Talk:Peter Ustinov

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[edit] RIP

MorioriA great character, will be sadly missed. R.I.P. Sir Peter. Iam 00:51, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

I'm a great Ustinov fan but never knew about the Swiss citizenship thing. Did he retain dual British citizenship? If he lost it, did he ever regain it?

Knighted foreigners are not given the 'accolade', the right to call themselves 'Sir' or 'Dame'. That is reserved for British citizens only. Cheers JackofOz 02:33, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

British citizens only? Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and hundreds like her are brits?.. Moriori 02:55, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
Or citizens of nations in the British Commonwealth, yes. Chowbok 18:54, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Non sequitur. The answers to my two questions are NO and NO. The right (for titled people) to call themselves 'Sir' or 'Dame' is not reserved for British citizens only, and hundreds of people like Dame Kiri are not British citizens. Moriori 23:56, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
The original poster is wondering how Ustinov could be called "Sir" if he had Swiss citizenship. Bringing up Dame Kiri is irrelevant because while she's not a British citizen, she is a citizen of a nation in the Commonwealth. So what you're doing is nitpicking because he said "British citizens" when he meant "citizens of the Commonwealth", while ignoring his actual question.Chowbok 15:45, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You think seeking accuracy is nitpicking? Jacko stated inaccurately that "knighted foreigners are not given the 'accolade', the right to call themselves 'Sir' or 'Dame' ". I pointed out that THAT statement is not accurate and gave Dame Kiri Te Kanawa as an example . Totally relevant. Totally accurate. FYI, at Heathrow immigration Dame Kiri has to join the aliens queue, while people from the country which bombed England, (which Dame Kiri's countrymen and women helped the Brits defend), go through the fast lane. She's truly one of Jacko's "knighted foreigners". Chowbok, can you say which particular power lets you know that when Jacko writes something he means something else. Moriori 22:03, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)
You're still out of order. In the context of honours such as

knighthoods, citizens of Commonwealth countries are regarded as British. It is possible for Canadians, Australians, West Indians etc to recieve knighthoods, but it is not possible for a US, German, French etc citizen to do so (other than an honorary one - eg Bob Geldof (Irish Citizen)). The point about passports is a piece of anti-European polemic and not germane to the issue.

Exile 14:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree with you there, Exile. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa etc is entitled to a damehood because she is a citizen of a country that acknowledges the Queen as monarch. The monarch is the "fount of honour" in relation to honours. In some cases (eg. the Royal Victorian Order) she awards them in her personal capacity, without reference to any other authority. In most cases, however, she awards them only on the advice of the relevant government. In the case of Dame Kiri, for example, the Queen awarded the DBE on the advice of the New Zealand government, not the British government. This is because the Queen is Queen of New Zealand. Dame Kiri is not somehow British for the purposes of honours, she is entirely a New Zealander. Same for any other non-British Commonwealth citizens. JackofOz 20:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Back to Square One: Ustinov's Citizenship Revisited

I somehow managed to totally miss the above debate until now. Yes, I was wrong. It is not just "British citizens" who get to be Sir or Dame, it is indeed citizens of all countries that are members of the Commonwealth. Sorry if I was a little non-specific there.

However, this whole debate was tangential to my original question, which so far remains unanswered. When Peter Ustinov acquired Swiss citizenship, did he renounce his British citizenship or did he have dual citizenship? This is very germane to whether or not he may be referred to as "Sir Peter Ustinov" or simply "Mr Peter Ustinov". Does anybody know the answer?? JackofOz 01:46, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There would have been no obligation for him to renounce his British citizenship (and indeed it's quite a hard thing for anyone to lose, you have to go through some hoops). He was referred to as "Sir Peter" until his death. -- Arwel 02:02, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Very enlightening. Cheers JackofOz 22:23, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Taking out Telegraph Article

  • "I Can Only Speak Ill of Sir Peter" (Telegraph article)

