David Niven

by Michael Munn

  John Roxburgh was a young man, only 35. He wasn’t like the old masters who believed that discipline could only be administered by use of the cane. He was incredibly tolerant and understanding, and he would actually listen to any boy who had a problem or a grievance.

  I went to him soon after I started there because I’d decided that I was going to begin as I meant to go on, causing problems and trying to make myself stand out from the crowd and be liked. So I went to him and said, ‘Now see hear, Mr Roxburgh. The food here is disgusting. Not fit for animals. Who’s doing the cooking? Chimpanzees? Just look at this boil I’ve got?’ And I showed him what looked like a boil on my neck, modelled rather well, I thought, on the one I had at Worthing, only this one was made out of a red chewy sweet I’d sucked on for a while, moulded into shape and then stuck on my neck.

  He looked at it very gravely, went ‘Tut! Tut!’ and said, ‘This won’t do at all.’

  I said, ‘I know how to get rid of it. Give me a pair of scissors, please.’

  He said, ‘But surely you’re not going to cut it off. That could give you a terrible infection and you’d become gravely ill.’

  I said, ‘It’s no problem. I have a special antibody in my blood which fights infections.’ I was going to snip it off and then baffle him over the next week as I remained perfectly healthy.

  He said, ‘I have a better idea,’ and he reached slowly and carefully out towards my fake boil, and as though he were suddenly grabbing a poisonous spider he whipped the boil off my neck and said, ‘Look at that. Not a mark has been left.’ And then he ran the boil under his nose, sniffed a bit and said, ‘Strawberry. Nice try, Niven. Goodbye.’

  I was more annoyed that he’d bested me than anything, and I went out and slammed the door and stood there a moment or two, and then I heard him laughing like a drain. And I knew that he was a good sort after all, and best of all, I’d made him laugh. He was an actual human being, and I made up my mind to be like him and not cause him any more trouble. And that’s how I stopped being such a poisonous little bastard!

  Because of his love of chocolates, David put on a lot of weight and became quite fat, earning him the nickname Podger. His weight problem subsided as he went through puberty, and by the time he was 14, he was fit and strong and playing rugby. He was also drinking, but not heavily. He told me, ‘I only got drunk once as a young man. I’d just turned 14 and polished off half a bottle of brandy. I don’t know how I got there but I was found face down under a rhododendron bush. I was so ill that I quickly learned to hold my drink like a gentleman.’

  For the rest of his life, like many actors, David drank but, unlike many drinking actors, never got drunk – well, hardly ever.

  CHAPTER 3

  —

  Lovely Delicious Tarts

  During the school holidays, David, then 14, returned to his family who had moved to a large house at 110 Sloane Street in Chelsea, London. Joyce, who was then 24, was living at home, and Max had returned from a stint in the Navy and then the Army before resigning his commission. Sixteen-year-old Grizel also returned for the school holidays. ‘It was a packed house,’ David told me. ‘There were a couple of maids, and my whole family, and there was no room for me. So Uncle Tommy sent me away every night to sleep in a boarding house in St James’s Place. It was a dreadful hole with an iron bed and a floor with no carpet.

  ‘I made my own way there by bus, and I actually found I enjoyed this new sense of freedom and got more adventurous and went exploring Piccadilly Circus where there were lots of lovely young prostitutes.’

  David began The Moon’s a Balloon by writing about Nessie, a 17-year-old blonde prostitute with ‘a pair of legs that went on for ever’, who he met during his Easter holiday. He followed her for three nights until she noticed him, took him to her flat and, upon discovering he didn’t have the three pounds required for her services, took pity on him and gave him his first taste of sex without charge.

  His description of that first night as written in his book, and in the abbreviated version he gave to me in 1970, was hilarious, and he entertained many people with it, especially TV audiences, when The Moon’s a Balloon was published in 1971.

