‘Dear Me’, Peter Ustinov

With an autobiography, that is to say a decent one, you shouldn’t feel you’re reading a curated checking-off of events or highlights from some list.

You should feel like you’re alone with the author somewhere quiet, glass in hand, settling in for the sort of conversation where there’s no ego and the only performance is that of a friend warmly relating an anecdote or two. It should feel light and undramatic, yet real and rich.

The best memoirs spend time meandering and musing through whatever the author deems important, generally with some expression of amusement and bafflement at the twists and turns of life and the ghosts of loved ones and the characters we encounter along the way.

Peter Ustinov’s 1976 endeavour, ‘Dear Me’ does this expertly. It’s the sort of memoir that ushers us into the room, opens the drinks cabinet, and invites us to get comfortable. We’ll be staying late.

Written when Ustinov was in his mid-fifties, the book is not set out as a final reckoning. As the author admits early in the book, he was keen to write it “before I remember it all”. Essentially, before old age and the nostalgia of the terminally retired stole the perspective and detachment of someone still in the thick of it all.

This is a typically insightful point from ‘Oosty’ (as his schoolpals and teachers called him); that a life story should be related while there’s still breath in the moment and the writer still has skin in the game.

The title carries a double meaning. ‘Dear Me’ is usually an exclamation but in this case it’s a greeting, the beginning of a letter. The book throughout is framed as a conversation the author has with himself, complete with self-questioning asides, rebukes, and interior debates. The conceit and manner in which this approach is taken, serves both the book and the voice of it’s subject well.

Ustinov holds a long conversation with himself, making space for contradictions and dodging the egotism that’ goes with the territory in memoirs of the highly-educated.

At points, he breaks in, interrupting to challenge his own account, both checking and defending, and in the process highlights and deflates any pomposity. Whether you would call this remarkable person ‘down to earth’ is debatable, however he is never less than relatable, wry, and honest.

It’s not only Ustinov on Ustinov. We’re presented with a rich historical portrait of inheritance, displacement, and familial eccentricity. His Russian father and artistic mother linger all the way through like secondary characters in a Chekhov play. Neither eulogised or oversold, they simply linger, as families do, influencing and providing a context for the life of the protagonist.

In terms of the story told the emphasis on Ustinov as playwright, rather than actor or raconteur is an interesting choice. There are fewer Hollywood stories than I expected (most films are dismissed in a sentence or two quoting the title), but the ones that do appear are richly funny (the tale of the director of Quo Vadis on Nero had me laughing out loud).

Strangely, given how driven he clearly was, Ustinov, in the telling of his story, comes across as more a watcher of and reactor to others, than a protagonist or catalyst. This leaves the reader with a sense at times that he’s holding back on us, his motivations and drivers left off the table.

He frames himself as someone things happen to rather than someone who makes things happen, which he undoubtedly was. This detachment is surely some kind of defence mechanism but the spell he weaves in the book is so dazzling, you’d really have to stare hard to spot the hidden strings and seams.

It’s a balance of grandiosity and self-deprecation, charming in it’s humility. Our hero speaks of making mistakes in his life but treats himself kindly. Even errors in his approach to marriage and fatherhood, that must have impacted terribly on his children, are framed as the results of trying to be a diligent and to do the best thing by everyone. It doesn’t seem dishonest.

Peter Ustinov certainly had a full life. He was well-educated, made a fascinating career as a writer and actor in the golden age of Hollywood. He was (mostly) wealthy and was lauded worldwide for his intelligence and wit.

What comes over the most is that he clearly had a quiet and unshakeable belief in himself that carried him through what even though they are played down, must have been difficult periods.

The descriptions of his childhood and his mother and father are particularly vivid. His father ‘Klop’, a 5 ft 3inch would-be womaniser, is a childish and ridiculous fellow and the young Ustinov becomes aware of it early in life, whereas his mother cuts a stoic, mature presence, artistic and pragmatic in a way that makes her a mentor to many, including some younger women swept up into affairs with the preening Klop.

To his son, Klop is a hectoring bully and a hypocrite, insufferably jealous and impatience. His mother however is quietly accepting of herself and her son.

His mother’s self-belief as an artist contrasts with his father’s deluded grandiose self-regard and seem to provide dual signposts for what Ustinov becomes, an artist in his own right with a flair for the theatrical, a keen observing eye, and a poise he carries through a fascinating life.

Klop’s inability to see himself through the eyes of others presents as a warning and you get the sense that played a role in Peter Ustinov becoming the archetypal self-examiner, constantly testing and questioning himself.

Enjoyable though the book is, eventually there’s a growing sense Ustinov himself is growing impatient with the process. Later chapters veer into indulgence, as he lists the names of admired public figures and provides thoughts on international diplomacy, which are interesting enough but not really what we’re here for. 

Towards the end one gets the sense, Oosty was glancing at the page count, hoping the manuscript might soon wrap itself up without too much more fuss. 

None of that dims the core quality that shines through every page: the author’s endless affection and amused tolerance for almost everyone, including those he disagrees with or rebukes.

The book shines when it leans into the parts of the Ustinov worldview that are most timeless and relatable, the appreciation of the intrinsic value and absurdity of we, the citizens of this world.

‘Dear Me’ feels like exactly what its title suggests: a fond, slightly mannered conversation between an accomplished and intelligent man and himself. The account is human and amusing.

Not perhaps a grand statement or definitive philosophy, but a wink, a shrug, and a wry smile from a surprisingly humble man, given the achievements and the honours bestowed over a life where such things seemed to come to him easily.