NIV: The Authorized Biography of David Niven [Hardcover]

Graham Lord (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 031232863X | ISBN-13: 978-0312328634 | Publication Date: November 18, 2004 | Edition: First Edition

For more than 40 years, David Niven portrayed onscreen the impeccable values of a lost breed of English gentlemen - handsome, elegantly dressed, well-mannered, and utterly charming. Yet behind those twinkling eyes, Niven was often deeply unhappy. From the death of his father when Niven was five, his mother's neglect and the stepfather who loathed him, to the death of his beloved first wife and his volatile marriage to his second wife, tragedy and hardship were never far away. Using new material from Niven's private papers, manuscripts, unpublished stories and correspondence, Lord has written a touching account of one of Hollywood's greatest heroes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How do you write a biography of a film star whose memoirs are already considered among the best the genre has to offer? Lord, former editor of London's Sunday Express, begins by pointing out that the tales in Niven's books were frequently exaggerated, if not outright fiction, then sets out to gently correct the record. The real story is filled with absorbing details, particularly when Lord recounts the young Niven's struggle to make it in Hollywood and his varied military career during WWII. But as the "authorized" biographer of Niven (1910–1983), Lord is often overly sympathetic to the actor, most notably when the subject turns to "Niv's" second marriage to a Swedish model. Lord and his interviewees repeatedly attack the wife for alcoholism, extramarital affairs and an allegedly ridiculous desire to be an actress, while shrugging off Niven's constant womanizing and heavy drinking. Other unsavory aspects of his personality, like his treatment of his book publishers, are similarly glossed over. It's worth noting, however, that an overwhelming number of Niven's films are described as among his worst; even The Pink Panther is surprisingly dismissed as "dreadfully unfunny." Yet such harsh critical assessments do little to diminish Niven in his biographer's eyes, and the star's reputation as a lovable raconteur remains untarnished, even by the truth. Photos.
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Review

British Praise for NIV:

"It is impossible to read this book without thinking what fun Niven must have been. Lord writes about his subject with great affection [and] it is an amusing yet moving story" - Sunday Times
"A major new biography" - Daily Mail

"A fresh, revealing and poignant portrait of a brave and brilliant man" - The Stowe Bulletin
"A compelling account" - Dublin Evening Herald
"You're going to have a hell of a time...Compulsive readability" - Literary Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (November 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031232863X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312328634
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars THE LIFE OF A "WODEHOUSE WITH TEARS", December 29, 2004

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: NIV: The Authorized Biography of David Niven (Hardcover)

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

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Does this mean the moon's balloon has popped?, January 14, 2005

By 

R. Gregory (Jackson Hole, Wyoming) - See all my reviews

This review is from: NIV: The Authorized Biography of David Niven (Hardcover)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Twee Drivel?, May 20, 2007

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: NIV: The Authorized Biography of David Niven (Hardcover)

After Niven's death the present owner of his chalet, Coco Wyers, went inside the house and surveyed Niven's muurals of matadors in the dank basement of the prefab house. Psychic Coco knew something horrid had happened in the house, but what? "Oh my God," she thought, "what happened here? I felt that something was really not OK." Author Graham Lord has surveyed half a hundred of Niven's friends and associates and come up with the truth, that Niven could be charming and affable, some say generous, but he was a notorious womanizer and serial cheater. He always felt insecure, as most actors do, and he took himself seriously, cherishing the Oscar he had been awarded for his brilliant performance in SEPARATE TABLES.

At the same time, he and his monstrous second wife, Hjordis the drunk, adopted two little girls who grew up, Lord tells us, to be neurotic, quiet, disattached from reality, and deeply unhappy. Well, Hjordis was a world class monster. Betty Bacall is quoted often in NIV (she must have given the world's longest interview for she seems to be on every page) as calling Hjordis "cold." Bacall scoffs at Hjordis' acting ambitions, sniffing that she must have been crazy to think she could make it in Hollywood. Meanwhile Biven was playing with the girls. Naked, he encouraged the little girls, aged 6 and 7, to swing on his outsized member like Tarzan, telling a guest, the painter William Feilding, who witnessed this bizarre scene of fatherhood, "better get them used to a decent size at any early age." He thought more of his [...] than he did his family, that's for sure. At one point he was skiing with Robert Wagner and felt his [...] freezing within a two thin ski ensemble. The two men raced down the slopes and into a bar where Niven plunged his "unit" into a snifter filled with brandy, to warm it up. Another guest went by and goggled, and Niven joked, "I like to give it a drink now and then."

But I felt sorry for those girls. Having that memory in your past must be a tricky thing. No wonder they're ultra reserved and lonely nowadays. They were always trying to please an oversexed dad, and a distant, cold, drunken mother, who was always impossibly gorgeous and never left the house without a full set of makeup. Many friends of Niv's thought Hjordis overdid it with the makeup. I have trouble spelling her name all the way to the end. I feel Lord did a hatchet job on a misunderstood woman whose failing, in the end, was neglecting to protect her two adopted girls from having to play jungle games on the thick vine sprouting from between her husband's legs.

However "Niv" gave good performances in GUNS OF NAVARONE, THE MOON IS BLUE, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, and CASINO ROYALE.

Docked one notch for disrespect to a great poet. Niven took the title of his memoir THE MOON'S A BALLOON from a poem by e.e. cummings. Graham Lord, said to have been the literary editor for the Express for 23 years (!) uses this as a springboard for an attack on cummings' nearly as rabid as his attack on Hjordis. "The title, bewilderingly fey, came from a piece of doggerel by the pretentious e.e. cummings. Why did Niven choose the title? Search me," Lord sneers. Elsewhere he calls the poem "twee drivel," which in England must be the worst insult you can give. To which I respond, Please, Graham Lord, get over yourself! "Bewilderingly fey? YOU'RE the one who just wrote a 370 page ode to David Niven's [...]!"