  He met her often to go to music halls and theatres, and then returned to her flat for more sexual antics. He said to me, ‘She was my sex education. But she meant a whole lot more than that to me. She was my first love. I know it sounds unlikely, but I was 14 years old and I had the most enormous crush on this slightly older girl who taught me how to fuck. I lost a lot of my fat through plenty of wonderful fucking. I can recommend it as a way to lose weight. Much better than dieting.

  ‘She came to Stowe to watch a cricket match. She wanted to meet Mr Roxburgh. I was mortified what he might think of her, but she didn’t look like a tart at all, and he was quite taken with her. She talked with such a strong Cockney accent that she sounded like Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, but she charmed Roxburgh and everyone who met her.’

  David did an impression of her for me, and it sounded like the worst kind of Hollywood version of a Cockney accent, but it was hilarious. David and I often did impressions, possibly giving the best worst impressions ever, and we always got into hysterics when we did them, such as when we compared Cary Grant impressions. Those are the kinds of moments I shared with David that I treasure. I did, however, do a much better Cockney than he since that was the accent I had as a kid.

  Over the years since The Moon’s a Balloon which introduced Nessie to the world, there has been much speculation over whether she was an invention, or maybe a composite of several different prostitutes. He certainly took advantage of prostitutes now and then. ‘Sometimes I just want the pleasure without the pain of emotion,’ he once told me.

  I discovered more about the authenticity of Nessie when, in 1985, I interviewed actress Ann Todd – she was making a film called The McGuffin – and she told me that she had actually met Nessie. ‘He brought her to see a play I was in,’ she said. ‘He’d never mentioned her before and he just turned up at the theatre with this girl and said, “Ann, this is my dear friend Nessie,” and I wondered how dear she was to him. When I read The Moon’s a Balloon, I found out.’

  When he talked enthusiastically about Nessie to me in 1970, he said, ‘Can you imagine what it was like for a 14-year-old boy with testosterone surging to find himself the benefactor of a generous and very pretty little whore?’

  He obviously expected me to say no, but I took him by surprise by saying, ‘Yes.’ Then I added, ‘Well, not at 14. I was 17.’

  That intrigued and fascinated him and he demanded that I elucidate, and I only do so here, briefly, because it led to something that happened. I had been making my way through St Anne’s Court, an alley leading off Wardour Steet which was jammed with strip clubs, porn shops and doorways that had cards reading ‘French Model first floor’, when I was hailed by a young woman leaning out of a first floor window. I thought she needed my help so up I went, and met Annie, a prostitute who discovered that not only did I not have a clue why she had invited me up to her room but also that I couldn’t afford to pay her for what she was offering on my £5 a week salary. So she gave me a freebie, followed by tea and biscuits. From then on I popped in at least one morning every week – just for tea and biscuits and a chat. There were no more freebies, and I never paid. But I did enjoy her company and she seemed to like mine.

  David was delighted by my story and, seemingly desperate to meet her, positively insisted I introduced him. I resisted his request, but he was adamant, so I arranged for an introduction. She was extremely excited at the prospect of meeting David Niven, and so on what was my last day with him I took him to meet her. Not surprisingly, she was immediately won over by his charm, and he was equally won over by her Cockney wit and fine legs. Annie wasn’t what you would call beautiful but she was appealing and voluptuous.

  David insisted that he take Annie and I for lunch, and so off we went to an Italian restaurant nearby called Quo Vadis where he entertained u
s with stories of Nessie and many of his other exploits that may or may not have ever really happened.

  After that, David often met Annie on his visits to London when she provided him with the kind of ‘pleasure without the pain of emotion’ he often sought. I think she reminded him of Nessie. She was a common girl, very much a tart, but literally the tart with a heart of gold. She was also very fussy about her clients and always insisted they used condoms. David always carried a supply, just in case.

  He once told me, ‘I do love tarts. Always have.’

  He called her Saint Annie of St Anne’s Court.

  He didn’t just use Annie for sex. He really liked her company and often took her for lunch. Sometimes I’d go along too.

  David told me that if I wanted to take advantage of Saint Annie’s services he would gladly pay because he knew I couldn’t afford to. I asked him why he would do such a thing and he replied, ‘Because I can.’

