by David Niven
This happened to me in full measure and I also believe at the same time I went a little mad. I began to resent and avoid the married friends who had showered me with kindness and protection when I had so badly needed it. Perhaps I was jealous of their happiness. Perhaps I was ashamed that they had seen me at my weakest and most vulnerable. This phase lasted several months, and, bewildered and hurt, some wonderful people must have found my coldness most difficult to understand.
The Pink House in the spring was a dream place for the children. They took swimming lessons in the pool. Peach trees, avocados, pomegranates, cherries, oranges, limes, lemons and guavas were in full blossom. Phantom dashed about the lawn chasing humming birds, the bantams crowed and the rabbits bred in great profusion. I planted a hundred rose bushes and at last, I, too, began to feel roots going down and some happiness seeping back up again. The boys were settling down marvellously, and some pattern for the future seemed to be emerging. I was, therefore, appalled when Goldwyn called me in and told me he had loaned me to Alexander Korda to make Bonnie Prince Charlie in England.
‘You’ll be away at least eight months,’ he said.
I begged him not to send me and pointed out that not only would it disrupt the children’s lives, it would also make new and hideous problems for me with the Inland Revenue.
He was adamant so I refused to go. Immediately, I was put on suspension. Knowing that I was up to my ears in debt because of the Pink House, Goldwyn sat back and waited for me to crack. It didn’t take long and in the autumn, Pinkie and I packed up two resentful and mystified little boys and started the long trek back to England.
Korda, whose home was the Penthouse at Claridge’s, was quite understandably surprised when I spurned the accommodation he had reserved for me in that excellent hostelry. I kept a room there for myself and moved the family into a country hotel near Shepperton Studios.
Bonnie Prince Charlie was one of those huge florid extravaganzas that reek of disaster from the start. There was never a completed screenplay and never at any time during the eight months we were shooting were the writers more than two days ahead of the actors.
We suffered three changes of director with Korda himself, for a time, desperately taking over and at one point I cabled Goldwyn as follows:
I HAVE NOW WORKED EVERY DAY FOR FIVE MONTHS ON THIS PICTURE AND NOBODY CAN TELL ME HOW THE STORY ENDS STOP ADVISE.
He didn’t even bother to answer.
I loved Alex Korda, a brilliant, generous dreamer, but with this film he was wallowing around in his own self-created confusion. I felt sorry for him but I felt much sorrier for myself as the Bonnie Prince who would assuredly bear the blame for the impending debacle and for Margaret Leighton and Jack Hawkins gallantly, against appalling odds, trying to infuse some semblance of reality into Flora MacDonald and Lord George Murray.
After nine frustrating months, the Bonnie Prince clanked towards its close. One more week, one more battle, one last mad charge and I would be rid of him. (Whenever we actors really started to breathe down the writers’ necks, Korda ordered another battle to delay us for a few more days.)
The director at this point was a robust, hearty and immensely nice ex-naval commander—Anthony Kimmins. No fool, he knew only too well that he was captain of a movie ship heading like an arrow for the rocks, but bravely, he covered up and issued his orders to the several hundred extras as though he were Lord Louis Mountbatten addressing the, crew of a badly listing destroyer.
‘Now, Bonnie Prince Charlie has just won a great victory! You brave Highlanders have captured the English colours! When he comes out of his tent over there, I want all you Highlanders to give him a big cheer! Let him know you all love him!’
The wild Highlanders, in scruffy red wigs and uncertain kilts, were almost entirely recruited from London’s East End. As I came out of the tent for the first ‘take’, there was scattered cheering. Then, crystal clear in the morning air came a fruity Cockney voice.
‘Oi! David…we’ve got their fuckin’ flag!!!’
The second ‘happening’ on that most important day came during the charge itself.
I was careering bravely along, skimming over the studio heather at the head of my Highlanders pursuing the fleeing redcoats, when suddenly, claymore in hand, I found myself flying through the air. I still believe Jack Hawkins tripped me. In any event, my sword sank deep into the leg of the redcoat in front of me. It went in with an appalling ‘thonk’ just behind the knee and pinned him to the ground.
‘Cut!’ yelled the director (an unnecessary observation). Several women, hairdressers and other camp followers, screamed.
I pulled out the blade, trying not to throw up. The man got up and ran off with a pronounced limp. I chased after him.
‘Are you all right?…I’m terribly sorry!…We’ll get a doctor!’
‘Wot’s the matter, mate?’ asked the man.
‘Your leg,’ I blabbered, ‘my sword!…It went right in! We’ll get a doctor!’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘thought I felt something…not to worry though, David.’ He rolled up the bottom of his trousers. His name was Bob Head. He had lost the original leg at El Alamein. ‘ Happenings go in threes. I was dismissed early that evening and hurried off to get changed so I could go and play with the children. Because of the hours we had been working, I hadn’t seen them for days. The gateman stopped me.
