David Niven Biographer Michael Munn

[FancyJimSherwood]

I decided the other day I wanted to read a biography of David Niven, I’m not exactly sure why. I think I heard his name on the radio. I vaguely remembered one coming out a few years ago which was well reviewed and spoke about his difficult relationship with his second wife. Browsing online I decided this was David Niven: The Man Behind The Balloon by Michael Munn. I got it on Kindle and suddenly found myself gripped reading it, I flew through it.

It is an unusual style of biography, mostly made up of quotes from interviews with Niven and his friends, lovers and colleagues such as Laurence Olivier, Ava Gardner, Loretta Young, Ann Todd etc. The central “premise” is Munn met Niven when working in film publicity in 1970 and interviewed him several times over the next ten years. In around 1982 Niven approached him to do a final interview and one day “set the record straight” so he wouldn’t endure the same posthumous fate as Errol Fynn.

I just assumed Munn was some sort of respected journalist, who happened to form a special relationship with Niven and that was the genesis of the book. I did think it was a bit unusual that when he got the chance over the years to interview the likes of Olivier, that he asked such detailed Niven-focused questions. But then I thought, Munn had been pursuing this dying wish of Niven’s and had been focused on writing this book for decades and so gathering these interviews. I also thought it a bit strange that the few interviews with Niven produced answers that so thoroughly covered all 70 years of his life a little too neatly and insightfully.

I read the book up until the events of about 1970 without stop I was so engaged. Then I decided to Google it. And I discovered that the whole thing may be made up! It seems Munn may never have even met Niven, and that none of these interviews with him or the other stars ever happened! It is so bizarre. As an Errol Flynn fan I am more than aware of how the truth can be shaped and distorted but for a biographer to make up thousands of words of “firsthand” interviews completely caught me off guard. I now have a view of Niven formed in my mind which is possibly completely untrue!

Reading it also finally put the last nail in the coffin of my interest in Errol Flynn. Off the record, Niven paints Flynn has just a really horrible character on a personal level and that the Flynn of Niven’s anecdotes is a fiction to present to the public and sell books. Now that I see this isn’t true either I rather resent being manipulated by a writer like that. Similarly he quotes extensive interviews with Hjordis, Niven’s widow, in which she talks in a very personal way about childhood sexual abuse, depression, difficulties as a mother etc. But is this all made up too? If so, it is all so personal that it seems very sinister.

As a film fan I am well used to cheap, poorly researched and distorted biography. But you can usually see them coming! This one just seemed to fool me because I decided this book as a one off result of a special relationship. However, it seems Munn has a history of suddenly recalling reems of first hand interview with famous stars now dead without audio recordings or transcripts. He also claims special relationships with many of the stars he’s written about. Here is a good bit more information on that: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/ ... -tim-adams

I just had to share this with the forum as it is just one of the strangest feelings I’ve had as a film fan. To feel so manipulated by a start biography which it seems still gets good reviews and not everyone has caught on to the truth of.

I am now reading Sheridan Morely’s Niven biography to try and cleanse my mind. Munn mentions having run some of his Niven theories by Morely in the book. Conveniently Morley, who claims to have interviewed 150 people who knew Niven and was actually a personal acquaintance, died the a couple of years before Munn’s book was published.

[Jim Roots]

Niven's own autobiography, The Moon's A Balloon, was just about the best-selling actor autobio of all time when it came out. I well remember it was a sensation, not because of any prurient content, but because Niven turned out to be such an engaging writer with an interesting life.

He wrote a couple more, more in surprise at the reception accorded his first book than in any particular desire to tell more stories. They were good too, but the first one really hit the mark.

Jim

[Brooksie]

I don't doubt that some of the other claims Munn makes in the book are true (Niven's second marriage, for example, is widely known to have been a pretty miserable affair), but Niven's family have comprehensively debunked the idea of Munn being a close personal acquaintance. None of them had ever heard of him until he published the book, so unless they were creeping around like clandestine lovers over several decades, it's rubbish.

Morley's book isn't perfect, but it is a much-needed corrective to Niven's own writings, in which he took his own liberties. He was known to cherry-pick other peoples' anecdotes and reframe them as if they happened to himself. They are enormously entertaining and well written, but must be taken with a huge grain of salt.

