David Niven (9 page)

I asked what he expected me to do for the test, and he said, ‘Just be yourself.' Then he invited me to have dinner at his house with him and his wife, Marjorie Moss, who was a famous dancer, and then he insisted I stay the night. I wanted to go home and change my clothes, but he said, ‘I want you to make the test in that dinner jacket.' I obviously looked suitably drunken and dissolute in it.

In the morning I presented myself at stage 29 as ordered where the director making the test was Harry Bouquet who was in a great hurry. I'd been made up by Bill Tuttle and was painted a peculiar yellow ochre, and my eyes and lips were painted so I thought I looked like a tart. I knew nothing about film make-up, and felt ridiculous.

The director told me to stand on the set which was a New York apartment. I was blinded by the lights and couldn't see anyone. Bouquet was very impatient and said, ‘Start by facing the camera, then turn slowly and hold it for a beat. Then face the camera again. You got it?' ‘Yes, sir.' ‘Okay, turn ‘em over.' I had no idea what that meant, but the camera started running and Bouquet said, ‘Okay, now turn slowly, hold the profile….I said
hold it
, goddammit…okay, now hold the full face.. Jesus, try to come alive for Chrissake…tell a funny story, do
something.'

I still couldn't see because of the lights, and I was getting in a panic, and I suddenly remembered a limerick, and said

There once was an old man of Leeds

Who swallowed a packet of seeds,

Great tufts of grass

Shot out of his arse

And his cock was covered in weeds.

‘Cut! Jesus, what are you trying to do? Get me fired? Louis Mayer's gonna see this. So's Eddie Mannix. Okay, now just relax kid and think of some little story. But keep it
clean.'

So I told them a story about Tommy Phipps's first trip to an automat. He didn't know how it worked, and put five cents into the slot for a cup of coffee but didn't get his cup in place and hot coffee squirted him in the groin. He finally managed to get a cup of coffee but meanwhile someone had eaten his sandwich, and then someone dunked their doughnut in his coffee. Well, it seemed to go down well.

The next day I went to see Goulding who said the test was bad except for the limerick. He said I wasn't being given the part but he would help me anyway.

Edmund Goulding was actually one of the very first British film directors to become a success in Hollywood, having scored a huge hit with
Grand Hotel
in 1932, and this perhaps explains why he was so determined to help the young Englishman with aspirations of being an actor. It's also likely that Goulding was quickly won over by Niven's charm and wit. David told me once, ‘I knew I could get people to like me if I told a good story, and that was my talent. I couldn't act when I first got to Hollywood but I told funny tales, and some of them were even true.'

The actor who did get the role Niven had tested for was Louis Hayward, a South African who had been raised in London where he became an actor in plays and then films. As far as Hollywood was concerned that made Hayward a British actor, complete with authentic English accent who arrived in America around the same time Niven did but with the advantage of theatrical training. Niven had no acting training at all but fortunately for him, Goulding saw something in him that made him believe the young Niven could become an actor.

Goulding and Frank Lloyd made sure that David got introduced to Irving Thalberg, the boy wonder producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who took an immediate liking to David and they became firm friends. David said,

Irving Thalberg was the most important producer at Metro. Every film he produced was gold. He had the magic touch. He had the most wonderful wife, Norma Shearer, who was a great actress and very beautiful. That Christmas [1934] they bought me the most marvellous Christmas present – a Studebaker car – brand new. I gave them a set of handkerchiefs with the letters I and N embroidered on. I felt very embarrassed that my gift to them was so meagre, but Norma said, ‘We can afford to buy a dozen cars, and most of our friends can buy us a car each, but none of our friends would think of getting us something as wonderfully personal as handkerchiefs with our letters embroidered on.' Irving said it was the best present he'd ever had, and they made me feel on top of the world. Unfortunately, I was so broke that I couldn't afford to buy petrol for the car, so I sold it to eat and pay for rent.

