Adorable Story #26: David Niven
The Charming English Gentleman of Hollywood
“Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing games?”
David Niven was a British actor and author best known for his roles in films such as A Matter of Life and Death, Separate Tables (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1959), the Guns of Navarone and The Pink Panther.
Early life
Niven was born on March 1, 1910 in Belgravia, London, England: for some reason, throughout his life he claimed to be born in Kirriemuir, Scotland, as he thought this sounded more romantic.
His father, William Niven, was a British army officer who died during the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I when David was only 5 years old. Niven later wrote in his bestselling memoir The Moon’s a Balloon:
“I had not seen him much except when I was brought down to be shown off before arriving dinner guests or departing fox hunting companions.”
His mother, Henrietta de Gacher, of French descent, was “very beautiful, very musical, very sad, and lived on cloud nine”. She decided to raise him in England, Scotland, and Switzerland after his father’s death.
Widowed and cash-strapped, Henrietta later re-married with the Tory Conservative Politician Sir Thomas Comyn-Platt: given that David had the uncanny physical resemblance of his step-father, many at the time suspected that Sir Comyn-Platt was actually David Niven’s biological father (many decades later, David would confirm that he had always known this).
Niven often got into trouble at school because he liked to play pranks. This got him kicked out of Heatherdown Preparatory School when he was about 10 years old, ruining his chance to go to Eton College, which upset his family. He didn’t do well in math either, so he didn’t pass the test to join the navy.
Instead, he went to Stowe School, a public school. Its headmaster, J. F. Roxburgh, was very different from his old teachers. Roxburgh was nice and let the boys use their first names, ride bikes, and do what they liked.
Niven rememberd him fondly and once said of him:
“I don't know how he did it, but he made every boy feel like they mattered to him.”
Military Career
As a young man, Niven attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst with the intention of having a military career like his father.
“It was never pleasant to be treated like mud,” he wrote, “but Sandhurst, at least, did it with style.”
After Sandhurst, he requested assignment to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders or the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), then jokingly wrote on the form, as his third choice, “anything but the Highland Light Infantry” (HLI), because that regiment wore tartan trews rather than the kilt.
The Command promptly assigned him to the HLI, were he served his subsequent three years (mostly on Malta — where he spent time attempting to lower his handicap playing polo at the Marsa Sports Grounds — and finally, for just a few months, in Dover).
Though promoted to lieutenant on January 1, 1933, Niven saw no opportunity for further advancement of his military career at peacetime.
His ultimate decision to resign came after a lengthy lecture on machine guns, which was interfering with his plans for dinner with a particularly attractive young lady.
At the end of the lecture, the speaker (a major general) asked if there were any questions and Niven asked:
“Could you tell me the time, sir? I have to catch a train.”
He was immediately put under close-arrest for insubordination.
That night, Niven finished a bottle of whisky with the officer who was guarding him and convinced him to help him escape from a first-floor window.
He decided to promptly escape to America and, while crossing the Atlantic, rather than facing a court-martial back at home, resigned from his commission via telegram on September 6, 1933.
“He found his way to America,” explained his son Jamie Niven, adding: “He was a waiter, he was a wine steward, he was a deckhand. He worked for a while on a charter boat out in California that the film people used to rent. One of them was Merle Oberon (featured in the Adorable Story #29), and they got together. They became quite an item, actually, and she encouraged him to become an extra. That was the beginning.”
Early Cinematic Career
Niven was, at first, cast as an extra: he was the “Anglo Saxon Type #2008” according to his Central Casting listing.
But in Hollywood he became friend with Clark Gable (one of his old fishing-boat customers), and Errol Flynn (one of his roommates).
“The great thing about Errol,” Niven later wrote, “was you always knew exactly where you stood with him, because he always let you down.”
Eventually, Niven got a contract.
He got a decent part in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and a flashier one in The Dawn Patrol (1938). Less satisfying was his role as Edgar in Wuthering Heights (1939): but it was a big film which set him up for stardom. Movies like Raffles (1939) and Bachelor Mother (1939) then sealed his career.
