“WHEN IN ROME YOU MUST REALLY BE DOING WHAT THE ROMANS ARE DOING!”
- A TRIBUTE TO SIR PETER USTINOV

The death in March of Sir Peter Ustinov at the age of 82 elicited from the national press and television some fulsome obituaries but none seemed to quite match the respect and affection that many of us felt and continue to feel for the great man. By way of making up for those deficiencies we at TV Cream have compiled a tribute of our own to one of the most important figures of film, television and of all the arts of the 20th Century.

The word raconteur has been bandied about so often in reference to Ustinov that it seemed to lose some of its meaning, especially since so few examples were given to illustrate Peter’s mastery of the well-turned anecdote. Armed with an unparalleled arsenal of intercontinental anecdotage Pete was a dream guest on any chat show, not from the point of view of the host (because, really, who cares how easy it is for the host?) but from the audience who got to hear his great stories.

Perched comfortably on the Wogan sofa (alongside Spike Milligan on one occasion), in the chair beside David Frost (Peter was the first guest on Frost’s groundbreaking chat show on US television), or at the helm of the brilliant An Audience With Peter Ustinov for Channel 4 (in the exalted company of the likes of Ted Heath), he was able to regale us all with the tales of his army days...

... The officer who would shoot tobacco smoke through the broad gaps between his teeth ... the awful toothless sergeant who would prowl the mail-happy soldiers with the demand, “Any cake?” which he would scoff thanklessly before they all wised up and offered him toffee instead to his disgust ... the officers who viewed him with suspicion because he expressed a preference for tank warfare since he could go into battle sitting down ...

... or the tales of Reagan welcoming Princess David to Camp Diana, of examples of Gielguid’s formidable talent for faux pas saying, in one instance, on US television that he had benefited from the teaching of a man called Claude Raines of whom he knew not what became, although he had heard that, “he had failed and gone to America”; or of his time working with Sir Rich Ralphardson after that other great actor had had a motorcycle crash and lost his dental plate leaving him with a sibilant whistle that had the sound man reaching for his volume control.

The greater part of the top flight of his repertoire is available for all, published unselfishly (others like to keep their battery of stories for themselves and their paying guests) in the slim but worthy volume of his own autobiography Dear Me which was published in 1977. Dear Me is a splendidly entertaining book chronicling not only his career and personal life up to that point but also his eccentric parentage taking in, as has been widely reported, Russia, Italy, France, Germany and Ethiopia. In fact, it’s only drawback is that he never found the time or had the inclination to update his book, since he did so much work and achieved so much more later in life.

Ustinov, as mentioned above, had not one drop of British blood in him but was born here, lived here and worked here for the greater part of his life making him probably the perfect Briton. His nationality did of course lead him to come into the Second World War although only ever as a private since he had been assessed by the brass in such a way that they stressed that he should never be put in charge of others. He did famously spend some of his time working with Carol Reed and David Niven in the Army Kinematographic Service. It has been widely reported that he was Lt Col Niven’s batman and this he indeed was but only as a temporary measure to expedite his working in and around officers, an uncommon situation which otherwise the army couldn’t have handled. During this period Ustinov came first to the medium which concerns us most, which is his great film career.

Films for the army included The New Lot, an induction piece that was apparently still in use up to the early seventies, and the famed ‘Smoke, The Uses Of By Tanks No. 4’. First coming over our horizon though is the likes of the (admittedly pretty second-rate) The Goose Steps Out with Will Hay in which Pete does at least get the set up for the best laugh in the piece as a trainee spy under the tutelage of the undercover Hay. He asks Hay, in best comedy-German accent, “Haff der Britische no form of ceremonial salutation?” which allows Will to perform a certain crowd-pleasing gestural response which we’re sure you can imagine. This was notable for Ustinov as he claimed it was the only role he ever played that required him to be younger than he actually was. Pete’s film career was certainly not as important to him at this point as his excursions into theatreland, the first foray into which was House of Regrets praised to the heights in his tribute by Sir Lord Richard of Attenborough (other plays of note were The Love of Four Colonels, Romanoff and Juliet, which spawned a film of the same name, and The Banbury Nose and there were groundbreaking productions of the operas The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni to come also) but he was immensely proud of a film which even he recognised was well ahead of its time, namely Vice Versa. Starring Roger Livesey (who turns in a great performance) as the man who swaps places with his son Anthony Newley (who doesn’t sing) it is a brilliant, original and funny film so original that it seems implausible that it was made in 1948.

