David Niven

James David Graham Niven was born in Belgravia, London, on 1 March 1910. His father was killed at Gallipoli in 1915 when Niven was five. He was educated at Stowe School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and served as an officer in the Highland Light Infantry before resigning his commission in the mid-1930s to try his luck in Hollywood, arriving with little more than his charm and connections. He worked as a bit player through the mid-1930s before signing with Samuel Goldwyn and landing more substantial roles, including in Wuthering Heights (1939) opposite Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. When Britain declared war in 1939, Niven returned home and rejoined the army, serving through the Second World War — one of the few established Hollywood stars to do so — including with the Army Film and Photographic Unit. After the war he resumed his film career, starring in A Matter of Life and Death (1946, released in the US as Stairway to Heaven) and building a long run as a debonair leading man through the 1950s, including Around the World in 80 Days (1956). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Separate Tables (1958), playing a disgraced major. Niven's first wife, Primmie (Primula Rollo), died in 1946 from injuries sustained in a fall at a party in Hollywood, a tragedy he rarely discussed publicly. Later in life he became a celebrated memoirist, publishing The Moon's a Balloon (1971) and Bring On the Empty Horses (1975), both bestsellers praised for their wit. He died in Château-d'Oex, Switzerland, on 29 July 1983, of complications from ALS.