  I thanked him and said that I had a girlfriend who I wouldn’t be unfaithful to.

  ‘It’s not cheating,’ he said. ‘Not when you pay. Besides, you’re not married, are you?’

  I liked David a great deal, but I never understood his moral values. And I never took him up on his generous offer. That always baffled him.

  One day in 1972 Annie simply disappeared, moving away without telling me, and I never saw her again. When David was in London to promote the paperback edition of The Moon’s a Balloon in 1973, he said to me, ‘Where on earth is Saint Annie?’ I told him I had no idea.

  ‘What a pity,’ he said. ‘I did love seeing her. She reminded me so much of my Nessie. Both of them were tarts. Lovely delicious tarts.’

  In 1982 he recalled Annie and asked me what I thought had happened to her. I said that I hoped she had simply given up her profession and perhaps married someone who could take care of her.

  He said, ‘That’s what happened to Nessie.’

  ‘Did you ever see her again?’ I asked.

  ‘I did, as a matter of fact. In 1973. I was in the States doing a tour, and she got in touch with me and asked if we could meet. I hadn’t seen her for many years. I waited in a coffee shop on the highway, and in walked a rather matronly, stout, middle-aged lady with a tight grey perm who sat down and said, “I married an American who’s done rather well for himself, and we live in Seattle and I’m head of the Women’s Institute.” She was a grandmother, and sad to say there was nothing between us. No spark of friendship at all. People change and move on.’

  He looked genuinely sad.

  ‘So Nessie was really real,’ I said, having been dying to ask him outright for so many years.

  ‘Oh my God, yes. So long ago.’

  I asked him how he had been able to cope with having a girlfriend who was a prostitute. He said, ‘I was totally obsessed by her. She could have been a mass murderer and I would have still loved her. I was young and infatuated, and I had wonderful sex with her. I’ve been addicted to sex ever since.’

  And so at the age of 14 David was having what he said was ‘very good sex’ and was a lot happier for it. He was also happy at Stowe School, and had begun to entertain friends and teachers by creating characters, such as a man who had eaten mothballs, having mistaken them for peppermints, or an elegant, gracious lady trying to be polite about a Christmas present she detested. He turned these impressions into short sketches to perform on stage in shows that he helped to put on at the end of each term.

  ‘My first taste of being on stage,’ he told me, ‘was being in the Chandos House end of term concerts which I did because I simply wanted to be liked. I had no thought at all of being an actor. It never occurred to me.’

  When Major Richard Haworth founded an Officer Training Corps, David joined and spent 10 days during the summer of 1925 at an Officer Training Camp in Salisbury Plain where he performed in the camp concert, held in a huge tent, before hundreds of his peers. He portrayed a dull-witted officer, Major General Sir Useless Eunuch, complete with a wispy grey moustache and a monocle. Despite suffering terrible stage fright, he received a standing ovation. His impressions turned into an annual event at the camp.

  His mother, pleased with the way he had settled down, bought a 14ft (4.5m) sailing dinghy, Merlin, at the Isle of White for him and Grizel. ‘It took me a long time to realise that my mother really loved me,’ he said to me in 1982. ‘I was actually getting to know her, and like her. My life felt very secure, very happy.’

  He discovered a love for skiing when he went on a two-week break on the slopes of Savognin in Switzerland with the school. Skiing, sailing and sex were to be his three favourite pastimes throughout his life.

  During his second term at Stowe, David helped to start a Chandos House magazine, The Chandosian. He also played drums and trombone in the school jazz band, and joined a drama group for which he wrote one-act plays.

  He was persuaded by Major Haworth to join the Army and try for Sandhurst, which meant he needed to pass several specific exams in 1926. He was given special coaching in his weakest subject, maths, while he excelled at English. He also began writing published articles.

