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Mourners pay tribute to multi-talented Ustinov

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GENEVA (Reuters) — Hundreds of mourners bade farewell to British actor and playwright Peter Ustinov at a memorial service on Saturday, with family, friends and colleagues paying tribute to the multi-talented raconteur.

Ustinov, who died on Sunday at age 82, was buried at a private service in the picturesque village of Bursins in the French-speaking canton of Vaud, where he had lived since 1970.

An Oscar-winning star of over 60 films, Ustinov was also an outspoken opponent of war and worked as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), where his sense of humor and skills as a mimic made him hugely popular.

“He was an extraordinary man, an extraordinary mind, an extraordinary humor who served UNICEF for 35 years and served the world and children in a wonderful way,” UNICEF Chief Carol Bellamy told Reuters at the memorial service.

His coffin was carried by eight pallbearers into the Saint-Pierre Cathedral, where some 400 mourners, including Ustinov’s third wife Helene and four children, were gathered.

Ustinov spoke more than half a dozen languages and, although confined to a wheelchair by diabetes and a weak heart later in life, continued to entertain audiences with his stories.

Among his best-known film roles was that of Hercule Poirot in screen adaptations of the British mystery writer Agatha Christie’s famous detective novels.

Many celebrities choose to live in Switzerland where they enjoy relative privacy. The late actress Audrey Hepburn and Richard Burton are buried in their adopted wine-growing villages along Lake Geneva, while Charlie Chaplin is buried near Vevey.