Worldy & Witty David Niven!

His second autobiographical volume, "Bring on the Empty Horses" was much more entertaining than the first.

I always thought he was a welcome presence in any film or television show.

I loved his reaction to the streaker at the 1974 Oscars.

He was in the wrong category for the 1958 Oscars. He should've won for supporting actor instead of lead. Paul Newman or Spencer Tracy should've won for lead. The part in the film Rough Cut always cracks me up when he tells Lesley Anne Down she will be thrown into jail with unfriendly lesbian companions.

OP = Faux millennial who thinks she is hip because she has a three-second attention span and interest in nothing but her own stink.

R3, there's always been debate about whether the streaker was a planned stunt or whether it was a shock and Niven came up with the line on the spot. Neither is quite what happened.

According to one of the longtime producers of the ceremony, who told me this at a party a few years ago, they knew that streaking was a huge fad at the time and recognized that there was that possibility, so they came up with a response for presenters just in case that happened.

David Niven was a very witty, debonair English actor, a big star back in the day.

I've seem very few of his movies, but I did see a sophisticated comedy that he did with Doris Day called, "Please Don't Eat The Daisies", and it was very well done.

Many years ago David Niven experienced a very tragic accident. Him and his wife purchased a big, new home in the Hollywood area, and one day his wife noticed a door at the back of the main floor, opened it and stepped through but there was no staircase (this was before the days of Health and Safety Measures), and she fell down hard below to the cement basement floor. She was rushed to the hospital but the injuries killed her.

I loved the story he tells in the Horses book about John Barrymore and Errol Flynn at a Hollywood party. They were sitting on the same couch, and both of them peed and left big wet spots.

He always struck me as being just thoroughly charming. The sort who'd be an excellent host, a good friend and fun companion.

Worldy?

OP, I don't understand a word you're saying!

[quote]Worldy?—oh.......

Yes, I wondered how long.

PLUS R5 thinks she's funny.

Then baby, why did you make a thread on him, if you find him boring?

Actually the wife died in Tyrone Powers house. They were playing Sardines and was looking for a place to hide. There were stairs but she thought if was a cupboard and fell down the darkened stairs and later died.

I imagine there was a great deal of booze involved.

What? Sizemeat obsessed DL residents are not discussing Niven's pecker size?

I think I hate the OP. He or she sounds like an idiot.

R8 > > > R16 is correct

Also, it should be 'He and his wife' not nor ever 'Him and his wife'

I always liked him, although he was rather a roue.

[quote]In 1928, David Niven had sex with the 15-year-old Margaret Whigham, during a holiday at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight. To the fury of her father, she became pregnant as a result. Margaret was rushed into a London nursing home for a secret termination. "All hell broke loose," remembered her family cook, Elizabeth Duckworth. Margaret didn’t mention the episode in her 1975 memoirs, but she continued to adore Niven until the day he died. She was among the VIP guests at his London memorial service.

^ That was Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, the famous Dirty Duchess.

He looked like his breath smelt of Cuban cigars and 12-year-old port wine.

R19 Take your self righteous asshole attitude somewhere else. Creep!

Bring on the Empty Horses is a must read as a portrait of Hollywood. It's very wide ranging. There's a chapter on Niven's period as an extra/background artist that doubles a portrait of the never weres who serve as hookers while trying to make it. There's a fine chapter on Clark Gable. And there's a chapter on an unnamed actress, rumoured to be Vivien Leigh, that evokes the eye of the storm existence of a screen goddess slash piece of meat better than any account I've ever read.

Never cared for him. Couldnt get past the face. Also, he always seemed very pleased with himself and his cleverness. And a so so actor. The books were OK.

My mother once was trying to recall an English actor that she didn't like because he "always looked like he'd smell musty." It took a while of guessing (Cary Grant? Laurence Olivier? Leslie Howard? Michael Caine? Richard Burton? Basil Rathbone?... )until I hit it with David Niven

I always found him likable enough, but he was no William Powell.

I was reading Richard Burton's diaries recently.

He said when E. Taylor was going through her Eddie Fisher scandal phase - David Niven would cross the road when he saw her.

I think they were deciding whether they should forgive him.

Bump.

After his death, official records surfaced that told how he tried to get out of his WWII Service to go back to films in September 1944.

This was never mentioned in either of his books.

I remember reading that Niven and his wife would always invite Noel Coward & Graham Payn (Coward's partner) for Boxing Day.

When Coward died, Payn was no longer invited. Payn wrote that other famous friends maintained contact, but Niven & his wife no longer invited him.

Niven sounds like a petty, little man.

I could never understand 7 Oscar nominations for Separate Tables (1958) including wins for Niven and Wendy Hiller. Plus a nomination for Deborah Kerr who was the M of the 50s - getting nominated for everything including this piece of junk.

Can anyone shed light on why Hjordis had/has such a bad reputation?

Always looks like he just smelled shit.

R29 it’s very cruel I agree, but that is how many windows were treated in those days. Upper class etiquette dictated they were cut out of the social circle as they were deemed socially finished,

Niven was notorious for his abuse of windows. Always throwing shade at them.

Widows, R33?

