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Peter Ustinov: Worlds
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In 1980, Peter Ustinov settled in Bursins, Switzerland. He meets often with his fellow Englishmen, particularly two of his friends, David Niven and Graham Greene, who are ... living in Switzerland. In 1989, he created the Global Harmony Foundation in Lausanne, a charitable organization working to overcome poverty in the Third World. Ennobled for his work by the Queen of England in 1990, Peter Ustinov remains very active and travels frequently from his home on the shores of Lake Geneva.
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Peter Ustinov was born in London in 1921 - but he was truly a man of the world. As the only son of an artist mother and a father who served as an officer in the Czar's Army - he was "conceived in St. Petersburg, baptized in Stuttgart, Germany, and reared under a succession of Cameroonian, Irish and German nurses. And he himself claimed a mixed ancestry that included Swiss, Ethiopian, Italian and French blood.
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Ustinov was born in Swiss Cottage, London. His father, Iona (Jona) Baron von Ustinov, known to his friends as "Klop" ("blow" in Yiddish, "bedbug" in Russian), was of Russian and German descent, and had served as a Lt. in the German Air Force 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... 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.) Jona von Ustinov also had Ethiopian royal ancestry;[2] Peter's great-grandfather, a Swiss missionary, married Susan Bell in Magdala, whose mother belonged to the Tewodros Dynasty. This means that Ustinov could arguably be considered the first man of known African descent to have won an Academy Award. The distinguished Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda, whose stepfather was another Ustinov, is related to this part of the family.
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Ustinov made his stage debut when he was 17. Two years later, he appeared in his first film. In his early 20s, as a private soldier during World War II, he busied himself preparing for the screenplay of The Way Ahead, with David Niven and Eric Ambler, released in 1944. It was his first major screen credit. After his military service in World War II, he started writing and making films.
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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."
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Appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1968, Sir Peter fulfilled the voluntary position with delight. His travels on behalf of UNICEF took him 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.
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