Symphony no. 10 (beethoven/cooper)
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Peter Ustinov
British actor, director and writer (1921–2004)
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov ((Y)OO-stin-off; born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov; 16 April 1921 – 28 March 2004) was a British actor, director and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. Ustinov received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award.
Ustinov received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his roles in Spartacus (1960), and Topkapi (1964). He also starred in notable films such as Quo Vadis (1951), The Sundowners (1960), Billy Budd (1962), and Hot Millions (1968). He voiced Prince John and King Richard in the Walt Disney Animated film Robin Hood (1973), and portrayed Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot six times for both film and television.
He also displayed a unique cultural versatility which frequently earned him the accolade of a Renaissance man. Miklós Rózsa, composer of the music f
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Dear Me
This expertise in dialectic and physical comedy made him a regular guest of talk show hosts and late-night comedians. His witty and multidimensional humour was legendary, and he later published a collection of his jokes and quotations summarizing his wide popularity as a raconteur, this shows through so much in his audible autobiography "Dear Me"
He was also an internationally acclaimed TV journalist. Ustinov covered over 100,000 miles and visited more than 30 Russian cities during the making of his well-received BBC television series Russia (1986).
In his autobiographies, "Dear Me" (1977) and "My Russia" (1996), Ustinov revealed his observations on his life, career, and his multicultural and multi-ethnic background. He wrote and directed numerous stage plays, successfully presenting them in several
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Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, London, the son of Nadezhda Leontievna (née Benois) and Jona Freiherr von Ustinow. His father was of one-quarter Polish Jewish, one-half Russian, one-eighth Ethiopian, and one-eighth German descent, while his mother was of one-half Russian, one-quarter Italian, one-eighth French, and one-eighth German ancestry. Ustinov had ancestral connections to Russian nobility as well as to the Ethiopian Royal Family. His father, also known as "Klop Ustinov", was a pilot in the German Air Force during World War I. In 1919, Jona Freiherr von Ustinow joined his own mother and sister in St Petersburg, Russia, where he met his future wife, artist Nadia Benois, who worked for the Imperial Mariinsky Ballet and Opera House in St Petersburg.
In 1920, in a modest and discreet ceremony at a Russian-
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