NIV : The Authorized Biography of David Niven

Rating:
Summary: THE LIFE OF A "WODEHOUSE WITH TEARS"
Review:
Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside may well describe the life of British actor David Niven, at least as it's presented in his first authorized biography by Graham Lord. When questioned about his perpetual cheerfulness, Niven is said to have replied that life was so bloody awful he felt obliged to try to make people happier. And, with a host of friends and 71 films (some not very good) he did just that.

Regrettably, the reader concludes "NIV," knowing very little about who the man really was. The author disputes numerous claims made by the actor in his autobiographies, "The Moon's A Balloon" and "Bring On The Empty Horses." Lord does this with great courtesy, saying, "NIV was an hilarious, utterly charming, delightfully engaging fantasist, and fibber. His gloriously funny autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon, is stuffed with errors of fact, anecdotes that are hugely exaggerated and superb stories that are completely untrue."

Thus, the narrative thread of "NIV" is constantly interrupted with corrections, and quotations from other sources. The reader is left wondering who to believe, Niven, Lord, or the person being quoted as having been there and seen or heard such and so?

Lord's account opens with Niven's childhood which was none too happy as it was spent with a disinterested mother and a stepfather whom the actor described as ugly, a martinet. Admittedly a snob, attracted by titles, an unrepentant womanizer, Niven was also a loyal British subject who interrupted his early film career to fight for his country.

Upon his return to Hollywood a contract with Samuel Goldwyn was to advance his career. The mogul and the actor were often at sword's point, perhaps due to the fact that when Goldwyn was paying Niven $3,000 per week, Goldwyn was receiving $15,000 per week when he loaned the actor out. Those years in Hollywood are described as a constant round of parties, drinking, and romantic entanglements. Names are named ad infinitum. It seems that at one point Niven awoke to find himself in bed with the 20-year-old Marilyn Monroe, and another time with the 23-year-old Ava Gardner. Early on, what appeared to be his most serious attachment was with Merle Oberon.

Women, it seems, were the cause of most of his problems and much unhappiness. He fell in love and married a blonde English girl, Primula Rollo (known as Primmie). The couple had two children, David, Jr. and James (called Jamie). Their happiness was extremely short lived. One night while playing a party game at Tyrone and Annabella Power's house, Primmie mistook the cellar door for a closet and fell to the stone floor. She died a few days later at the age of 28.

Niven was inconsolable. Yet, in perhaps one of the more puzzling aspects of his life he sought to assuage his grief by constant womanizing. A friend quotes Niven as saying, "I was insatiable. No woman was safe. It was no disrespect or lack of love for Primmie - I was just trying to get something out of my system that was better out than in. I believe I was very ill in a sexual kind of way." He eventually consulted a psychiatrist and was told that this feeling would pass.

There's no doubt that he was grief stricken. Douglas Fairbanks' wife answered all the letters of condolence as Niven could not bring himself to do it. Nor could he bring himself to return to the house where he might have lived with Primmie, but had the door permanently locked. With the help of friends, most notably Fred Astaire, and Clark Gable who had suffered after Carole Lombard's death, Niven managed to return to work.

The years passed and Niven married again for reasons that in retrospect seem inexplicable. His bride was Hjordis Paulina Genberg, a beautiful Swedish model, who spoke little English, did not seem to grasp the fact that she was becoming a stepmother, and fancied herself a movie star. They had known each other for ten days when they wed. This was a match that seemed doomed from the first I do.. Frustrated in her attempts to become an actress (which Betty Bacall stated was an impossible dream since Hjordis had no talent), she first took to drink and then to having affairs which she flaunted in Niven's face. Theirs was to be a long painful relationship, for them and the two young boys.

The final insult came when Hjordis refused to attend Niven's funeral, but was coerced into going by Prince Rainier. She arrived drunk.

At one time Niven confronted Goldwyn with an ultimatum and the impresario let Niven go, which was almost the end of his career and income. Television was his savior when in 1952 he made two live drama appearances. Then he invested with Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino and Dick Powell to form TV's Four Star Playhouse. More good fortune followed when the crusty Mike Todd cast him in "Around The World In 80 Days."

Eventually, he bought a chalet in Switzerland where he began to paint and collected pictures. He and Hjordis adopted two small girls, one of whom some consider to be Niven's daughter with model, Mona Gunnarson. He also purchased a home in the South of France, which he loved to share with friends such as the Rainiers, the Gregory Pecks, the Roger Moores, Greta Garbo.

Niven made several Italian films and Hjordis's condition worsened as she suffered not only from alcoholism but also depression. She made life miserable for herself and those around her. In fact, it was said that in the 1970s she became so disagreeable that none could be found to say a good word about her.

Niven perhaps knew himself better than anyone else. Despite his Oscar win for Separate Tables in 1959, he once said to William Hurt, "I know exactly what my position is...I'm a second-rate star." Yet, he was a star which is more than most can say.

In 1979 Niven began to show the first signs of motor neurone disease. He fought it, trying to walk or swim everyday, but he was weakening rapidly. He wrote a note to his dear friend, Deborah Kerr, warning her of working too hard, "Dear Old Chum, .....don't stretch the elastic too far, because it snaps, and that is what has happened to me."

David Niven died in 1983. His life was once described as "Wodehouse with tears." Indeed, it was.

- Gail Cooke





Rating:
Summary: Does this mean the moon's balloon has popped?
Review: After reading Niven's two autobiographies in the 70s I wanted to spread the word that he was among the most likable movie stars who ever lived, a civilized sex-maniac who also couldn't help being urbane, loyal, thoughtful, generous, forgiving, bright, witty, tasteful and who therefore was obliged to know and to become eternal friends with just about everybody that mattered during Hollywood's Golden Age.

This new Lord biography says goodbye to most of that, revealing in a good-natured way, as any honor-bound hero-worshipper would, that Niven didn't tell the whole story, neglecting to haave mentioned that his second wife was a second-rate drunk with the kind of bad taste only the red states would brag about, that his fidelities went just so far, that his rigorously high standards of honesty often had to plummet, that his memory of events and headliners from the 1930s and 40s was not unerring, that he could be a bastard just as comortably as the next guy, that he often mistook panache for talent and that charm is not always commensurate with happiness.

Still, Niven, on balance, is as good an example as you'll find of long-gone Hollywood elegance and that must count for something---at least perhaps to the world's few remaining sentimentalists..

If Clark Gable, who could spot a phony a mile off, thought that Niven was worth admiring (a few gaping holes in his character notwithstanding), so can I.

Rating:
Summary: Contains a mistake
Review: It mentions that Peter O'Toole was in the 1976 film Murder by Death. Actually two famous actors name Peter were in that film but not O'Toole. It was Peter Falk and Peter Sellers that were in Murder by Death, along with Niven.