But let’s get on to the films which, if we are honest, interest us most. The most famous of these must surely be Quo Vadis and Spartacus. These two produced their own cache of anecdotes of course, the most famous concerning the former being Peter’s screen test which resulted in not much action on the part of the producers. Eventually he heard word from Mervyn Le Roy of MGM that he seemed a little young to play Nero. Pete pointed out that Nero was thirty-one at the time of his death and, since he was currently though not eternally twenty-eight, if he waited any longer he would be too old. In due course he got the telegram, “Historical research has proved you correct Stop The part is yours.” Of Spartacus Ustinov commented that it took so long to make that his daughter Andrea, who was borne during filming, was able to talk by its completion. When other children asked what her Dad did for a living, she would answer, “Spartacus”. The great story connected to that particular mammoth spectacular refers to an incident that occurred in the course of the production and during the filming of a panoramic battle scene when an intervening plane meant the cast of thousands had to hold their positions until it passed. Cue Ustinov who cried: “Cheese it, fellers! It's the Greeks!” prompting waves of laughter from the entire cast and crew except of course the ever-ready-with-a-smile Kubrick. “Yes, very funny, Peter.” The man was a laugh riot.

An Oscar in hand for Spartacus and with theatre success on his CV Peter was already an international star. There were numerous other films over the years including Viva Max! in which he played a Mexican General who retook the Alamo and which was banned in Mexico (Ustinov often told of the premier of Viva Max! during which he recalled that, “the Governor of Texas made a very moving speech ... welcoming the film. ‘I am in favour of satire,’ he said. ‘There is no more healthy and wholesome thing than the ability to laugh at ourselves while never for a minute forgetting our greatness’); the great The Last Remake of Beau Geste in which he was particularly good more than holding his own against the maniacal brilliance of Marty Feldman; Beau Brummell, which was selected for that year’s Royal Film Performance but which Ustinov felt might not have been suitable since it showed him – as the Prince of Wales – being throttled by Robert Morley; cult favourite Logan’s Run in which, unfortunately and through no fault of his own, he was the worst thing in; also-ran epic The Egyptian with Victor Mature and Michael Wilding and his wig; the short run of weird contemporary updates of classic fables such as Dig That Juliet (or the aforementioned Romanoff and Juliet; Shakespeare set against the Cold War) and Hammersmith is Out (Faust in mental hospital with Burton and Taylor); the other Burton and Taylor outing The Comedians, about which Peter made a retrospective documentary on the making of not titled, sadly, Laugh With The Comedians but ‘The Comedians in Africa’; and especially the creditable Disney efforts Blackbeard’s Ghost and the fondly remembered One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing which were both just great fun.

But our favourite films have yet to be mentioned, namely the triumphant Topkapi and the brilliant Hot Millions. He got an Oscar for Topkapi (in a role first turned down by Peter Sellers), but by way of further and necessary recognition we'd also like to award Pete a Lest We Forget gong for the never-bettered jewel heist scene in Jules Dassin's masterful theft caper – the one where he has to be lowered, inch by inch, into the heavily-alarmed innermost chamber of the museum on a rope. Of course, nowadays everyone associates this with ever-grinning midget Tom Cruise, but that airbrushed wastrel had none of Ustinov's bumbling charm, which also added to the tension, as his character, dropped by happenstance in the middle of a daring heist he's clearly not cut out for, suffers from acute vertigo. The close-ups of his terrified face are a masterclass in visual acting in themselves, something a bit of glycerined fake sweat on a botoxed upper brow can't hope to compete with.