  ‘We had a school magazine called The Stoic,’ he told me in 1975 when I interviewed him about the publication of Bring on the Empty Horses. ‘I was 15 when I wrote an article for it, called A Tailing Party at the Swiss Camp, which told, very wittily I thought, of a school expedition in Switzerland. My English teacher, Mr Arnold, said he thought it indicated a real flair and talent and he said he thought my future as a writer was secure. Which was very nice. But I felt quite ashamed really, because I’d stolen it, you see, from A.A Milne, who wrote a story called The Tailing Party in Punch a few years earlier. I changed the names and made a few necessary alterations. But I think that demonstrates a creative flair, all the same.’

  By 1926 David had progressed and matured so well that he was made a prefect in a new house, Grafton. He had to prepare to re-sit his exams at the end of the next year, putting him a year behind almost everyone else.

  At the end of 1926 he spent another two weeks skiing in Switzerland, then began 1927 by joining the Debating Society. In February he played his first rugby match for Grafton House against Cobham House, and he learned to play tennis and squash. He also swam for Grafton, winning a 100-yard race and being awarded a medal in life saving. His fitness continued to improve and he grew into a very solid, strong young man who would remain physically active throughout his life.

  He was promoted to lance-corporal in the Officer Training Corps in May, and began to play in the school cricket team in which he excelled as a fast bowler. But at the end of July, before the summer holiday, he again failed the School Certificate exams. He was promoted to corporal in the Officer Training Corps but the next year he failed his exams a third time.

  He worked solidly through the next term, was promoted to sergeant, played cricket regularly, and won the senior backstroke in the school’s swimming sports. In June 1928 he passed the entrance exam for Sandhurst, but he still needed to pass his School Certificate exams, which he took for the fourth time in July – and passed.

  David was now on his way to becoming a professional soldier, a career that he said ‘wasn’t a passion for me but it was a job I could get immediately and be well paid for it’. It was also a profession he never really shook off even as an actor because, as an actor, he often had his greatest success as a gentleman and an officer. In fact he said, ‘The Army was the only formal training I had as an actor.’

  Laurence Olivier had RADA. David Niven had Sandhurst.

  CHAPTER 4

  —

  Sandhurst

  On 31 August 1928 David Niven joined the Royal Military College at Sandhurst to begin 15 months of training as an officer in the British Army. ‘I was used to parading at the Officer Training Corps,’ he told me, ‘but the real thing came as a tremendous culture shock. The first 10 weeks were spent being drilled and paraded, shouted at, sworn at and being made to drill in full battle gear if you hadn’t polished your
boots beyond perfection. It was absolute hell, I swear. But at the end of it I was as fit as I would ever be. It got better after that as I studied tactics, admin and management and even military law.

  ‘We even had leisure time at last. We would go to the pub which was at Frimley Green, and to the cinema at Aldershot and to a lovely pair of prostitutes at Camberley.’ He still loved those tarts.

  At the end of his first 10 weeks at boot camp he was promoted to lance-corporal and was chosen to be one of the commandment’s two orderlies. One of his perks was to be excused from Saturday morning drill parades, allowing him to go to London for the day.

  He performed in the college theatre, sharing a duologue, Searching for the Supernatural, with a fellow recruit, and that sketch earned him his first rave review; ‘A valuable recruit, who deservedly made the hit of the evening, was David Niven,’ wrote the college’s R.M.C. Magazine and Record. ‘He is a great find, with the most exquisite meandering manner.’

  He also performed in his first full length play at Sandhurst, The Creaking Chair, playing a crime reporter which the college magazine described as ‘an irresistible hero’.

  Early in 1929 he appeared in the Sandhurst variety show in a sketch he wrote himself, Why Every Married G. C. Should Have a Wife, and a few weeks later he did another play, It Pays to Advertise, playing a charming layabout. He was developing a good light comedic touch.

  ‘I was fortunate to get the chance to do a few plays at Sandhurst while I was struggling to make a soldier of myself,’ he told me, ‘and, I suppose, my screen persona sprung from all that. I didn’t invent myself for the screen. What you got was what you saw, a man with a military background speaking ever so nicely and trying not to stretch himself beyond his abilities as an actor. If the audience laughed, I felt I’d done well.’