AutoBiography of Peter Ustinov - "Dear Me" - 1977

This is a Atlantic Monthly Press Book, in great shape with no dustjacket. Exceptionally clean cover, spine and pages, with no shelf wear. Red and black cloth boards and silver imprints on the spine. Inner flyleaf shows previous owner's name as the only marking.

There are 374 pages and a middle photo section of 9 pages. The late actor Peter Ustinov writes his fascinating autobiography -- We see the author as the one child cabaret of vocal mimicry, scattering pedestrians with his sudden, blaring "horns and brakes"...manning the oar for Westminster School, puncturing the hull by accident, and with the rest of the crew, settling gently down into the water Indian file...taking his first steps into acting, where his unimpressed classroom teachers foresee a future limited to Shakespearean clowns...buttonholed by Charles Laughton who, in a fit of generosity, treats him to a repeat performance of a DeMille potboiler (starring Laughton as Nero) that the unfortunate Ustinov has just sat through...as the Blunderkind of the British Army storming Maidstone almost singlehandedly...discovering his voice as a playwright, exhilarated by his first set of fine notices, and embarking full speed ahead on a brilliant international career. Into his many stories about the vicissitudes of writing and producing such hits as "The Love of Four Colonels Romanoff" and "Juliet and Photo Finish" and his experiences on location while shooting Lola Montes, Spartacus, Quo Vadis, Topkapi and Billy Budd, Ustinov weaves his delightful, playfully nuanced appraisals of Laurence Olivier, Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, David Niven, and others. A touching portrait of his mother's troubled marriage, his edgy relationship with his father, his thoughts on the progress of a civilized individual beset by the problems of changing social mores, new generations, and a fractious, rather crazy global community, and his edgy colloquy with a nettling alter ego add depth to this splendidly vivacious memoir!