In later life David Niven achieved fame as an ideal guest on the chat- show circuit. With his gentlemanly manners, modest demeanor and an apparently endless well of funny stories about the Golden Age of Hollywood, he could keep audiences entertained on his own for an hour- length program.
This was a carefully calculated performance, as convincing in its way as the reticent persona of Sir Dirk Bogarde or the monosyllabically aggressive image of Robert Mitchum. Niven gave very little away about himself or his private life; his marital struggles; his inability to recover after the shocking death of his first wife from a brain hemorrhage; and his emotional complexity as a person that enabled him to play a variety of roles spanning the amateur cracksman in RAFFLES (1939) to the seedy major in SEPARATE TABLES (1958), for which Niven won his only Oscar.
Instead Niven cultivated the notion of acting being something of a lark; although taking his work seriously, he never really worried about the quality of his screen performances. Perhaps some of them were unmemorable, but at his best Niven could communicate some of the pain lurking beneath the surface of his impeccably British reserve.
Don't expect to see much of that side of his character in this sequence of interviews spanning the era 1968-1981. Instead we see the clubbable gentleman entertaining viewers in a relaxed series of chats.
This was a carefully calculated performance, as convincing in its way as the reticent persona of Sir Dirk Bogarde or the monosyllabically aggressive image of Robert Mitchum. Niven gave very little away about himself or his private life; his marital struggles; his inability to recover after the shocking death of his first wife from a brain hemorrhage; and his emotional complexity as a person that enabled him to play a variety of roles spanning the amateur cracksman in RAFFLES (1939) to the seedy major in SEPARATE TABLES (1958), for which Niven won his only Oscar.
Instead Niven cultivated the notion of acting being something of a lark; although taking his work seriously, he never really worried about the quality of his screen performances. Perhaps some of them were unmemorable, but at his best Niven could communicate some of the pain lurking beneath the surface of his impeccably British reserve.
Don't expect to see much of that side of his character in this sequence of interviews spanning the era 1968-1981. Instead we see the clubbable gentleman entertaining viewers in a relaxed series of chats.