My Oscar winning fall from grace
Garbo naked in his pool, Bogart’s life in his hands, and the day his Swedish goddess was shot in the face… David Niven’s sparkling memoirs are bursting with captivating stories — none more so than his howler at the Academy Awards…
WITH coronavirus-induced fear gripping the nation, there’s never been a better time to revisit David Niven’s riotous memoirs. In yesterday’s extract, he told how his introduction to Hollywood was beset by scandal and tragedy alike. But as he reveals here, his bumpy ride was only just beginning . . .
The French have the perfect phrase for it — coup de foudre, literally the ‘strike of lightning’ or love at first sight. When it happened to me, it really did happen the way it does when written by the worst lady novelists... I goggled, I had difficulty swallowing, I had champagne in my knees. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life — tall, slim, auburn hair, uptilted nose, lovely mouth and the most enormous grey eyes I had even seen.
I first saw hjordis on the set of a terrible movie called Bonnie Prince Charlie (I was the bonny prince) and ten days later, we were married. She still swears that after we left Chelsea Register Office and headed to Southampton to catch the Queen elizabeth transatlantic liner, I suddenly said: ‘Oh! I nearly forgot, there are a couple of little things I have to pick up.’
According to her, I disappeared inside a country hotel and emerged with two small boys — my sons from my marriage to my late wife Primmie, who had been killed in a horrible accident two years earlier. On the trip to California, hjordis and I got to know each other a little better and the boys adored her.
Our home north of Los Angeles, the Pink house, came alive under her hand and became everything I had dreamed about as a home. At night, the coyotes hunted in yelping packs in the canyon below: in the morning, the deer grazed on the hill opposite and the sunsets over the Pacific must have been ordered by the Chamber of Commerce.
hjordis was Swedish and some highly decorative Scandinavian ladies now augmented the weekly gatherings. Viveca Lindfors and Signe hasso were often present; also the latest Miss Sweden — Anita ekberg. The first naked female my sons ever saw was Greta Garbo, swimming in our pool.
AFTeR three months of my new found happiness, the pleasant routine was shattered. My boss Sam Goldwyn called me to his office and told me he had great news and that I was very lucky: ‘I’ve just loaned you to Alexander Korda to make The elusive Pimpernel in england — you’ll be away six months.’
Aghast, I told him that I didn’t mind what he loaned me out for in hollywood but that I had no intention of uprooting my children again so soon. Then the shouting began. he reminded me he had picked me out of the gutter and given me my first break.
True. I riposted by saying that with the enormous fees he was charging others for my services, I had already repaid him a thousand times over . . . True.
Goldwyn pointed out that it would mean months of suspension if I refused... True. I said I looked forward to a good holiday anyway and I had plenty of money in the bank . . . UNTRUe.
Goldwyn flicked a switch and said: ‘Find out how much money
Niven has in the bank.’ Within three minutes a disembodied voice came back, ‘$111.’ True, sadly.
I decided to make life unpleasant for Goldwyn which was tantamount to an eight-year-old with a pea-shooter assaulting Fort Knox. everyone from hjordis downwards warned me. My agent was horrified and pointed out that in mogulcontrolled hollywood, one word from Goldwyn could sink me. I knew better, of course.
By using my holiday entitlement, my sick leave and every other petty excuse, I caused as much disruption as possible to the studio. I regret it now. Conduct such as mine, spoiled brat behaviour of the worst sort, was idiotic, conceited, indefensible and unforgivable: the sort of thing that helped bring hollywood to its knees.
Goldwyn fought back by giving me the most humiliating roles he could devise. The final straw came when I was hired out to play the heavy in a teenage Shirley Temple picture. I asked to see Goldwyn and as he sat expressionless, I said: ‘Look, Sam, we don’t see eye to eye any more. I have two years left of my contract — how about releasing me?’
he never took his eyes off me as he flicked his intercom lever. ‘Give Niven his release as from today … he’s through.’ The headlines read, ‘Niven Sacked — British Actor No Longer Goldwyn’s Cup Of Tea.’
My friend humphrey Bogart gave me the facts straight. ‘Let’s face it, kid — you’ve blown it. Keep going somehow, mortgage the house, sell the kids, dig a ditch, do anything but for Christ’s sake, never let them think they’ve got you running scared because somewhere in somebody’s desk is a script that’s right for you and when they dig it out — it’s you they’ll want and nobody else and everything’ll be forgotten.’ That was Bogie — life was either black or white.
Lauren ‘Betty’ Bacall was the perfect mate for Bogie . . . beautiful, fair, warm, talented and intelligent, she gave as good as she got in the strong personality department.
The first time I met them was at a surprise birthday party organised by Betty for her husband. Someone had been delegated to keep Bogie busy at the studio, to give us all time to arrive and hide.
When Bogie finally appeared, it was apparent how his busy time at the studio had been spent: he was
soused. Bogart was alarming to meet for the first time with his sardonic humour and his snarl that passed for a smile. It took a little while to realise that he had perfected a camouflage to cover up one of the kindest and most generous hearts.
Even so, he was no soft touch and before you were allowed to peek beneath the surface and catch a glimpse of the real man, you had to prove yourself. Above all, you had to demonstrate to his satisfaction that you were no phoney. My test came soon. He asked me if I liked to sail. ‘Done it all my life,’ I said, blithely.
Bogie looked at me reflectively and sucked his teeth. ‘OK, come aboard Santana Sunday.’ Women were only infrequently made welcome aboard Santana so Betty was not there when I boarded the 65ft ketch at Balboa. Tough and often argumentative ashore, I expected Bogie to be a veritable tyrant afloat.