I'm taking that one out since its not at all NPOV. If it goes back in, it should be referenced in the article and commented, with a reference to the author of the article. It makes no sense to put references to polemic attacks into an encyclopedia "as is". -- Paniq 16:21, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Now wait a minute. That link to the WFM obit is just as NPOV as the Telegraph article. Why are only negative links removed?
Either the WFM link should be removed as well, or the Telegraph link should be put back in. If there really is a rule against NPOV external links, then half the links in Wikipedia need to be removed... Chowbok 16:08, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I just looked at Wikipedia:NPOV and I don't see anything about that. However, the whole point of the WFM link is to document that Ustinov really was president of WFM, and to establish the years of his presidency, as well as other facts, in case someone questions it later. A POV link is okay, in my opinion, if its purpose is to document a fact in the article, or if it is balanced with a link with an opposite POV - especially if the two are clearly denoted as such. This is doing a service to students and other researchers who may want to find information on both sides of the issue. Rad Racer 16:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the view that the link to the Telegraph article should be deleted. If it were merely documenting Ustinov's views on Tiananmen square, the Iraq war and so on it would be acceptable, but a link to such a vitriolic piece (pretty much par for the course for the Telegraph, I fear) is another matter.Jon Rob 10:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Difficult one. Usually I am strongly in favour of linking to critical articles in order to maintain balance, but since Pollard's piece is such utter crap (as a piece of journalism, regardless of its treatment of Ustinov) I'm not so sure in this case. A compromise might be to link to this and this (the second is essentially a bulletin board and may not be suitable) alongside Pollard's contribution. Badgerpatrol 11:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
What's crap about it? I think it provides an important viewpoint. Again, that WFM article is just as fawning as the Telegraph article is vitriolic. And what's wrong with vitriol anyway? —Chowbok 14:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
It's crap because; a) it utilises hyperbolic, polemic and overly emotive language ('stomach churning' 'his politics were so vile, and his judgment so warped...' ) that are out of place in what seems to aspire to be a proper piece of journalism (even in an opinion piece); b) more significantly, he uses direct quotes from the subject, but then draws from them interpretations that are so semantically divorced as to make them completely irrelevant to Pollard's arguments (quote: Kosovo "was a mistake because it was not done through the UN" essentially becomes 'Ustinov supports ethnic cleansing and tyranny'; "it's very difficult to have the same attitude to human rights..." becomes 'Ustinov supports murder and detention of Chinese dissidents'; 'Stalin had caused "suffering" to "thousands"' becomes 'Ustinov supports Stalin'; 'The formation of the committee for the World Criminal Court is very important because there are corporations more powerful than many governments' becomes 'Businessmen are criminals'). I don't see the relationship between those statements. Deliberately misrepresenting quotes is TERRIBLE practice for a journalist. I think many (myself included) would support the idea that an encyclopaedia should be trusted to only include verifiable and factual material (including links to outside sources, unless accompanied by suitable exposition). 'Vitriol' (here is the first definition I could find as an example) implies a level of attack that goes beyond one's beliefs and includes bitter personal opinion (including by definition skewing of the facts to support said opinion) and ad hominem attacks (as in the Pollard piece). Linking to one-sided pieces outside of wikipedia is in my opinion justified, provided there is balance (ie other accompanying links reflecting the spread and preponderance of opinion). In general however, there is an incumbency upon us to parse out lower quality journalism where appropriate. (Note that I am not suggesting that the Telegraph link should automatically be discarded, although I am leaning that way at the moment.) I am not able to comment on the other article you mention because the link to it appears to be broken. Cheers, Badgerpatrol 15:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with using emotive language in an opinion piece. It's not a straight news article. Also, I think this is largely a British-vs.-American style difference; American opinion columns tend to be much more subdued. I do think Ustinov's flippant remarks about China and Stalin do demonstrate an underlying sympathy, and it's naive to say it doesn't. Nobody's going to come out and say "I support killing and imprisoning political opponents", but it's pretty difficult to mistake your point of view when you repeatedly sympathize with tyrannies and not the victims of tyranny.
Let me set up an analogy from the other side of the political fence. If somebody said "It's true that Hitler caused suffering to thousands", how would you take that? Yes, on the face of it it's an anti-Hitler statement, but I think red flags would be triggered for anyone who thought about it at all. Any reasonable person knows that Hitler did far, far worse than cause "suffering", and did it to millions, not thousands. It would not be at all unreasonable to assume from this statement that the person who said it was at least somewhat sympathetic to Nazis, or a holocaust denier (in fact, it's common for holocaust deniers to concede some mistreatment to Jews, in an attempt to appear more reasonable and moderate).
Also... I say this with a little reluctance, since it's not very nice to attribute motivations to people you've never met; so do forgive me--but I can't help feeling that there's some (very possibly unconscious) bias here. I don't see people arguing that the external links attacking, say, David Horowitz, be taken out. There is some discussion about consolidating redundancy, but nobody's saying "this is just too unfair and mean--it should be removed". Not even the link to a self-identified Communist page calling him a fascist (talk about vitriolic). Or take a look at David Irving, which has links to several articles calling him (accurately) a holocaust denier, which he of course denies. You can go to any number of articles about right-wingers and see plenty of external links to negative articles about them, and they engender no controversy (or should they). But one link to a mainstream article attacking a beloved figure from the right, and I have to fight tooth-and-nail to keep it in.
As I said, I could be totally off-base here. But we all harbor biases, myself included.
That all said, if you can find a mainstream source that makes essentially the same point in a more subdued manner, I would not object to replacing the link with that. But we have to have at least one thing in here that indicates what Ustinov was--a hard-left apologist for murderous governments. I know without even looking that the articles on Ezra Pound and Martin Heidegger have references to their fascist sympathies (as they should); we should do no less for this fellow, no matter how witty and charismatic he was. —Chowbok 18:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