‘Sorry, David—they just phoned up—they need you for one more shot.’ Furious, I stalked back into Make-up. Sullenly, I sat while the yellow wig was pinned on my resisting head and once more, like a spoilt child whose picnic has been cancelled by bad weather. I glowered my way on to the set, and snarled at the prop man.
‘Where the hell’s my chair?’
‘Over there, David…there’s a lady in it.’
‘Then get her out of it!’ I snapped. ‘Take a look,’ whispered Hawkins in my ear. ‘Take a look.’
The French have the right word—coup de foudre…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.
It really happened the way it does when written by the worst lady novelists…I goggled. I had difficulty swallowing and I had champagne in my knees.
‘Fen days later, we were married.
During the whirlwind courtship, there was a lot of activity. First of all, it turned out she was Swedish which posed all sorts of strange problems with the marriage authorities. Also, she didn’t speak English too well which helped matters not at all when it came to explaining to them that she had landed in England en route from America to Sweden as the plane had been grounded because of sudden fog at London Airport and a friend on board had invited her to visit a film studio, etcetera.
I had my problems too. I had to complete the Bonnie Prince, find gifts for all the crew, present Hjordis to Bill Rollo who adored her on sight and was gay and happy for me through his own sadness; I also had to submit to a series of loathsome meetings with the Inland Revenue because I had returned without being away for three years.
‘But I was sent, dammit, by the American company that employs me…If I had refused, I would have broken my contract.’
‘Well, we should read the small print before signing these foreign things, shouldn’t we?’
Also, I had to find a ring, track down Trubshawe, who was to be best man again, and make all the arrangements to return quickly to California, where Goldwyn was holding up the start of my next picture.
Small wonder that I had a mini-collapse and when the official at the Chelsea Register Office warned me pompously against the dangers of marrying a foreigner, I could barely croak at him to ‘shut up and get on with at’. The number one model of Sweden found herself married to a man with red eyes, a running nose and a fever of 103°F.
Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie gave us a wedding party in her little house strategically placed midway between the stables of Buckingham Palace and Watney’s brewery, and next day we drove to
Southampton to board the Queen Elizabeth.
Hjordis still swears that on the way there, 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 later with two small boys.
On the trip to California, we got to know each other a little better and the little boys adored her.
She loved the Pink House and rose magnificently to the occasion of being pitchforked into the middle of all my old friends. McClain, Coote and Mike Romanoff gave her a ‘welcome’ party to make it easier and her gaiety and beauty captivated everyone.
Life Magazine had a ‘spread’ of the ten most beautiful women in Hollywood and Hjordis appeared on the cover. This generated a stampede of producers with offers of contracts but, mercifully, she just laughed and said she was too busy getting to know her husband.
The Pink House came alive under her hand and became everything I had dreamed about as a home. At night, the coyotes hunted in weirdly 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.
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 happily in our pool. ‘Goldwynisms’ had been so widely quoted…’…include me out,’
‘a verbal contract is not worth the paper it is written on,’ and of a 14th-century sundial, ‘What will they think of next?’, etc., that for a while I was suspicious that Goldwyn might foster the legend by dreaming up new ones for himself, but I don’t believe this was the case. I heard him let loose many of them but I think his mind was so far ahead of what he was saying that he left it to his tongue to take care of thoughts he had left behind. In fact, he had great dignity but when thwarted, he tended to shout loudly.
After three months of my new found happiness, the pleasant routine was shattered. 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 Alex 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 again so soon. Then the shouting began. He reminded me that 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 ryas 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, ‘One hundred and eleven dollars…’…True, unfortunately.
Defeated, I prepared, once more, to make the necessary travel arrangements. I lived in Hollywood for nearly twenty years without visiting a psychiatrist but my behaviour during the next few weeks was indicative of an unhinged mind and it was a pity I did not ‘get help’.
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 mogul-controlled Hollywood, one word from Goldwyn could sink me. I knew better, of course, and proceeded very methodically to sink myself. At the last minute, I refused to fly to London to keep the starting date of Korda’s picture and insisted, instead, on being sent by train to New York and by boat—eleven days to Liverpool. Hjordis remained loyal but mystified throughout the trip. Once in London, I cabled Goldwyn reminding him that under the terms of my contract, I had six weeks’ holiday each year and unless I was given my holiday at once before Pimpernel started, the contract would be broken as there would be no time left between the end of the picture and the end of the year.
TAKE SIX WEEKS HOLIDAY IMMEDIATELY GOLDWYN
—came the answer.
THANKS VERY MUCH WILL TAKE HOLIDAY FROM TIME YOU RETURN ME TO MY HOME IN CALIFORNIA NIVEN.