Edmund Goulding was so convinced that David had potential that he recommended him to director Al Hall who was about to make a film with Mae West,
Goin' to Town
. David met both star and director for an unusual audition – they wanted to see David without his shirt on. Mae West was impressed by his muscular build; he was no Tarzan but sports and Army life had given his lean frame impressive strong muscles.

They said they would want to see him again, but before that could happen he was caught up by an immigration official who told him that his 10-day visitor's visa was long expired and he was now an illegal immigrant with 24 hours to leave the country or be arrested.

David Niven was on the verge of becoming a criminal.

—

T
o avoid deportation, David went to Mexico by train and arrived in a small border town called Mexicali where he applied to the local American consul for a resident alien visa so he could work in Hollywood. A police report from England was requested by the consul but it took a few weeks for his visa to come through, during which time he earned money by working in a bar, washing up in a restaurant and cleaning the guns of visiting American tourists who were on a shooting holiday.

In January 1935 he returned to Los Angeles to discover that the part in the Mae West film had been taken by Paul Cavanagh, an English actor with stage experience. There was quite an influx of British stage talent arriving in Hollywood around that time, and Niven was in competition with them all.

He reported back to Central Casting and was signed on as ‘Anglo-Saxon Type No. 2008'. He said that his first job was in a Western playing a Mexican. I doubt that is true as there were plenty of Mexican extras in Los Angeles. He also claimed he was a half naked slave in Cecil B. DeMille's
Cleopatra
, but that film was made and released in 1934 before he had his work permit.

The life of an extra was very mundane, turning up for work early, being sent to a sound stage or to the backlot and trying not to get lost, getting into an ill-fitting costume, being part of a crowd, maybe just walking a street as a ‘passer by', or sitting in a restaurant, often not knowing what the film was or even seeing any of the major stars. (I speak from personal experience.) I said to David, ‘I bet you can't remember half the films you
were an extra in,' and he replied, ‘My dear chap, I can't remember
any
of them.'

I don't think he worked that often as an extra and had to supplement his income by working as a deckhand on a 45-foot (13.5m) charter fishing boat, the
König
, out of Balboa.

‘I did love that life,' he told me. ‘It was hard work, very dangerous but I was young and strong, and I got $6 a day plus tips. One day Clark Gable came on board with a pretty blonde. When he heard me speak, he said, “You're English.” I said, “Yes, I am.” “You sound like Ronald Colman.” I said, “Yes, so I'm told.” He said, “What the devil are you doing out here?” So I told him I was hoping to be an actor, and then I told him our paths had crossed, so to speak, when I transferred from
Norfolk
to the
Bounty
. “That's right, I remember,” he said. “Say, aren't you the guy who was living at Loretta Young's home?” I said, “Yes, I am actually.” He raised his famous eyebrow and said, “That Loretta, huh?” Of course, he'd had a fling with her when they made
Call of the Wild.'

That ‘fling' resulted in a daughter, Judy, who had to be kept secret. Loretta claimed that Judy was an orphan and she had adopted her. I found out about that in 1975 when it was still a secret, and I asked David if he had known.

‘Who the devil told you about that?' he asked.

I told him it was Ava Gardner. Ava was a friend of mine for many years, and also a long time friend of David's.

‘Hollywood is full of secrets that everyone knows,' he said. ‘What I loved about the “old Hollywood” was the true camaraderie they had there. If you got yourself into trouble, there was always someone to get you out of it and even if everybody knew, nobody talked of it openly. When Loretta had her little girl, Gable had to pretend for years he wasn't her father. That was a terrible thing for him and for Judy.' I can see that Niven identified with Judy in that respect.

I consider myself lucky to have been in the company of both David and Ava Gardner a number of times. One night in 1975 David treated us to dinner at a small intimate and very exclusive Italian restaurant in West London. Something happened there that was a personal revelation to me of his generosity. He was dressed casually but still very smartly in what must have been a crisp new shirt and a casual jacket that also looked brand spanking new. He wore no tie and his shirt collar was open, yet he still looked immaculate. Ava had dressed what I would call comfortably. I was in my best and only rather shabby three-piece suit, looking over-dressed but hardly dazzling.