“There were two great light comedians,” said his son Jamie Niven. “One was Cary Grant, and two was my dad. And he used to say, ‘Thank God for Cary Grant, because he can’t do all the roles people write for him, so I get to do the rest.’ ”
Just as Niven’s career was picking up in the fall of 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and Great Britain declared war.
World War II
Despite his successful acting career in Hollywood, he returned to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of the war and quietly re-enlisted in the British Army as a lieutenant into the Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort’s Own) in 1940, where he was assigned to a motor training battalion. He worked on the highly secret Phantom reconnaissance unit in Dover, which maintained contact with British forces.
He spent most of the war on grueling active service: particularly at Dunkirk, and then at the D-Day in Normandy (where he took part as “sea-going” lieutenant-colonel) and at the Battle of the Bulge.
He also worked with the Army Film Unit, where he acted in two short propaganda films, The First of the Few and The Way Ahead.
Despite being a fantastic storyteller, on this subject, though, Niven fell silent: he rarely spoke about the war and never about what he did.
“I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war.”
After the war, Niven resumed his acting career in Hollywood.
Post-war Hollywood Career
His post-war career began with one of his best film: Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946).
Though he proved successful at light comedy in The Bishop’s Wife (1947) starring Cary Grant, the flop of Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) and a falling out with studio head Samuel Goldwyn saw his career hit a slump.
Niven’s comeback was secured with the massive success of the Jules Verne adaptation Around the World in 80 Days (1956), also starring Shirley MacLaine.
In 1958, Niven starred in Bonjour Tristesse, with Jean Seberg and Deborah Kerr, and Separate Tables, together with Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster: this movie earned him the 1959 Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
That year, Niven was a co-host of the Academy Awards ceremony as he had believed his friend Tyrone Power would win the award for his leading role in The Sun Also Rises. To date, he is the only actor to win an Oscar in the same year serving as a host.
More success would come with the Alistair MacLean wartime action movie Guns of Navarone in 1961 (also starring Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn), and the comedy masterpiece The Pink Panther (1963), although Niven’s suave jewel thief was eclipsed by Peter Sellers’ iconic performance as Inspector Clouseau.
Personal life
In 1939, Niven met Primula “Primmie" Susan Rollo and 17 days later married her: they had two sons together, David Jr. and Jamie.
Tragically, Primmie died in 1946 at the age of 28 after a freak accident at a party: they were visiting his friend Tyrone Power (featured in the Adorable Story #33) when a game of “hide and seek” was suggested by someone. In the dark, Primmie opened what she thought was a closet door, but happened to be one leading to the cellar, and fell down the stairs, striking her head on the concrete floor below. She died of a fractured skull soon afterwards.
After he lost his wife, Niven fell into a nearly suicidal grief. He treated his depression with liberal doses of alcohol and sex. At the time he briefly dated Marylin Monroe, Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth, among many other Hollywood actresses.
In 1948, Niven met a former Miss Sweden, the model Hjördis Paulina Tersmeden and 10 days later married her.
This second marriage turned sour quickly and after 32 years of marriage Niven had this to say about his wife:
“She isn’t good company, and she can’t do anything. What she can do is make herself look very good, and she can arrange flowers. But that’s all.”
Niven and Hjördis had two daughters, Kristina (adopted in 1960) and Fiona (adopted in 1962): apparently they were both babies Niven fathered out of wedlock.
David Niven and Deborah Kerr met and fell in love on the set of Bonjour Tristesse in 1958, and the two were together for several years, before she later started dating Burt Lancaster.
Niven was known for his charm, wit and quick retorts. He had an easygoing British sense of humor and never took himself too seriously.
“I make two movies a year to take care of the butcher and the baker and the school fees. Then I try to write, but it’s not that easy. Acting is what’s easy.”
