Bring On The Empty Horses

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Missie had been unnaturally clam during his visit but the storm broke when he asked if she had a girlfriend who could come and sit with her “because you might feel drowsy and you don’t want to take a fall.” He is nothing if not an individualist: a raconteur of style and sophistication and a writer with imagination and a sense of pace . . . It adds to his stature * Coventry Evening Telegraph * In Thespian Praise of: David Niven". Paulburgin.blogspot.com. 25 January 2006 . Retrieved 24 September 2010.

He is nothing if not an individualist: a raconteur of style and sophistication and a writer with imagination and a sense of pace . . . It adds to his stature - Coventry Evening TelegraphPace, Eric (30 July 1983). "David Niven Dead at 73; Witty Actor Won Oscar". The New York Times. p.1.

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: Recommendation for Award for Niven, John David Rank: Lieutenant Colonel" (fee usually required to view full pdf of original recommendation). DocumentsOnline. The National Archives . Retrieved 7 April 2009. BRING ON THE EMPTY HORSES is a delight from start to finish. With shrewdness and warmth . . . Niven brings us to Hollywood in its golden prime, from the early '30s to the age of TV. Above all, he brings us them - the outstanding stars, producers, directors, writers, tycoons and oddballs, many of whom were his friends . . . An inspired mix of descriptions, impressions, and anecdotes. - Publishers Weekly Morley, Sheridan (5 September 2016). The Other Side of the Moon: The Life of David Niven. Dean Street Press. ISBN 978-1-911413-63-9. I’ll get you some more pills,” he said, and showed me where he would leave them by the gate. “They’re strong sedatives; it’ll make your life much easier if she’ll take them..is she eating anything?”Greenfield, George (1 January 1995). A Smattering of Monsters: A Kind of Memoir. Camden House Publishing. pp.187–. ISBN 978-1-57113-071-6. I moved straight on to this from "The Moon's a Balloon", which I felt glossed over a lot of his Hollywood days. The good news is that this book gives a bit more detail about that major era in David's life. Look darling,” I said, ” you can sit up there on the floor as long as you like, but I’m bored, and I want to watch television.” In 1971, he published his autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon, which was well received, selling over five million copies. He followed this with Bring On the Empty Horses in 1975, a collection of entertaining reminiscences from the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s. As more of a raconteur rather than an accurate memoirist, it seems that Niven recounted many incidents from a first-person perspective that actually happened to other people, among them Cary Grant. [4] This liberal borrowing and embroidering of his personal history was also said to be the reason why he persistently refused to appear on This Is Your Life. [35] Niven's penchant for exaggeration and embroidery is particularly apparent when comparing his written descriptions of his early film appearances (especially Barbary Coast and A Feather in her Hat), and his Oscar acceptance speech, with the actual filmed evidence. In all three examples, the reality is significantly different from Niven's heavily fictionalised accounts as presented in The Moon's a Balloon and related in various chat show appearances.

It was soon over, and as she began to calm down I avoided her eyes, filled as they were with such blazing hatred at my base betrayal. On one particularly troubling occasion, Niven claims that Flynn (who was tried and acquitted of statutory rape by two women in the early 1940s) invited him to go view “the best-looking girls in L.A.” Allegedly, Flynn then drove them down Sunset Boulevard, parking directly across from Hollywood High just as school was letting out. “Jailbait,” he told Niven. “ San Quentin Quail. What a waste!” When a policeman approached the car to ask what exactly they were doing, Flynn retorted, “We are just admiring the scenery.”It does seem a bit confusing with all the different versions.In Larry’s book, “Confessions of an actor,” he said he and Danny Kaye needed to get Vivien on a plane from Hollywood to London. She had to be sedated, and Larry and Danny had to hold Vivien down, who was terrified of needles. Within twenty minutes I drove up to the little white garden gate and jumped out of the car. Mae was waiting for me. She was shaking. She clutched my arm and repeated over and over, “She’s possessed! She’s possessed! She’s throwed me out!…I’m quittin’…I’m quittin’!”

This is David’s harrowing account. Because Vivien was a good friend of David’s, he used a bunch of red herrings so that people would not easily be able to identify her: Oh!” she said mysteriously. “They will be coming for me one day…They want to take me away, but you won’t them, will you?” Are you screwing her?” he asked. “What the hell do you know about it?…you’re not her goddamn physician..where is she? i want to talk with her.” A Thanksgiving service for Niven was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 27 October 1983. The congregation of 1,200 included Prince Michael of Kent, Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, Sir John Mills, Sir Richard Attenborough, Trevor Howard, David Frost, Joanna Lumley, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Laurence Olivier. [47] Biographer Graham Lord wrote, "the biggest wreath, worthy of a Mafia Godfather's funeral, was delivered from the porters at London's Heathrow Airport, along with a card that read: 'To the finest gentleman who ever walked through these halls. He made a porter feel like a king. '" [48] Missie seemed to sense that something was going to happen. For the fist time her eyes lost their wild look; she seemed calm, almost normal and very vulnerable. She followed me wherever I went. Also, for the first time, she talked about her husband. She had not mentioned him once during the whole time I had been with her. “I hope he comes to see me,” she said sadly. It was eerie.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." [11] Niven is said to have revealed that he knew Comyn-Platt was his real father a year before his own death in 1983. [12] At six the next day, refreshed, but with a leaden conscience and a three day growth of beard, I drove on my way to the airport, through the peaceful emptiness of the early morning streets. A few kids were already abroad, experimenting with brightly colored bikes, and some early risers in curlers and bedroom slippers were retrieving carelessly delivered Sunday papers from beneath bushes in their front gardens. At the doctor’s car he said, “There’s no question..the girl’s in big trouble and must go in for psychiatric treatment at once.” Parts, initially small, in major motion pictures followed, including Dodsworth (1936), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). By 1938, he was starring as a leading man in films such as Wuthering Heights (1939). 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 (1942). James David Graham Niven was born on 1 March 1910 at Belgrave Mansions, Grosvenor Gardens, London, to William Edward Graham Niven (1878–1915) and his wife, Henrietta Julia (née Degacher) Niven (1878–1932). [3] 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. [4] He had two older sisters and a brother: Margaret Joyce Niven (1900–1981), Henry Degacher Niven (1902–1953), and the sculptor Grizel Rosemary Graham (1906–2007), who created the bronze sculpture Bessie that is presented to the annual winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction.