Passions: The wonderfully indiscreet memoirs of David Niven

Actor’s account of Hollywood’s golden age still entertains decades later

Although he won an Oscar for his turn in 1958’s Separate Tables, David Niven was the first to admit that he was never the most talented of actors. Instead, his gift was to charm and beguile people, forming lifelong friendships with some of the biggest stars of the 20th century.

I was 14 or 15 when I first picked up a tattered copy of his 1971 memoir, ‘The Moon’s a Balloon’, in a Greenock charity shop. As a teenager growing up in Inverclyde, the appeal of Niven’s tome ought to have been obvious, with its fantastical stories of impossibly extravagant parties in far-flung locales. Yet it was never the glamour of Niven’s life that drew me in, but the wanton indiscretion with which he wrote about it.

That, I suppose, is the reason the book, and its follow up, ‘Bring on the Empty Horses’, were among the bestselling non-fiction books of their day. Niven was a gleefully louche and gossipy chronicler of the so-called golden age of Hollywood. At a time when the stars of the old studio system remained inscrutable, Niven’s books prised open the lid.

There are too many anecdotes to recount, and they should be relished first hand, but a personal favourite is Niven’s account of starring in an ill-fated play alongside Gloria Swanson, the silent film star with a penchant for designing her own costumes. Another highlight is Niven’s retelling of the disastrous New York premiere of Pinocchio in 1940, an event which ended with the police being called.

The latter story, which I won’t spoil, has been disputed over the years, and there seems little doubt that Niven generously embroidered his anecdotes, some of which were borrowed from peers. Most of the time, his deceit was in service of his desire to entertain, but his writing also ignored numerous personal infidelities, and skirted around his disastrously unhappy second marriage; Niven’s life was one filled with hilarity and celebration, but it also had its fair share of tragedy.

I have lost count of the amount of times I have bought both books over the years. They remain a staple of charity shops up and down the country, and whenever I find a copy, I invariably pick one up to pass on, or simply leave in a cafe in the hope that someone will stumble across their magic accounts of a bygone age.

Martyn McLaughlin is investigations correspondent at The Scotsman