Morre Sir Peter Ustinov

O ator, escritor e diretor, Sir Peter Ustinov, morreu ontem à noite na Suiça aos 82 anos. Veja BBC.

Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said of Sir Peter's Unicef work: "(He was) among the first ambassadors who played a very important role. "When you have the capacity to have an influence on the public, through movies or theatre, it isn't difficult to have the same experience to solve the humanitarian problem."

BBC presenter Michael Parkinson said Sir Peter was in his "top five" interviewees of all time, describing him as a "good writer and actor, a wonderful raconteur and as such, God's gift to the talk show host". In an interview with Reuters last year he said: "I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilised music in the world."

He also said he had decided on the epitaph for his gravestone - "Keep off the grass." Director Michael Winner, who worked with Ustinov on the film Appointment with Death, said: "He was a professional. "He was a very dear friend for over 50 years. He was very caring and gave of himself unsparingly. "He had this great eccentricity, he could say lines that were very tedious, but he could say them with a wit that made them interesting," Mr Winner said.

He added: "A great raconteur of course. He was quite irascible, he was not the cuddly teddy bear he put out.

Uma coisa que a BBCWorld mostrou e eu não sabia: o Ustinov era famoso por ser um excelente raconteur (contador de histórias). O que a vi no obituário televisivo era tão, ou mais engraçado que o Seinfeld... Uma pena descobrir isso só agora. A BBC publicou uma seleção de frases dele como:

# "Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first."

# "Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them."

# "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done."

# "The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come."