David Niven
James David Graham Niven[St Martins, Perth and Kinross|] was an English actor, soldier, raconteur, memoirist and novelist. Niven was known as a handsome and debonair leading man in Classic Hollywood films. His accolades include an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Award and two Emmy Awards.
Born in central London to an upper-middle-class family, Niven attended Heatherdown Preparatory School and Stowe School before gaining a place at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry. Upon developing an interest in acting, he found a role as an extra in the British film There Goes the Bride. Bored with the peacetime army, he resigned his commission in 1933, relocated to New York, then travelled to Hollywood. There, he hired an agent and had several small parts in films through 1935, including a non-speaking role in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Mutiny on the Bounty. This helped him gain a contract with Samuel Goldwyn.
Parts, initially small, in major motion pictures followed, including Dodsworth, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and The Prisoner of Zenda. By 1938, he was starring as a leading man in films such as Wuthering Heights. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Niven returned to Britain and rejoined the army, being recommissioned as a lieutenant. In 1942, he co-starred in the morale-building film about the development of the renowned Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane, The First of the Few.
Niven went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Separate Tables, for which he holds the record of shortest winning performance in that category. His other notable films during this time period include A Matter of Life and Death, The Bishop's Wife, Enchantment, The Elusive Pimpernel, The Moon Is Blue, Around the World in 80 Days, My Man Godfrey, The Guns of Navarone, Murder by Death, and Death on the Nile. He also earned acclaim and notoriety playing Sir Charles Lytton in The Pink Panther and James Bond in Casino Royale.
Early life and family
James David Graham Niven was born on 1 March 1910 at Belgrave Mansions, Grosvenor Gardens, London, to William Edward Graham Niven and his wife, Henrietta Julia Niven. He was named David after his birth on St David's Day. Niven later claimed he was born in Kirriemuir, in the Scottish county of Angus in 1909, but his birth certificate disproves this. He had two older sisters and a brother: Margaret Joyce Niven, Henry Degacher Niven, and the sculptor Grizel Rosemary Graham Niven, who created the bronze sculpture Bessie that is presented to the annual winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction.Niven's father, William Niven, was of Scottish descent; he was killed in the First World War serving with the Berkshire Yeomanry during the Gallipoli campaign on 21 August 1915. He is buried in Green Hill Cemetery, Turkey, in the Special Memorial Section in Plot F. 10. Niven's paternal great-grandfather and namesake, David Graham Niven, was from
St Martins, a village in Perthshire. A physician, he married in Worcestershire, and lived in Pershore.
Niven's mother, Henrietta, was born in Brecon, Wales. Her father was Captain William Degacher of the 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, who was killed at the Battle of Isandlwana during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. Although born William Hitchcock, in 1874, he and his older brother Lieutenant Colonel Henry Degacher, both followed their father, Walter Henry Hitchcock, in taking their mother's maiden name of Degacher. Henriette's mother was Julia Caroline Smith, the daughter of Lieutenant General James Webber Smith CB.
After her husband's death in Turkey in 1915, Henrietta Niven remarried in London in 1917 to Conservative politician and diplomat Sir Thomas Walter Comyn-Platt. David and his sister Grizel were close, and both loathed Comyn-Platt. The family moved to Rose Cottage in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight after selling their London home. In his 1971 memoir, The Moon's a Balloon, Niven wrote fondly of his childhood home:
It became necessary for the house in London to be sold and our permanent address was now as advertised—a cottage which had a reputation for unreliability. When the East wind blew, the front door got stuck and when the West wind blew, the back door could not be opened—only the combined weight of the family seemed to keep it anchored to the ground. I adored it and was happier there than I had ever been, especially because, with a rare flash of genius, my mother decided that during the holidays she would be alone with her children. Uncle Tommy was barred—I don't know where he went—to the Carlton Club I suppose.
Literary editor and biographer, Graham Lord, wrote in Niv: The Authorised Biography of David Niven, that Comyn-Platt and Niven's mother may have been in an affair well before her husband's death in 1915 and that Comyn-Platt was actually Niven's biological father, a supposition that had some support among Niven's siblings. In a review of Lord's book, Hugh Massingberd from The Spectator stated photographic evidence did show a strong physical resemblance between Niven and Comyn-Platt that "would appear to confirm these theories, though photographs can often be misleading." Niven is said to have revealed that he knew Comyn-Platt was his real father a year before his own death in 1983.