Poor, blameless Alex Korda, who wanted only to see his picture started, found himself in the middle of this lunacy. He offered me his yacht Elsewhere to go anywhere at his expense, but my mental imbalance was such that I forced Goldwyn to return me to the Pink House by boat and train: then, the next day, I flew with Hjordis to Bermuda for a delayed honeymoon. Honeymoons are a great institution for getting to know one’s spouse and the more I saw of Hjordis, the more amazed I was at my good fortune. The luck, the unbelievable luck that one man should meet, fall head-over-heels in love, marry within ten days and be blissfully happy—twice in a lifetime! I revelled in Hjordis’s forthrightness, honesty and laughter and the holiday sped by. Towards the end, a full-scale hurricane hit the island—a nasty reminder of the impending storm with Goldwyn.
Six weeks to the day from the moment I had been brought back to California, I reported to the studio for work. Rather naturally, Goldwyn did not wish to see me and I detected a certain coldness towards me all over the Lot. Conduct such as mine, spoiled brat behaviour of the worst sort, was idiotic, conceited, indefensible and unforgiveable: the sort of thing that helped bring Hollywood to its knees.
Goldwyn, of course, had no further use for me and all the direst predictions came true. When we came back from England upon the completion of The Pimpernel, I was immediately loaned out to play the ‘heavy’ in a Shirley Temple picture, a disastrous teenage pot-boiler.
‘Big shots’ at other studios counselled me to break my contract with Goldwyn—‘just walk in there and tell him—the hell with it!…tell him you want OUT…then come and join us, we have a million properties for you!’ I fell for that—it was not my finest hour. I asked to see Goldwyn and as he sat expressionless behind his desk, 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 Moon’s a Balloon ∧
FIFTEEN
Hjordis sounded doubtful when I told her the good news. ‘Where will you work now?’ she asked.
Where indeed? There is no question but that the Black List existed in Hollywood at that time but I have absolutely no proof that Goldwyn invoked its use in my case. On the other hand, the fact remains that the flattering studio ‘big shots’, who had painted such glowing pictures of my future with them once I was free of Goldwyn, were suddenly unobtainable. When I called their offices, the voices of their secretaries changed subtly from fawning to evasive or even to faintly hostile.
Headlines put out by the Goldwyn Publicity Department were no great help—
GOLDWYN DROPS NIVEN
NIVEN FIRED
BRITISH ACTOR NO LONGER GOLDWYN’S CUP OF TEA.
Hjordis was nothing short of stoic because only too soon there was a shortage of cash. Nothing was coming in, every thing was going out and the reserves were melting like butter on a hot stove. Friends such as the Astaires and the Fairbanks tried to cheer me by reporting that, at the latest Goldwyn dinner party, my photograph was still on the piano, but nobody suggested I should try a reconciliation.
Bogart, as usual, was down to earth.
‘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.’ Bogie’s life was either black or white—he had little patience with the greys, s
o he simply did not understand when I accepted the first offer that came along after months of near panic.
‘You should’ve held out, kid—this is crap,’ he said when I showed him the script.
The film, The Toast of New Orleans at M.G.M. was a success thanks only to the fact that it launched Mario Lanza’s golden voice and with the proceeds, Hjordis happily paid the bills one short step ahead of the sheriff: The next picture was even worse—an appalling travesty of a costume thriller. The result was so bad that the audience thought it was a comedy and as such it became faintly successful.
‘Get outta town, kid,’ growled Bogart. ‘They gotta have time to forget that one.’
I took his advice, let the Pink House for a year, took the whole family to England, and moved into a haunted manor house in Wiltshire on the edge of the Downs.
Hjordis somehow remained calm and outwardly unaffected by the rapid changes in our fortunes but my new role as a country squire was hard for her to digest. I had a ‘gun’ in the local syndicate dedicated to the slaughter of pheasants. I had a ‘rod’ on the River Kennet for the purpose of killing trout and I had a private pew in the village church (complete with hidden stove) for the good of my soul.
In the autumn she came rushing to find me—‘Hurry! hurry! hurry! the garden is full of dogs and men blowing trumpets!’
Philip Hardwicke and Philip Dunne as joint Masters of the local foxhounds were merely following tradition. The opening meet was held each year at our Manor House. Hjordis, in tight, blue jeans and a white T–shirt with PALM SPRINGS RODEO written across her bosom, was a welcome if incongruous sight when I despatched her outside with bottles of port and slices of fruit cake.
In England, we were able to catch up with Trubshawe, Coote, with Noel Coward and with the Oliviers who had moved into an Elizabethan abbey, near Thame. Arguments waxed and waned at Notley; causes were defended or attacked with vigour and professional reputations came under withering fire but there were few tears and gales of laughter, particularly, when accompanied on the piano by an hysterical Vivien, Larry, dead seriously, would sing The Messiah.
