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David Niven
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| David Niven | |
 David Niven portrayed the original Sir James Bond in the 007 spoof Casino Royale |
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| Birth name | James David Graham Niven |
| Born | March 1, 1910 , London, England |
| Died | July 29, 1983, age 73 |
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Actor 1958 Separate Tables |
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David Niven (March 1, 1910 – July 29, 1983) was an Academy Award-winning British actor.
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James David Graham Niven was born in London, England, the son of William Edward Graham Niven and French/British Henrietta Julia de Gacher, who was born in Wales. He was named David for his birth on St. David's Day. Although he often used to claim that he was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland it was only after his birth certificate was checked after his death that this was found to be incorrect. [1]
His father was killed during the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915 and his mother remarried Sir Thomas Comyn-Platt. In his biography, NIV, Graham Lord suggests that Comyn-Platt had actually been conducting an affair with Niven's mother for some time prior to her husband's death, and that Sir Thomas may well have been Niven's biological father, a supposition not without some support from her children, it seems.
After attending Stowe as a boy, Niven trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which gave him the "officer and gentleman" bearing that was to be his trademark. Although he had done well at Sandhurst Niven did not enjoy his time in the regular Army, in part because he was not accepted for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on which he had set his heart. He served for two years in Malta and two years in Dover with the Highland Light Infantry. While on Malta, he became acquainted and friendly with Captain R.E. "Wallard" Urquahart, who would later lead the British 1st Airborne Division during the ill-fated Operation Market-Garden campaign.
Niven had grown tired of the peacetime Army and saw no opportunity for promotion or advancement. As he related in his memoirs, his ultimate decision to resign from the Army came after a lengthy lecture on machine guns, which was interfering with his plans for dinner with a particularly attractive young lady. During the period at the end of the speech, the Major General giving the lecture asked if there were any questions. Showing the typical rebelliousness of his early years, Niven stated that he felt compelled to ask, "Could you tell me the time, sir? I have to catch a train."
After being placed under close arrest for this act of insubordination, Niven claims to have finished a bottle of whisky with the officer who was guarding him and, with the connivance of the latter, escaped from a first floor window. En route across the Atlantic, Niven sent a telegram resigning his commission. Niven relocated to New York, where he began an unsuccessful career in whisky sales and horse rodeo promotion in Atlantic City. After subsequent detours to Bermuda and Cuba, he finally arrived in Hollywood in the summer of 1934.
Niven first worked as an extra in westerns, then had a walk-on part in the 1935 version of Mutiny On The Bounty. He then landed a long term contract as a supporting player with independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn, which firmly established his career and allowed him to progress to leading man status in many films such as the RKO comedy Bachelor Mother (1939) with Ginger Rogers.
During World War II, Niven forsook Hollywood and rejoined the British Army. First serving with the British Rifle Brigade, Niven was assigned to a motor training battalion. Niven later interviewed for a position with the British Commandos, and was assigned to a training area near Lochilort Castle in the Western Highlands of Scotland. Niven would later claim credit for introducing British hero Robert Laycock to the Commandos. Rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel by General Frederick E. Morgan and being assigned as a liaison officer between the British Second Army and the First United States Army, Niven took part in the Normandy landings, arriving several days after D-Day. He acted in two films during the war, both of strong propaganda value: The First Of The Few (1942) and The Way Ahead (1944). During his war service, his batman was Private Peter Ustinov.
Despite the public interest in what celebrities did during the war, Niven remained politely, but firmly, close-mouthed about the subject. After Great Britain declared war in 1939, he was one of the first actors to join the army. Although Niven had a reputation for telling good old stories over and over again, he was generally silent about his war experience. He said once: "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." Niven also had special scorn for the newspaper columnists covering the war who typed out self-glorifying and excessively florid prose about their meager wartime experiences. Niven stated, "Anyone who says a bullet sings past, hums past, flies, pings, or whines past, has never heard one − they go crack."
He did, however, finally open up about his war experience in his 1971 autobiography, The Moon's A Balloon, mentioning his private conversations with Winston Churchill, the bombings, and what it was like entering a nearly completely destroyed Germany with the occupation forces. Niven stated that he first met Churchill during a dinner party at in February 1940 when Churchill singled him out from the crowd and stated, "Young man, you did a fine thing to give up your film career to fight for your country. Mark you, had you not done so − it would have been despicable."