After his mother remarried, Niven's stepfather had him sent away to boarding school. In The Moon's a Balloon, Niven described the bullying, isolation, and abuse he endured as a six-year-old. He said that older pupils would regularly assault younger boys, while the schoolmasters were not much better. Niven wrote of one sadistic teacher:
Mr Croome, when he tired of pulling ears halfway out of our heads and delivering, for the smallest mistake in Latin declension, backhanded slaps that knocked one off one's bench, delighted in saying, 'Show me the hand that wrote this' — then bringing down the sharp edge of a heavy ruler across the offending wrist.
Years later, after joining the British Army, a vengeful Niven decided to return to the boarding school to pay a call on Mr Croome but he found the place abandoned and empty.
While attending schoolas was customary for the timeNiven received many instances of corporal punishment owing to his inclination for pranks. It was this behaviour that finally led to his expulsion from his next school, Heatherdown Preparatory School, at the age of. This ended his chances for Eton College, a significant blow to his family. After failing to pass the naval entrance exam because of his difficulty with maths, Niven attended Stowe School, a newly created public school led by headmaster J. F. Roxburgh, who was unlike any of Niven's previous headmasters. Thoughtful and kind, he addressed the boys by their first names, allowed them bicycles, and encouraged and nurtured their personal interests. Niven later wrote, "How he did this, I shall never know, but he made every single boy at that school feel that what he said and what he did were of real importance to the headmaster."
In 1928, while she was on holiday in Bembridge, 15-year-old Margaret Whigham had a sexual encounter with 18-year-old Niven, resulting in her pregnancy. Furious, her father rushed her to a London nursing home for a secret abortion. "All hell broke loose," remembered Elizabeth Duckworth, the Whigham family cook. Margaret Whigham adored Niven until the day he died; she was among the VIP guests at his London memorial service in 1983.
Career
Military service
From 1928, Niven attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He did well at Sandhurst, which gave him the "officer and gentleman" bearing that was his trademark. He requested assignment to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders or the Black Watch, then jokingly wrote on the form, as his third choice, "anything but the Highland Light Infantry". Having completed his training, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the British Army on 30 January 1930, and assigned to the Highland Light Infantry. He served with them for two years in Malta and then for a few months in Dover. In Malta, he became friends with the maverick Michael Trubshawe, and served under Roy Urquhart, future commander of the British 1st Airborne Division. On 21 October 1956, in an episode of the game show What's My Line?, Niven, as a member of the celebrity panel, was reacquainted with one of his former enlisted men. Alexander McGeachin was a guest and when his turn in the questioning came up, Niven asked, "Were you in a famous British regiment on Malta?" After McGeachin affirmed that he was, Niven quipped, "Did you have the misfortune to have me as your officer?" At that point, Niven had a brief but pleasant reunion.Niven grew tired of the peacetime army. Though promoted to lieutenant on 1 January 1933, he saw no opportunity for further advancement. 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 asked if there were any questions. Showing the typical rebelliousness of his early years, Niven asked, "Could you tell me the time, sir? I have to catch a train."
Lieutenant Niven resigned his commission on 6 September 1933.
Film career
1935–1938: Early roles
When Niven presented himself at Central Casting, he learned that he needed a work permit to reside and work in the United States. Since this required leaving the US, he went to Mexico, where he worked as a "gun-man", cleaning and polishing the rifles of visiting American hunters. He received his resident alien visa from the American consulate when his birth certificate arrived from Britain. He returned to the US and was accepted by Central Casting as "Anglo-Saxon Type No. 2,008." Among the initial films in which he can be seen are Barbary Coast and Mutiny on the Bounty. He secured a small role in A Feather in Her Hat at Columbia before returning to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a bit role, billed as David Nivens, in Rose Marie.Niven's role in Mutiny on the Bounty brought him to the attention of independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn, who signed him to a contract and established his career. For Goldwyn, Niven again had a small role in Splendor. He was lent to MGM for a minor part in Rose Marie, then a larger one in Palm Springs for Paramount Pictures. His first sizable role for Goldwyn came in Dodsworth. In that same year he was again loaned out, to 20th Century Fox to play Bertie Wooster in Thank You, Jeeves!, before landing a significant role as a soldier in The Charge of the Light Brigade at Warner Brothers, an Imperial adventure film starring his housemate at the time, Errol Flynn. Niven was fourth billed in Beloved Enemy for Goldwyn, supporting Merle Oberon with whom he was romantically involved. Universal Pictures used him in We Have Our Moments and he had a good supporting role in David O. Selznick's The Prisoner of Zenda.