He also published two best-selling memoirs recounting stories from his long career: The Moon's a Balloon in 1971 and Bring on the Empty Horses in 1975.
The title of his second autobiography, Bring on the Empty Horses, is taken from a command given by director Michael Curtiz during the filming of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) in which Niven had a featured part.
Curtiz, a Hungarian notorious for his poor command of English, wanted a lot of riderless horses in the background of the climactic charge, but couldn’t make himself understood by his assistant directors. Finally he exploded:
“Bring on the empty horses!”
Niven’s Bonjour Tristesse co-star, Mylène Demongeot, declared about him, in a 2015 filmed interview:
“He was like a Lord, he was part of those great actors who were extraordinary like Dirk Bogarde, individuals with lots of class, elegance and humour. I only saw David get angry once. Preminger had discharged him for the day but eventually asked to get him. I said, sir, you had discharged him, he left for Deauville to gamble at the casino. So we rented a helicopter so they immediately went and grabbed him. Two hours later, he was back, full of rage. There I saw David lose his British phlegm, his politeness and class. It was royal. [Laughs].”
Niven divided his time between his villa Lo Scoglietto in St. Jean - Cap Ferrat, Côte d’Azur, France and his Chalet in Chateaux D'Œx, Switzerland, overlooking the Gstaad Valley.
At the Cap Ferrat Villa, stars such as Greta Garbo, Gregory Peck and Faye Dunaway would visit him regularly to enjoy drinks and freshly caught sea urchins on the magnificent terrace overlooking the Mediterranean.
Niven’s chalet in Gstaad was also full of character, featuring an exhaustive library and a wine cellar decorated with murals painted by the actor himself.
Later life
“Actors don’t retire. They just get offered fewer roles.”
In 1980, David Niven started developing fatigue and a slight slur in his voice. Later that year he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known in North America as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
He kept the terminal illness a secret from the public and was even briefly hospitalized in Switzerland under a false name to avoid clamor.
“He was very stiff-upper-lip about it all,” his son David Jr. told the Daily Mail. “He told me, ‘Maybe this is God’s way of saying you have told enough stories over the years, and it’s someone else’s turn to be the life and soul of the party.’ ”
Sufferers of ALS have also been known to experience exaggerated outbursts of jollity at times and extreme melancholy at others: when Niven’s long-time friend Princess Grace of Monaco was killed in September 1982, he could not bring himself to attend her funeral, afraid he might break down uncontrollably.
Together with his family, he decided not to be hospitalized any futher and spent most of his final years in his Cap Ferrat villa.
By mid 1983, Niven left Cap Ferrat and arrived at his chalet in Chateau D’Œx, and by all accounts his condition and spirits were improving: his physiotherapist friend David Bolton visited him daily, and his friend Roger Moore arranged for him to use near-neighbour Gunther Sachs’ indoor swimming pool.
Unfortunately his health quickly deteriorated later in the summer, and David Niven died on July 29, 1983 in Château-d'Œx, Switzerland at the age of 73.
Biographer Graham Lord wrote about his funeral:
“the biggest wreath, worthy of a Mafia Godfather’s funeral, was delivered from the porters at London’s Heathrow Airport, along with a card that read: ‘To the finest gentleman who ever walked through these halls. He made a porter feel like a king.’”
— Alberto @ Adorable Times
One more thing…
In the late 1960s, before leaving his villa in the south of France to go on a film shoot, Niven gave specific instructions to his builder for the dimensions of his new swimming pool.
As a proper British, Niven had been talking in feet, while his French builder had been listening in meters.
Due to this miscommunication, Niven would later boast that he owned the deepest swimming pool in Europe, if not the world, as the French builder made it 15 meters deep, instead of 15 feet (4.5 meters).
Absolutely charming, always amusing, often at Drone’s for lunch when in London. His face was always a welcome sight.
He was certainly quick on the draw, verbally. Witness his unflappability when, introducing Liz Taylor at the 1974 Oscars, a "streaker" burst onto the stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWBc-ir6IFM