David said, ‘You look dressed for a wedding or a funeral.'

I said, ‘This is the suit I got married in.' (That was two years earlier.)

‘Oh my God,' laughed Ava, ‘you really
are
dressed for a wedding.'

David suddenly announced, ‘Tomorrow I will buy you a new suit. What would you like. I mean,
really
like?'

I admitted that I really rather admired the way Tony Curtis dressed in the 1971 TV series he did with Roger Moore called
The Persuaders
and was particularly fond of a dark suit he wore in the pilot episode. David said, ‘I haven't a clue what that looks like but tomorrow we'll go to King's Road and you can look for that suit and I'll buy it for you.'

He did, too, complete with shirt, shoes and a chunky tie. When David saw me with it all on, he said, ‘Yes, well, you do look a lot like Tony Curtis now.' I think I did; I styled my hair on the way he wore his in
The Persuaders
. (Yes, sad, I know, but I was a young fan, you see.)

Then David asked if I could do an impression of Curtis. I could but it wasn't very good but I could do a good impression of Curtis doing an impression of Cary Grant, and David responded as though I had given an award-winning performance, laughing and applauding in the shop. He said, ‘I'll tell Roger that if he ever decides to do another
Persuaders
but doesn't want Tony Curtis, I have the perfect substitute for him.'

I don't think he ever did tell Roger Moore that, but his purchase of a suit that I really loved and his kind words have always been one of my most abiding memories of him.

Over dinner that night in 1975 Ava talked about having moved from Spain to London in 1969 and of the horror of finding that the IRA was bombing the city. She also talked about some frightening encounters with the Mafia during her marriage to Frank Sinatra which, in turn, led David to relate the following experience he had during the time when he was working as an extra.

He said there was an extra called Eddie Hunnicut who told him, ‘How about I fix you up with a great little prostitute. You'll love her and what she does.'

David told him that he was very tired and didn't think he could ‘even raise a smile'! Eddie told him, ‘You won't be too tired for this. She gives the best blow job in Los Angeles.'

As David told it, ‘Well, that got my interest. I mean, it wasn't like I had to
do
anything. So I said, “Okay, let me know where and when.”'

Eddie told David to be at a certain place at a certain time. ‘I was really looking forward to it after a long day's work. The trouble was, he had neglected to tell me how much it was going to cost me, and I hadn't even thought about that. So after what was really only a regular blow job – I mean, I've certainly had a lot better – in the front seat of her car, she asked
for $50. Well, that was a
fortune.'
David told her that he couldn't pay that much and the next thing he knew a couple of hoods were getting in the car and pointing guns at him and saying they were going to lend him the money and he was going to repay them with a hundred per cent interest.

David had no option but to agree to their extortionate terms, and then he got out of the car and walked back to his room at the Roosevelt Hotel, wondering how he was going to pay a hundred dollars when he only got paid $2.50 a day as an extra. The three days' work he had on the picture barely paid for his meals for the week.

In desperation he decided to see if he could borrow the money, and that night called a number of the rich people he knew. He told the ones he could reach that he was in debt for his rent and needed $25. ‘I figured it was a downright cheek asking for a hundred in one go,' he told us. ‘So I thought that I needed just twenty-five dollars from four people. I didn't think it would be so hard.' He didn't say which ones he couldn't reach or which ones refused to loan him any money, but the one guy who did lend him $25 was Clark Gable. ‘I told Clark I'd pay him back as soon as I could, and he said, “Oh, forget it, I don't want it back. You helped me catch a blue marlin the other day and I didn't tip you enough.” Well, that wasn't quite true. I did help him catch a marlin but he tipped me very nicely.'

Twenty-five dollars was all he had been able to get together so far and he hoped that would be enough to keep the hoods happy. The next day at the studio, he was approached by an extra he knew quite well, an Irish American called Gerry O'Hara who said to him, ‘I hear Eddie fixed you up and you got rolled over.'