And R30, dear Deb may have been nominated constantly in the 50s, but not one (let alone THREE) trips to the podium for her. She had to settle for an Honorary Oscar when she could barely hold it up in the 90s, poor dear. Presented by my beloved G, of course, who no doubt has been presenting her acceptance speech for same every year for decades.

Carry on discussing David Niven, please, dears.

Hjordis treated Niven very badly when he was diagnosed with a debilitating fatal disease (can't remember the name). Roger Moore really hated her because she prevented David's closest friends from visiting him and their were rumours of abuse by carers etc. A very sad end for a charming fellow.

Niven almost drowned when they were shooting the big storm scene in "The Guns of Navarone".

I read a bio of Niven in which Betty Bacall said the most horrible things about Hjordis. Actually, no one ever had anything nice to say about Hjordis other than she was very beautiful when she was young. She was universally loathed during her marriage to Niven, but he was too cowed to divorce her. Or perhaps she was threatening to blackmail him about his sexual escapades with teenage girls.

He came across as a snob and a suck-up, someone who would cut you cold if you fell out of favor in Hollywood or society, but he was very charming. I used to look forward to his talk-show appearances in the 1970s when he was promoting his books.

Surprisingly nice body. Sexy legs.

David Niven was the MC when the AFI did their tribute to Fred Astaire back in 1981. He did a fine job as host. When David first came to Hollywood. He had a letter of introduction from a mutual UK friend. They remained lifelong friends.

OP the others on this thread are right about his books. The second one is FAR superior to the first one. Try reading that one first. Unlike his first book, in which he tells the story of his life in narrative form, each chapter in the second book is its own short story.

I especially love the chapter he talks about his trips to Hearst Castle. It’s hard to find primary sources that talk about what it was actually like to stay there.

He was in a movie with the young Jodie Foster called "Candleshoe." He praised her to the skies, said she was very unspoiled and would be a big star someday.

I really enjoyed him in The Impossible Years.

Surprised his son Jamie Niven isn't talked about ever on here. Very social, big time auctioneer at Sotheby's, actually very nice. Looks nothing like his father - he's chubby and very "jolly" looking.

Grew up with the two granddaughters Fernanda and Eugenie. Nice but dumb as shit, especially Eugenie. Fernanda was the prettier one but never married. No, I don't think she's a lez.

R7 Niven wasn’t really an ‘English actor’. He was a contract player for Sam Goldwyn who thought Niven looked like what an Englishman was supposed to look like.

He wasn’t a ‘real actor’ in that he never appeared on stage and he could only play very light comic roles which weren’t much different from himself.

He went for the same roles as Rex Harrison but Harrison was vaguely handsome in his younger years whereas Niven was always skinny and effete right from the beginning.

R28 You can’t expect a memoir to contain all the details of a 50 year long career. Peter Ustinov’s memoirs have more information about Niven’s wartime activities.

I think Niven’s memoirs are uninformative as well as lame because they’re full of jokes suggesting that alcoholism and lechery are funny.

R29 The Nivens didn’t continue to invite Coward’s toy-boy because the toy-boy’s sole purpose was to keep his master happy (rather like a lapdog keeps an old woman happy).

R40 That picture from ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ is rather creepy. Niven played a quasi-‘incestuous’ father displaying his drooping buttock line and skinny shanks in front of his daughter.

I remember reading his two books as a teenage gayling and adoring them. With the passing of time though, I wonder how authentic they really are.

I think they were a terrificly sanitised version of his life and times - and although naughty in places - it’s always calculated to be fit for public consumption - accompanied with a wink and not inconsiderable wit - and rarely does anyone seem to get hurt or suffer any really bad consequences...

Suspect he was a grade A sleaze like so many of them - and knew all the real dirt on everyone else too - but knew what side his bread was buttered.

I remember reading some story about how he wanted to be the star of the show at his son's wedding.

He came across as vain and full of himself.

Not a very likeable man. A lessor talent who loved to hang out with other famous people.

The dropping of Coward's friend after Coward died was a perfect example.

"The Impossible Years"...ew, what a gross movie. It's about a guy (Niven), who is going crazy trying to control his wild, slutty teenage daughter. She secretly marries some guy, but won't tell her parents. When he finds out who it is she screams at him that if he does anything to try and dissolve the marriage (I think she's under age) "we'll just live together!" He immediately becomes contrite and accepts the marriage and all's well that ends well. Or maybe not; his other teenage daughter, who is younger than the one who eloped, is shown at the end of the movie in a barely there bikini, going upstairs to her room with a male friend "to study." They cycle starts all over again, the end, ha ha. It was one of those smarmy, sexual innuendo filled comedies of the sixties. It was originally a hit play, written by Arthur Marx, son of Groucho, and it was inspired by his wild slutty teenage step daughter Linda.

Yup, can't get past the face....whew! His silly ass characterizations were all the same. I read both of his books and they were okay. It was nice to hear about someone who really lived through the time.

I think his wife fell at the Powers' home because the basement/cellar door opening inwards. She couldn't see inside. She assumed it was a closet. There was no landing, just the stairs, and down she went.

Because of so many such incidents - doors to basements now open toward you......

Mind the stairs.

In the photos at R39 & R40 I’m seeing Hiddleston.

Niven and Hiddleston.

Skinny and Effete.