Born to an Australian mother and Russian-Jewish father, Mr Zeldin attended Oxford, was influenced by Peter Brook and Robert Lepage, and travelled widely in the Middle East to learn about theatre production and performance there.
See, for example, Jeffrey Brown, Howard Gleckman, Peter Orszag, Robert Reischauer (as quoted by Jonathan Chait), and Paul Van de Water, and a follow up by Chuck and Jim Capretta.
The ostensible cause, according to Robert Mondavi's autobiography "Harvests of Joy, " was Peter's accusation that Robert had dipped into company funds to buy his wife a mink coat, but tensions had been building for years between the two, who had different visions for the Charles Krug winery, which their immigrant father had purchased in 1943.