An intellectual and diplomat, he held various academic posts, and served as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and president of the World Federalist Movement (WFM).

[2] Ustinov's great-grandfather Moritz Hall, a Jewish refugee from Kraków and later a Christian convert and colleague of Swiss and German missionaries in Ethiopia, married into a German-Ethiopian family.

[3] Ustinov's paternal great-great-grandparents (through Magdalena's mother) were the German painter Eduard Zander and the Ethiopian aristocrat Court-Lady Isette-Werq of Gondar.

[4] Ustinov's mother, Nadezhda Leontievna Benois, known as Nadia, was a painter and ballet designer of French, German, Italian, and Russian descent.

[7] He was the controller of Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz, an MI5 spy in the German embassy in London, who furnished information on Hitler's intentions before the Second World War.

[8] (Peter Wright mentions in his book Spycatcher that Jona 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.)

[12] He also appeared in propaganda films, debuting in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), in which he was required to deliver lines in English, Latin and Dutch.

In 1944, under the auspices of Entertainments National Service Association, he presented and performed the role of Sir Anthony Absolute, in Sheridan's The Rivals, with Dame Edith Evans, at the theatre in Larkhill Camp, Wiltshire, England.

Ustinov voiced the anthropomorphic lions Prince John and King Richard in the 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood.

He also worked on several films as writer and occasionally director, including The Way Ahead (1944), School for Secrets (1946), Hot Millions (1968), and Memed, My Hawk (1984).

During the 1960s, with the encouragement of Sir Georg Solti, Ustinov directed several operas, including Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, Ravel's L'heure espagnole, Schoenberg's Erwartung, and Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Further demonstrating his great talent and versatility in the theatre, Ustinov later undertook set and costume design for Don Giovanni.

In 1962 he adapted Louis O. Coxe and Robert H. Chapman's critically successful Broadway play Billy Budd into a film; penning the screenplay, producing, directing, and starring as Captain Vere.

His autobiography, Dear Me (1977), was well received and had him describe his life (ostensibly his childhood) while being interrogated by his own ego, with forays into philosophy, theatre, fame, and self-realisation.

[16] He was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in November 1977 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Pinewood Studios on the set of Death on the Nile.

A car enthusiast since the age of four, he owned a succession of interesting machines ranging from a Fiat Topolino, several Lancias, a Hispano-Suiza, a preselector gearbox Delage, and a special-bodied Jowett Jupiter.

He made records like Phoney Folklore that included the song of the Russian peasant "whose tractor had betrayed him" and his "Grand Prix of Gibraltar" was a vehicle for his creative wit and ability at car-engine sound effects and voices.

[citation needed] He spoke English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Russian fluently, as well as some Turkish and modern Greek.

Ustinov went to Berlin on a UNICEF mission in 2002 to visit the circle of United Buddy Bears that promote a more peaceful world between nations, cultures, and religions for the first time.

His ledger stone bears a cross, despite his self-description as a secular humanist, and the inscription:SIR PETER USTINOV 1921-2004 Writer-Actor-Humanist