Sir Peter Ustinov: 1921-2004
by Luciano D'Orazio

If there's any doubt as to my affection for Sir Peter Ustinov, take another look at my staff photo.

No, I am not dressed as Dom DeLouise in History of the World, Part One. The inspiration for that little number was Ustinov's breakthrough film role, as the Roman emperor Nero in the 1951 sword-and-sandal epic Quo Vadis?

What made Ustinov's Nero stand out was not so much a great dramatic performance, or even a convincing historical rendition of a Roman emperor. Rather, it was that Ustinov was having a ball doing it. While the rest of the cast appeared as dour and serious as a Passion play, Ustinov channeled a Warner Bros. cartoon, giving a fun, campy, over-the-top performance that audiences loved.

Such performances as Nero — or Lentulus Batiatus in Spartacus or even his turns as Hercule Poirot — certainly prove Ustinov a great actor. But more importantly, they reveal a man who rightly considered himself much more than a performer. Ustinov represented a rare breed: A man who thirsted for varied experiences and knowledge his entire life and enjoyed almost every minute of it. Society forces individuals into narrow roles, but Ustinov gladly accepted none of it, becoming what can be considered one of the last true renaissance men.

Ustinov's interests were so wide-ranging that even listing his achievements would be an exercise in pigeonholing. Though known as an actor, Ustinov considered his exploits on stage and in front of the camera "intrinsically easy." That isn't to say he didn't excel — two Oscars (for Spartacus in 1960 and for Topkapi in 1964), three Emmys and countless film credits both in his native Britain and abroad attest to that. But Ustinov viewed acting as largely a rote exercise; the process or method merely boiled down to the channeling of a writer's thoughts into another vessel, like a puppet.

One particular scene bears this point out. The Criterion Collection's edition of Spartacus on DVD has some great extra material, including a silent promotional reel that features Kirk Douglas and his gladiator extras (all of whom are wearing collegiate sweaters that say "SPARTACUS" across the front) working out with wooden swords, practicing their moves for the shoot. Enter Ustinov, Douglas' co-star. No need for him to work out. No need for him to really be there. But he shows up, with a cigarette in one hand and a jelly doughnut in the other, watching bemusedly as the extras diligently work through every choreographed move. The life of a puppet, it appears, was not really his cup of tea.

The creative process undoubtedly excited him more, but even here we have a less than complete definition. In a lifetime of achievements as a director and producer, his greatest work was his masterpiece, the 1962 Billy Budd, which Ustinov directed, produced, adapted from the Herman Melville novel, and co-starred in as Captain Vere. But even in this capacity the great man still feels somewhat empty, as if his creative juices require yet another outlet. The actor's script and the director's chair could not contain him.

Perhaps his true essence lay in writing. Ustinov considered himself above all a writer, and his body of work certainly backs his claim. He wrote more than two dozen plays, many screenplays and a sea of short stories, novels, memoirs, poems — the list goes on and on. His work was praised for sharp wit and incisive prose, though critics viewed much of it as self-indulgent. Nevertheless, his 1953 play The Love of Four Colonels won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

Then comes his career as a raconteur, a post largely forgotten today. Oral narrative, the art of storytelling, largely has been lost on generations conditioned to receive information in five- to seven-minute increments between commercials. But Ustinov, in live appearances worldwide and on TV, never ceased to captivate an audience with tales of an 82-year life covering vast intellectual territory. Not simply retelling tales of Hollywood backlot gossip, but recounting a ribald roller-coaster of artists, poets, directors, writers, actors, actresses, theater owners, old army officers — Ustinov used his dizzying intellect to describe to audiences a life lived to the fullest.

So he's a writer, actor, producer, director, storyteller ... but what about his numerous trips to Russia? What about his documentaries? What about his academic career, as rector of the University of Dundee and chancellor of the University of Durham? What of his 30-year career as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF? What of his work in linguistics, with eight languages under his belt? And so on, and so on.

It is said that a jack of all trades is a master of none, and Ustinov's critics leveled this charge at him over and over. Yes, he could have learned Stanislavski and become a great dramatic actor. A sit-down with John Osborne and Samuel Beckett could have created a playwright rightly considered their peer. Editors and publishers could have reined in Ustinov's more verbose tendencies to help him mature into a disciplined, modern writer.

But for Ustinov, being a master of one was absolutely no fun.