Peter Bull
Encyclopedia
Peter Cecil Bull, DSC
Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)
The Distinguished Service Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers, and other ranks, of the British Armed Forces, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and British Merchant Navy and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries.The DSC, which may be awarded posthumously, is...

 (21 March 1912 – 20 May 1984) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

.

Biography

He was the fourth and youngest son of Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...

 MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 Sir William James Bull, 1st Bt..

Bull was educated at Winchester College
Winchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...

. His first professional stage appearance was in If I Were You
If I Were You (novel)
If I Were You is the title of a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on September 3, 1931 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, and in the United Kingdom on September 25, 1931 by Herbert Jenkins, London....

at the Shaftesbury Theatre
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End Theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The theatre was designed for the brothers Walter and Frederick Melville by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of The Three Musketeers, as the New...

 in 1933.

Bull's performance as the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 Ambassador, Alexi de Sadesky, in Dr. Strangelove
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, commonly known as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 black comedy film which satirizes the nuclear scare. It was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, and featuring Sterling...

(1964) is among the best-known of his several dozen film and TV appearances. He both narrated and had a small on-screen role in Scrooge
Scrooge (1951 film)
Scrooge, released as A Christmas Carol in the United States, is a 1951 film adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It starred Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge and was directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, with a screenplay by Noel Langley.The film also features Kathleen Harrison in an...

(1951), and portrayed the German ship's captain in The African Queen (1951).

Bull was also the first ever actor to portray Pozzo in the English language version of Beckett's 'Waiting For Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...

' when it opened on 3 August 1955.

In the 1970s he ran a small shop just off Notting Hill Gate
Notting Hill Gate
Notting Hill Gate is one of the main thoroughfares of Notting Hill, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically the street was a location for toll gates, from which it derives its modern name.- Location :...

, selling zodiac-related items.

Bull wrote a work on the subject of teddy bears, Bear With Me. He also wrote a non-fiction work about his experiences during World War II as commander of a Tank Landing Craft (LCT), To Sea in a Sieve. During his service, he achieved the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and was awarded the DSC
Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)
The Distinguished Service Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers, and other ranks, of the British Armed Forces, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and British Merchant Navy and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries.The DSC, which may be awarded posthumously, is...

.

Selected filmography

External links

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