In spite of six years' virtual absence from the screen, he came second in the 1945 Popularity Poll of British film stars. On his return to Hollywood after the war, he was made a Legionnaire of the Legion of Merit, the highest American order that can be earned by a foreigner. This was presented to Lt. Col. David Niven by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Reputedly, he refused to work with Rex Harrison or James Mason − the latter was an avowed pacifist and Niven saw the former as late to the colours in the war.[citation needed]
He resumed his career after the war, with films such as Around the World in Eighty Days (as Phileas Fogg), The Guns Of Navarone, The Pink Panther and as Sir James Bond in the unofficial series spoof Casino Royale. (He had actually been one of Ian Fleming's early choices to play Bond in Dr. No, before Sean Connery was chosen for the role.)
The same year as he hosted the show with Jack Lemmon and Bob Hope, Niven won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Separate Tables (1958). Niven had a long and complex relationship with Samuel Goldwyn, who had first given him his start, but whom Niven believed had been treating him unfairly. Despite their long business history, Niven and Goldwyn went through an eight year estrangement in which Niven was essentially blacklisted from the movie industry after demanding greater compensation for his work. After winning the Academy Award, Niven received a telephone call from Goldwyn with the invitation that he should come to his home. Niven claimed that he was in Goldwyn's drawing room when he noticed a picture of him in uniform that he had sent to Goldwyn from England during World War II. He claimed that in happier times with Goldwyn, he had observed this same picture sitting on top of Goldwyn's piano. Now years later, the picture was still in the exact same spot. Niven claimed that as he was looking at the picture, Goldwyn's wife, Francis, approached him and said, "Sam never took it down."
Late in life, he gained critical acclaim for his memoirs of his boyhood and acting career, The Moon's A Balloon (1971) and Bring On the Empty Horses (1975). Although it has since come to light that despite Niven's frequent recounting of anecdotes about Hollywood in a manner that suggested that he had been personally involved at the time, in many cases he had not in fact been a witness to them and he was merely embroidering stories he had heard at third hand.
In 1940, Niven married Primula Susan Rollo (1918–1946), the aristocratic daughter of a British pilot, after a whirlwind two-week romance; they had two sons, David Jr. and Jamie. She died at age 28, only six weeks after moving to America, of a fractured skull and brain lacerations after accidentally falling down a flight of stone steps during a game of hide-and-seek at a party at the home of Tyrone Power; she had mistakenly opened a door to a cellar and stepped inside, apparently thinking it was a closet. She died one day later. Niven recalls this as the darkest period of his life, years afterwards thanking his friends for their patience and forbearance during this time. He later claimed to have been so grief stricken that he thought for a while he went mad. He eventually rallied and returned to film making.
Niven's second wife, whom he married in 1948, ten days after they met, was Hjördis Paulina Tersmeden (née Genberg, 1921–1997), a divorced Swedish fashion model and frustrated actress. The moment of his meeting her was recounted by Niven in what might be a classic example of his writing style:
"I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life - tall, slim, auburn hair, uptilted nose, lovely mouth and the most enormous grey eyes I had ever seen. It really happened the way it does when written by the worst lady novelists...I goggled. I had difficulty swallowing and had champagne in my knees."
In October of 1951, while pheasant hunting with friends in New England, Hjördis was shot in the face, neck and chest by two of Niven's companions. While convalescing in the Blackstone Hotel in New York, Niven and Hjördis were next door neighbors with Audrey Hepburn, who was making her debut on Broadway that season. In 1960, while filming "Please Don't Eat the Dasies" with Doris Day, Niven and Hjördis separated for six weeks, from which they later reconciled.
They had two adopted daughters, Kristin and Fiona, one of whom has long been rumored to be Niven's child by another fashion model, Mona Gunnarson[citation needed]. The marriage was as tumultuous as Niven's previous marriage had been happy. Thwarted from an acting career, Hjördis began having public affairs with other men and became an alcoholic.
In February 1983, Niven using a false name to avoid publicity, was hospitalized ten days for treatment, ostensibly for treatment of a digestive problem. Afterwards, Niven returned to his chalet at Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland, where his condition continued to decline. He refused to return to the hospital, and his family supported his decision. Niven died in Switzerland on July 29, 1983 of motor neurone disease (Lou Gehrig's Disease) at age 73. Bitter, estranged, and plagued by depression, Niven's wife Hjördis showed up drunk at the funeral, having been convinced to attend by family friend Rainier III of Monaco.