In our opinion though, and for all-round Ustinov genius, it has to be computer fraud comedy Hot Millions. He wrote the screenplay, stars as a Scrubs-educated cockney thief (“’Ere! You watch your tongue! Any idiot can steal.I been em-bezz-lin'!”), and even gets to conduct an orchestra at the end. It's full of great moments – the computer security system at Karl Malden's company (Malden: “As long as that blue light is on, the computer is safe from embezzlers.” Ustinov (making note to self): “Disconnect blue light”), Malden caught by Brazilian customs officer Cesar Romero smuggling a jar of instant coffee into the country, and the unexpected tenderness of the scenes between the lonely Ustinov and the even lonelier secretary, Maggie Smith. Besides these supreme performances, and as an added bonus, simply being in the uncommonly odd Franco-Italo-Irish soaper The Purple Taxi (Charlotte Rampling, Fred Astaire and David 'Robin's Nest' Kelly - together at last!) would be great enough, but, in a film where everyone is hell-bent on out-hamming everyone else, Pete's boisterous part, with dubious relationship with his mute “niece” implied, effortlessly tops the lot, not least in the scene where he desperately and noisily relieves himself out of the door into the rain swept countryside. Rampling: “Incredibly small bladder your friend has, Jerry.”

These may have been Ustinov’s best roles (although he would have wholeheartedly disagreed and insisted that garland belonged to Billy Budd starring himself and Terence Stamp, which only goes to prove that even genius can be wrong) but probably his most famous will remain his seminal performance as Hercule Poirot in the slew of Agatha Christie adaptations he starred in including Bank Holiday cinematic favourites Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun and made-for-TV efforts Murder in Three Acts, Dead Man’s Folly and Thirteen At Dinner. In the latter he starred alongside future Belgian ‘tec David Suchet who in that instance played Inspector Japp (an experience he remembers with a shudder even after all this time). Suchet recalls: “I was a young actor but he often invited me into his trailer for tea. He was immensely kind and considerate.” Years later, after Suchet had assumed the mantle of the man everybody considers as Poirot, he and Ustinov were interviewed on the telly special “The Trouble With Agatha Christie” hosted by Michael Aspel (which also featured Angela Lansbury, although we can’t now for the likes of us recall why – although Ustinov was at one time married to her step-sister, which is a connection probably even too vague for Christie). Suchet recalls that when the two met on that programme for the first time since making Thirteen At Dinner Ustinov greeted him, “Aaah! Monsieur Poirot!” “He was very generous and took my having taken over the role better than many others might have done.” Suchet also believes, “I am much better suited to the role physically than he was but I think it will be the role that he is remembered for more than any other.” And certainly, to the general public, we can agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment.

Besides film of course, Peter Ustinov did a good deal of quality television work, not least of which were his travelogue series such as Planet Ustinov which saw the game septuagenarian experience facets of life on all continents, programmes on Martin Luther and Mark Twain, documentaries on subjects as diverse as the Vatican and the French revolution, appearances in small screen epics such as Around The World In 80 Days and The Old Curiosity Shop, the narration of Clement and La Frenais sitcom Clochmerle and the brilliant provision of his vocal talents for Prince John for the Disney animation Robin Hood. Oh, and Doctor Snuggles. Additionally, many a rainy afternoon off school was enlivened by the Beeb showing a short film made in London Zoo, which consisted of Pete wandering around, looking at the animals and... well, musing about them. “The tiny eye of the mighty elephant has always led me to believe there must be a smaller creature inside them, operating the trunk,” and so forth. It was great, and why there weren't more of these sorts of things we really don't know. There were of course those chat show performances and last but by no means least his never-bettered turn on The Muppet Show. That seminal performance included a great part of his formidable repertoire as he played at the outset an android able to imitate the leaders of any nation, an economics professor from the Bronx telling an unforgivably corny joke lecture with the help of Fozzie (“A Benny shaved, is a Benny earned!”) and as a Teutonic psychiatrist. All of which added up to his being indisputably, in our opinion, the best guest the Muppets ever had. Small beer perhaps when considering the entire canon of Peter Ustinov’s achievements in almost every field of artistic endeavour but testament nevertheless to the belief that Pete was more a man famous for himself than for his career. There really is far too much to chronicle in any tribute, regardless of how fulsome it might be, so the final judgement we leave to David Suchet: “He was undoubtedly one of the great 20th Century men.”

We couldn’t agree more.

SIR PETER USTINOV: 1921 - 2004, RIP