above all he was a great humanitarian. He was a UNICEF ambassador and he valued that very highly."
Kenis told Sky News: "He was a giver throughout everything, a wonderful warm human being at all times.
"He would always see the bright side of something - even something that would be very annoying to him or to all of us around him.
"He'd get over it and always find there was something positive to be gained from it."
Former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros Ghali, said: "He was among the first ambassadors who played a very important role."
In an interview with the Reuters news agency last year, Ustinov said: "I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilised music in the world."
He also said his epitaph should read: "Keep off the grass."
Actress Jenny Agutter worked with Sir Peter on her first film, Logan's Run, in 1976.
She said: "He was an extraordinarily wonderful person to work with.
"Logan's Run was my initiation into Hollywood and he was just gloriously fun and brilliant and witty.
"What I remember most about him was his generosity of spirit. He had a great sense of the good in people. He enjoyed the peculiarities that were part of humanity.
"Filming can be desperately boring and he was always telling fantastic stories and being tremendously entertaining.
"He never took himself very seriously and he always had the best possible view of everyone.
"He was always the entertainer. His passion for was for people, which is rare.
Sir Peter had been Chancellor of Durham University since 1992.
The University's Vice-Chancellor Sir Kenneth Calman said: "The University has lost an outstanding friend and ambassador.
"He will be remembered with great affection and appreciation for the wisdom and humour and the generosity of spirit that he gave to the university.
A university spokesman said Sir Peter was chosen as Chancellor "because of his extraordinary qualities and achievements" and he "mixed equally with statesmen and refugees, with academics and artists, and with children of all continents".
Sir Peter's biographer John Miller told Sky News the actor had been a fantastic director.
Miller said: "One of the huge ironies was that when he was in the Army during the war as a private, and he went in front of the officers' selection board, he was turned down and they wrote on his file 'this man should never be put in charge of other men'.
"Well how wrong can you be? Wherever he was, he was absolutely brilliant at getting the best performance out of actors and crew men and everybody he worked with."
Miller added: "He had an extraordinarily varied career.
"He had enough careers for about six other men. He was an actor, director, writer, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, did all that work for the United Nations as well.
"He always said that he acted for a living and wrote because he must, but I am convinced that he also performed because he must.
"Give him more than the one or two people in the audience and he put on a performance. He told the most wonderfully funny stories and was an incredible mimic."
He added: "He used to do imitations of motorcars at the age of four so accurately that people leapt out of way on the pavement thinking it was coming down towards him."
British actress Jean Simmons starred with Sir Peter in the 1960 film Spartacus and the pair remained close friends.
She said: "I am absolutely devastated to hear of the death of one of our finest actors, and a very close personal friend.
"I first had the honour of working with Sir Peter in Spartacus in 1960 when we became great friends.
"Peter was the only person for whom I would agree to be a guest on This Is Your Life, and it was a joy to be a part of that programme. I will miss his humour and friendship greatly."
Simmons, 75, who now lives in the US, worked with Sir Peter again last year on his final acting project, the TV movie Winter Solstice.
- Agencies
First published at The Age, March 30, 2004