P.S., I've fixed the link to the WFM article. —Chowbok 18:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Everybody has an opinion about almost everything- of course bias, either conscious or unconscious, is an inescapable fact of life. I can however honestly say that I really know very little about Ustinov or his politics; in fact, whilst I was aware that he was associated with UNICEF and so forth, it was a surprise to me that he would harbour opinions that were in any way controversial. I clearly need to read more. It is possible that his opinions on certain issues may strike more of a note of (dis-) cord with a US audience, I can't say. Regardless, I think (with respect) that you don't really see my point. I'm not objecting to a frank and fair assessment of Ustinov's views, although from the small amount of research I have done, it seems to me that calling him 'a hard-left apologist for murderous governments' is a little extreme. What I do have reservations about is including a link to a shoddily constructed piece of journalism. My objections to that are outlined above. I'm not in a position to dispute that Ustinov may or may not have been an apologist for the Chinese or Stalinist regimes (and if his views were widely publicised or affected his career and outlook significantly then they should definitely be mentioned appropriately in the wikiarticle)- but the Pollard article doesn't really support that thesis, to my mind at least (note that I am not saying that said thesis is therefore untrue). It is an obviously biased piece of vitriol, not a fact-based contribution to journalism. It is internally inconsistent (the chosen quotes do not match the stated interpretation) and clearly does not even pay lip-service to any idea of presenting a balanced approach. Opinion and editorial is one thing, but if it doesn't at least attempt to invoke some supporting evidence then it may as well be random words. It simply strikes me as a poorly constructed and spiteful attack. I wholeheartedly agree that if a better piece can be found to make the same point, this whole discussion becomes moot. As for the WFM link- it is slightly fawning, but only in a general sense that is characteristic of (almost) all obituaries, in the UK at least, and I think further afield. It doesn't strike me as unusually rose-tinted, but if you strongly object to it, then I personally have no preference as to discarding it; all that it establishes is that Ustinov was a believer in internationally federated governmental systems, an opinion that can just as easily be mentioned in the text. I'm quite sure that other obits can be found from independent sources not associated with Ustinov, e.g. other newspapers, the BBC, the AP, etc etc. As for the other figures you mentioned (I know virtually nothing re Heidegger, but a little about Pound) I would suggest that the major difference may be that Pound's views significantly influenced his life and work. For my own part, I can only say that Ustinov's general celebrity derives from his acting, humanitarian work, and reputation as a raconteur. The (UK) population at large do not associate him with extremist views of any sort, to the best of my ability to tell. The first two obits I can find (in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper and the centre-right Times) do not portray his views as extremist or otherwise obviously objectionable. By contrast, Pound's reputation as a facist equals or exceeds his fame as a poet. Equally, David Irving is famous primarily because he is a Holocaust denier. I do not think that Ustinov is identified with his political views quite so clearly. Nonetheless, the more verifiable information the article contains regarding Ustinov's life and beliefs the better, this is an encyclopaedia after all. Thanks for your reply (unusually for wiki, it was a thoughtful and reasoned argument!). All the best, Badgerpatrol 01:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
And likewise to you. It's nice to be able to debate on Wikipedia without it getting nasty.
I was not suggesting that the WFM link should be removed by any means--in fact, I would argue against removing it. I just think we need balance.
I think the fact that Ustinov's views weren't widely publicized can be put down to a general idea among many people (including most in the media) that flirtation with Communism and sympathy for left-wing tyrants just isn't as big a deal as flirtation with Fascism and sympathy for right-wing tyrants (I'm equally against both, BTW--Pinochet supporters disgust me as much as Castro supporters). I guarantee you that if Ustinov had a history of saying favorible things about Franco you would have seen it in every obituary (and rightly so). That's why the Pound analogy is important; he's famous because he's a poet, but his reputation as a fascist is alive because everybody agrees that being a fascist is a bad thing. Ustinov not being identified with his political beliefs, to my mind, is an argument for including the link--to provide little-known but important information about him.
I'm getting a little off-topic here, but I also have to quibble about Irving. There are lots of pimply neo-Nazis in Idaho or wherever, but Irving is notable because he really is a legitimate historian and scholar who has published some important work and he has these abhorrent views. —Chowbok 22:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree (for the most part)- it is clear that historical figures who sympathise/d with despotic Communist governments (ie Stalin etc) are not villified in the west to the degree that those who sympathised with fascist governments (ie Hitler, Mussolini) would be/are. This is, I suspect, a simple accident of history- fascist Germany and Italy were once the clear enemy, the Communist USSR and China never have been. (For this reason, I would not necessarily agree that an overt sympathiser with Franco alone would be regarded in the same way as Pound, Joyce, Mitford et al.). I'm not for my part, sure from what I can find on the web, that Ustinov falls into this category. I do genuinely feel that this may be a cultural distinction- I don't think that his views are as derided in the UK (where similar (or even more outspoken) views are quite commonplace) as they may be in the USA (although I am of course not disputing for a minute that the US has (pretty much) a free press where controversial views may be freely aired). There is no doubt however that at least some of Ustinov's viewpoints were unusual and controversial- and well worth mentioning on this page. As for Irving- I feel that he has been almost totally discredited as a historian. Some may maintain that his scholarship is still valid in some areas, but I suspect the preponderance of opinion would hold that his work is so polluted by nonsense and his own POV as to be wholly untrustworthy (a good case in point are his casualty figures for Dresden; once these were accepted and propagated even by serious scholars; I don't think anyone believes them now (and this change of opinion is not just a factor or Irving's subsequent fall from grace with the public at large; rather I think evolving views as to the quality of his scholarship)). Historians trade on a) fair use of the evidence; and b) (by extension of 'a')- trust. Few people (scholars or members of the public) trust Irving to tell the truth now. Returning to the point- an exposition of Ustinov's political views is obviously relevant- but that article is not a good source. If a better constructed one can be found- so much the better. If not, it is still worth preserving, if only to express the point that he was ill-regarded by sections of the press. The level of vitriol shown by the Telegraph is a little out of place relative to other papers; it is possible that there is some agenda there beyond a simple political disagreement. Nonetheless, I don't dispute that it is sensible to maintain the Pollard piece as a placeholder until a better constructed piece can be found to make the same point. It is crap journalism, but (in terms of effect rather than quality), it is seemingly the 'least worst' option. I can't find anything better to make the point, but it is not to my mind an erudite or well-argued journalistic contribution. Frustrating, but can't be helped for now. Cheers, Badgerpatrol 01:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