Oddly, Niven died on the same day as Raymond Massey, his co-star in The Prisoner of Zenda and A Matter Of Life And Death. Niven had just completed work on Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther. He was incomprehensible at times during the filming of both movies, and his voice was dubbed over in post-production by impressionist Rich Little, a fact that Niven later learned through a gossip column.
- "It really is amazing. Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing games? It's like being Peter Pan"
- "I don't think his acting ever quite achieved the brilliance or the polish of his dinner-party conversations." — John Mortimer on Niven
- "The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping... and showing his shortcomings." Niven, commenting on the streaker (Robert Opel) who crossed the stage while he was hosting the 46th Academy Awards in 1974.
- "I've been lucky enough to win an Oscar, write a best-seller — my other dream would be to have a painting in the Louvre. The only way that's going to happen is if I paint a dirty one on the wall of the gentlemen's lavatory."
- Niven made a cameo appearance in Wu Ming's novel 54. He and his friend Cary Grant talk about Ian Fleming's debut novel, Casino Royale, and dismiss the plot as "incoherent".
- The DC Comics supervillain Sinestro is based on Niven.[citation needed]
- He was at school with fighter pilot Sir Douglas Bader
- He was a member of Boodle's club in St James's, London between 1938-1953.
- Among the individuals he counted as his friends were Ian Fleming, Greta Garbo, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks, and Olivia de Havilland.
- The Godfather of Niven's son, Jamie, was Douglas Fairbanks. The Godfather of Niven's son, David, was actor and playwright Noel Coward, who gave him a silver cocktail shaker inscribed with the words, "Because, my Godson dear, I rather think you'll turn out like your father."
- The Pink House, where Niven lived during his last years in Hollywood, is located at 1461 North Amalfi Drive, and is now owned by Whoopi Goldberg.
- Niven's son, James G. "Jamie" Niven, is currently the vice chairman of Sotheby's Auction House.
- Niven's daughter, Fiona, lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
- The character of "Percival Pinkerton" in the Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos comic books was very loosely based on Niven.
- David Niven (1971). The Moon's a Balloon. London: Hamish Hamilton, (pbk). ISBN 0-340-15817-4.
- David Niven (1975). Bring on the Empty Horses. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-89273-2.
- Sheridan Morley (1985). The Other Side of the Moon. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, (pbk). ISBN 0-340-39643-1.
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| Preceded by Jerry Lewis 29th Academy Awards |
Oscars host 30th (with Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, Rosalind Russell, and James Stewart) and 31st Academy Awards (with Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall, and Mort Sahl) |
Succeeded by Bob Hope 32nd Academy Awards |
| Preceded by Alec Guinness for The Bridge on the River Kwai |
Academy Award for Best Actor 1958 for Separate Tables |
Succeeded by Charlton Heston for Ben-Hur |
| Preceded by Barry Nelson 1954 |
Unofficial James Bond actor 1967 |
Succeeded by Sean Connery 1983 |
| Preceded by Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston, and Rock Hudson 45th Academy Awards |
Oscars host 46th Academy Awards (with John Huston, Burt Reynolds, and Diana Ross) |
Succeeded by Sammy Davis, Jr., Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine, and Frank Sinatra 47th Academy Awards |
| James Bond actors |
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| Official - Sean Connery • George Lazenby • Roger Moore • Timothy Dalton • Pierce Brosnan • Daniel Craig Unofficial - Barry Nelson • David Niven • Sean Connery |
- ^ Sheridan Morley (1985). The Other Side of the Moon. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, (pbk). ISBN 0-340-39643-1.
- David Niven at the Internet Movie Database
- David Niven at the TCM Movie Database
- David Niven at the Internet Broadway Database
- David Niven at the Notable Names Database
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Anglo-Scots | British film actors | Best Actor Academy Award winners | Old Stoics | James Bond cast members | Pink Panther cast members | Hollywood Walk of Fame | British Army officers | British military personnel of World War II | British memoirists | People from London | Recipients of the Legion of Merit | Deaths from motor neurone disease | 1910 births | 1983 deaths