Celebrity Biographies
David Niven
Famous British actor who became quite the seducer of Hollywood. He died at his residence in Switzerland in July 1983, leaving behind several memorable roles where he demonstrated his prototype of British-style elegance.
David Niven was born in London on March 1, 1910, the son of a lieutenant father and an aristocratic mother. He studied at Rowe College and at the Royal Sandhurst Academy. He entered the army very young following the family tradition. He did not last long in the military as he soon left to move to Canada and work as a journalist.
His typical impeccable British appearance opened the doors to Hollywood for him. His start in the cinema in 1935 was unstoppable. That same year he appeared in three films : Howard Hawks ‘ Lawless City ; Splendor , where he played the leading role; and The trace of the past . That same year he also participated, albeit very briefly, in Mutiny on board . The great William Wyler noticed him and included him in the cast of the drama Disappointment (1936). Two years later he was part of the poster of two excellent films, Bluebeard’s Eighth Woman , by the one and only Ernst Lubitsch, and 4 men and a prayer . Wyler would trust him again for Wuthering Heights (1939), an adaptation of Emily Brontë ‘s novel .
At the outbreak of World War II, the actor returned to the United Kingdom to fight against Germany and make several war propaganda films.
The war over, Niven returned to Hollywood. In 1947 she tried her hand at a more comic register when she made the charming A Perfect Marriage . That year she also starred in Life or Death , an interesting romantic film, where she gave life to an English soldier who declares his love to a young American woman while flying over the English Channel with his plane on fire. He had the opportunity to work with Otto Preminger on several occasions, such as in The Blue Moon (1953). He is also known for starring in two of the great adventure films of the time: Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and 55 Days in Peking (1963).
His only Oscar came in 1958 for his role in Separate Tables , where he shared the limelight with other great stars such as Deborah Kerr , Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster . Niven plays the older Pollock, who finds himself embroiled in a certain scandal. One of his most popular roles is that of a villain in several of the films in the Pink Panther saga , directed by Blake Edwards . Among his latest works, it is also worth noting the hilarious comedy A corpse for desserts (1976), where he was accompanied by other excellent actors such as Alec Guinness or Peter Sellers .
Declared one of the great seducers of Hollywood – he came to conquer actresses of great beauty such as Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe – Niven’s married life ended in true tragedy. He married Primula Susan Rollo, the aristocratic daughter of a prominent British lawyer in 1940. After having two children, the couple moved to California. A few weeks later, she died in a nasty accident when she fell down some stairs while playing hide-and-seek at a friend’s house. Years later, the actor remarried a Russian model, with whom he was married until his death in 1983.