what a couple of pointless dumb arses :-)

[edit] Russian composers

As I recall, the Russian composer for whom Ustinov was marked down was Rimsky-Korsakov and not Shostakovich. (It's funnier that way, too, dont you think?) I just (re)listened to him telling the anecdote in his "Ein Abend mit Peter Ustinov" to be sure. I googled and couldn't find any reference to his telling it with Shostakovich, but I found several obituaries in which the Rimsky-Korsakov version was mentioned. Accordingly, I made the change.

[edit] In All Directions

"Sadly no recordings survive" probably refers to the television special of 1966, to which the article is then linked, rather than the original radio series. I think the 'spiv' characters referred to turned up in the brace of repeats on Radio 4 in 1985. As it stands this passage is unclear in meaning. This problem also exists in the Peter Jones article. Philip Cross 15:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ustinov's Ethiopian ancestry

"...Ustinov never publicly acknowledged his African ancestry..." - except I seem to recall reading about his Ethiopian ancestry in "Dear Me". I think he was quite proud of being so extensively out-bred. Putting something in your autobiography qualifies as publically acknowledging it, does it not?(SpikeMolec, but not signed at the time, for some reason)

Ustinov was clearly as proud of his Ethiopian ancestors as he was of all the others. In his autobiography "Dear Me", published in 1977, he refers to it repeatedly. In discussing his far-ranging ancestry, he explicitly mentions five of his sixteen great-great-grandfathers, one of whom "survived the endless struggle for power in Addis Ababa." He mentions his grandmother's younger sister, a lady-in-waiting at the court of Haile Selassie. He describes a dinner given for Haile Selassie at his parents' home in London, and a later meeting with Selassie and his grandson, Alexander Desta. He also makes it clear that others knew of his mixed race background, commenting wryly about someone trying to spare him mention of the touch of the tarbrush. It is simply false to say that Ustinov never acknowledged his African ancestry.

I agree, which is why I'm removing the offending statement from the article. JackofOz 08:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Height

IMDB has him at 5'11 1/2" not 5'9" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.96.223 (talk) 20:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)