- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJames David Graham Niven
- Nickname
- Niv
- Height5′ 11¼″ (1.81 m)
- His mother was the French Lady Comynyplatt Henrietta de Gacher, his father was the British Lieutenant William Graham Niven, who died in the war when David was six years old. Niven was considered a difficult child to educate and had to change schools often until he finally went to Sandhurst Military Academy. He came to Malta as a soldier, left the army here and went to Canada, where he worked as a lumberjack, bridge builder, journalist and whiskey salesman. After detours via New York and Cuba, Niven settled in California in 1934, where he had his first roles as an extra. He appeared in smaller films until the Second World War and then had to go to war for the British army.
In between, he also starred in propaganda films. Niven fought on the British front at Dunkirk and was promoted to colonel in 1944. General Eisenhower decorated him with the medals of the American Legion of Merit. From his first marriage to Primula Rollo, whom he married in 1940, Niven had two sons, David and Jamie. After his wife died in an accident in 1946, he married the Swede Hjordis Tersmeden in 1948, and his daughters Kristine and Fiona came from this marriage. In 1952, Niven founded the television production "Four Star TV" with Charles Boyer and other colleagues and starred in the self-produced series "The David Niven Show" and "Rogues Against Crooks". He had already been successful as an actor for a long time.
Niven starred in the 1946 English production of Error in the Afterlife and then returned to Hollywood. He celebrated successes with "The Virgin on the Roof", "Bonjour Tristesse", "The Guns of Navarone", "55 Days in Peking", "The Pink Panther", "Lady L." and with "Casino Royale". In 1959 he reached the peak of his success when he was honored with the Oscar for Best Actor for Separated from Table and Bed. His most beautiful film role was that of "Phileas Fogg" in the Jules Verne film adaptation "Around the World in 80 Days". Niven later demonstrated his enormous skills in many other films. In the 1970s and 1980s he starred in "Vampira", "A Corpse for Dessert", "Death on the Nile", "The Lion Shows its Claws" and in "Grandpa Seldom Comes Alone".
In 1982 and 1983 he had his last two roles in "The Pink Panther is Hunted" and "The Curse of the Pink Panther". Niven retired and lived on the Cote d'Azur and in Switzerland.
David Niven died on July 29, 1983 in Switzerland as a result of the nervous disease ALS. He made part of his inheritance available to medical research.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth
- SpousesHjördis Genberg(January 14, 1948 - July 29, 1983) (his death, 2 children)Primula Rollo(September 16, 1940 - May 21, 1946) (her death, 2 children)
- Children
- ParentsWilliam Edward Graham NivenHenriette Julia Degacher
- [names]: his characters are often named after his real-life friends, or refer to his real-life friends as sources of information.
- Charming public persona and characters
- Dry but sardonic English wit
- A natty dresser often with a thin moustache and slick hair
- At his funeral, the largest wreath was from the porters at Heathrow Airport. There was a card which read, "To the finest Gentlemen who ever walked these halls. He made a porter feel like a King".
- Became friends with Clark Gable during the 1930s. While Gable was serving in England during World War II, he used to stay over at the Nivens' cottage and spend time with Niven's wife and children. A few years later Niven's wife died in a tragic accident, and Gable did his best to comfort him. Niven said, "Clark was drawing on his own awful experience [his wife Carole Lombard 's tragic death] to steer me through mine".
- During his war service, his batman was Pvt. Peter Ustinov.
- After the UK declared war in 1939, he was one of the first expatriate British actors to go back and join the army. Although Niven had a reputation for telling good stories over and over again, he was totally silent about his war experience. He said once: "I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war".
- Once wrote that as a child, he felt superior to others. He attributed this to the fact that when reciting the Lord's Prayer in church, he thought for several years that the correct phrasing was, "Our Father, who art a Niven . . . "
- I've been lucky enough to win an Oscar, write a best-seller-my other dream would be to have a painting in the Louvre. The only way that's going to happen is if I paint a dirty one on the wall of the gentlemen's lavatory.
- [on Separate Tables (1958)] They gave me very good lines and then cut to Deborah Kerr while I was saying them.
- [during an Academy Award presentation. responding to the unexpected entrance of a streaker] Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?
- I have a face that is a cross between two pounds of halibut and an explosion in an old clothes closet.
- Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing games?
- Casino Royale (1967) - $500,000
- The Petrified Forest (1952) - $300
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