Far from it, he was easy going, perfectly relaxed and highly efficient. I was lulled into a sense of false security and had no idea that this was the day of my entrance exam.
WE WErE sailing along in a good stiff breeze; Bogie was at the helm, I was beside him, the solitary crew — a Dane he called Dum Bum — was forward keeping a lookout because the stiff breeze was doing nothing to dispel a thick mist.
‘Tuna boats ahead,’ yelled Dum Bum suddenly. Sure enough we were running fast towards a dozen big drifters, each with its net trailing astern. It called for immediate action and because of the direction of the wind, there were only three solutions: one was correct, the second risky, and the third would have led to losing the mast.
Dum Bum was looking apprehensively at Bogie and I was just thinking to myself that he was leaving things dangerously late when he let go of the wheel, gave me a wolfish grin and said: ‘Take over, Big Shot — I’m going to the can.’
He disappeared below. Luckily, I knew what I was doing. I yelled a few orders which Dum Bum instantly obeyed, spun the wheel and the danger was past.
Bogart was a devoted family man who doted on his son, Stephen. When the boy was about five, we took little Stevie along with us on a trip to see Noel Coward in Las Vegas.
The great playwright was sitting in a deep sofa at Bogie’s one evening, discussing the problems of his show. Bogie and I were facing him in two easy chairs. Suddenly, we realised Stevie was stalking Noel from behind, his target the top of Noel’s head.
In his hands he bore a large brass tray. The impending assault was so horrible that Bogie and I just sat there unable to move like two dogs watching a snake. Little Stevie raised the tray high and brought it down with a crash on Noel’s unprotected cranium. His head almost disappeared into his shirt.
Noel never looked round. His voice did not change nor did the rhythm of his speech alter. ‘Bogart, dear,’ he said, ‘do you know what I am going to give darling little Stephen for Christmas? A chocolate-covered hand grenade.’
Even in Noel’s hands, a grenade is not the weapon of a gentleman. A shotgun can be, and for a time I took enormous pleasure in shooting. My wife never did — and one incident forced me to alter my attitude.
We were in New England for a weekend’s pheasant shooting with friends, when Hjordis announced: ‘I am not coming to watch you shoot, because I don’t want to be shot.’ We all tried to persuade her that it was safe, but she was adamant. ‘I know I am going to be shot — so I stay home.’
Finally, after much badinage about Scandinavian sixth sense, trolls and spooks, she reluctantly consented to join us. ‘But I will be shot,’ she said sadly. Less than an hour later, two guns turned to fire at a bird that was going back low and Hjordis fell to the ground, hit in the face, neck, chest and arms. I rushed over and I cradled her, moaning, in my arms.
Her beautiful face was a terribly swollen mask of blood; when she asked for a mirror, we pretended nobody had one. Within half an hour she was in hospital, where it was discovered that she had over 30 pieces of lead in her, including one which to this day remains embedded in the bone of her eye socket.
SINCE film parts were in short supply, I turned my talents to the stage and a French farce called Nina. In the original, it had been a great success. In English, it was pretty bad. The star was Gloria Swanson, who insisted on designing her own eccentric outfits for every stop on the tour.
When Swanson stepped on stage, she did it enveloped in a black taffeta tent. A gasp of horror mingled with the applause. As she smiled seductively at her lover, I was supposed to smile back — but I was so nervous and my mouth so dry that my upper lip became stuck above my teeth.
I stood there leering at her like a mad rabbit. The Bedouin tent, with Swanson’s head sticking out of the top of it, rustled across the stage and flung itself into my arms.
Swanson is not tall. She is, to put it mildly, petite, so when I clasped her to me, the top of her head nestled just to the right of my breast-bone.
Unfortunately, in my terror of the whole situation, I squeezed too hard in that initial clinch. There was a loud report. This was followed by a twanging noise and about eight inches of white whalebone shot out of Swanson’s chest, and straight up my nose. The audience was delighted — something new at last.
Swanson half turned to see what was happening, thereby stirring the whalebone around in my sinus.
Tears of pain streamed down my face but in my innocence of things theatrical, I thought maybe it didn’t show and with the whalebone crunching about among the scroll bones, and with my gopher teeth gleaming in the limelight, I carried bravely on with the scene. The audience hooted, and the ‘flop sweat’ broke out all over me like dew.
DOWN in the area of my navel, Swanson hissed: ‘What the hell’s going on?’ The critic for the Herald Tribune, wrote: ‘We understood from the programme that Miss Swanson designed her own clothes . . . like the play, they fell apart in the first act.’
But that disaster was the first step on my road to rehabilitation. Seven years later, I starred in Separate Tables by Terrence rattigan, and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor. On the night, Irene Dunne opened the envelope and, after an interminable pause, read out my name. There was a roar. I didn’t wait to diagnose whether it was a roar of approval or rage.
I kissed Hjordis, leapt to my feet and with tail coat flapping, I cantered down the aisle, thinking: ‘I’ve got to get there quick before she changes her mind.’ Such was my haste to get on that stage that I tripped up the steps and sprawled headlong. Another roar rent the air.
Irene helped me up, gave me the Oscar, kissed me on the cheek and left me alone with the microphone. I thought I should explain my precipitous entrance, so I said: ‘The reason I just fell down was . . .’
I had intended to continue: ‘... because I was so loaded with good luck charms that I was top heavy.’ Unfortunately, I made an idiot pause after the word ‘loaded’ and a third roar raised the roof.
I knew that I could never top that, so I said no more on the subject, thereby establishing myself as the first self-confessed drunk to win the Academy Award.
EXTRACTED from the Moon’s a Balloon by david Niven, published by Penguin, £9.99. © david Niven 1971.