That being said, I think Niven's character assessment of Errol Flynn is spot on, especially his famous observation that 'you always knew where you stood with him, he would always let you down.' I've researched Flynn's early years and it seems he was that way from boyhood. I can recommend the book The Young Errol: Flynn Before Hollywood by John Hammond Moore if you're interested in that. He is certainly a fascinating figure, but you couldn't call him a likeable one.

[Rob]

My old friend, the British actress Elizabeth Allan, knew David Niven and spent a good deal of time with him in Hollywood during the mid-1930s. That friendship grew sour the better she got to know him. Even that early in his life and career, his reputation for casting himself in other people’s stories was well known.

She told me of a time during the Second World War when she and Hugh Williams were eating in a restaurant when Niven walked in. As Niven passed by, Williams said to Liz, “There’s a lot of other people’s sand in that man's shoes.”

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Looking on Abebooks, I recall having a number of biogs by the chappie when I had my secondhand bookshop in England. Don't remember them being terribly popular, although they would have probably sold better if I had been able to afford to sell them cheaper. He appears to be a 'write-to-order' man, turning out a book every few years, but on a 'safe' subject such as James Stewart or Kirk Douglas, and seldom branching out into actors of whom little has been published. There are a number of authors in this field, turning out profitable, but rather unnecessary books which soon clog up the shelves of secondhand and charity shops. Rather than buying a Kindle, it would've been better to buy a cheap hard copy which could then have been sold or donated...

Munn's Wiki entry lists nothing after 2010, so perhaps the bubble burst. No fewer than fourteen of them were published by Robson Books, which seems to specialise in fairly bland, safe biographies, although some of them are worth having either on account of quality or subject matter if it is unusual enough, such as one by Ron Moody...

[FancyJimSherwood]

Morley's book isn't perfect, but it is a much-needed corrective to Niven's own writings, in which he took his own liberties. He was known to cherry-pick other peoples' anecdotes and reframe them as if they happened to himself. They are enormously entertaining and well written, but must be taken with a huge grain of salt.

That being said, I think Niven's character assessment of Errol Flynn is spot on, especially his famous observation that 'you always knew where you stood with him, he would always let you down.' I've researched Flynn's early years and it seems he was that way from boyhood. I can recommend the book The Young Errol: Flynn Before Hollywood by John Hammond Moore if you're interested in that. He is certainly a fascinating figure, but you couldn't call him a likeable one.

It does seem appropriate on some level that Niven the teller of tall tales falls victim to a teller of tall tales in Munn!

The Young Errol: Flynn Before Hollywood by John Hammond Moore is possibly the most fascinating book on Flynn. I remember it describes Flynn's crazy lengths in covering his own tracks by writing a false diary and having it found or something like that, it's a few years since I read it.

I've always put weight by Niven's assessment of Flynn as the man who "would always let you down", but Munn quotes Niven saying Flynn deprived him of a career making part in Gunga Din for the hell of it, being generally very unlikeable and having an extremely heated final meeting with him in 1958. In Bring On The Empty horses Niven describes a nice final encounter with Flynn in 1958 during which Flynn apologises for not being there for Niven when his wife died. They have a good chat and part on good terms. In Munn's book he quotes Niven as saying Flynn's apology was insincere and he called him out on it, the two have a big row, almost come to blows etc. Niven parts with Flynn, saying what a selfish person he has been all his life.

My point is if Niven's published comments about Flynn are true, it paints him in a certain light. If his interviews with Munn are genuine what he really felt about Flynn was much more negative and paints him in a worse light. And Niven's "published" assessment was only to sell books, tell a good anecdote.

[Brooksie]

My point is if Niven's published comments about Flynn are true, it paints him in a certain light. If his interviews with Munn are genuine what he really felt about Flynn was much more negative and paints him in a worse light. And Niven's "published" assessment was only to sell books, tell a good anecdote.

In this case, I would probably trust Niven's account more than Munn's, though only by a nose. In both cases, we're relying on an unreliable narrator. It's just as possible that Niven manufactured a fond parting as it is that Munn manufactured an acrimonious one for the sake of drama, though I would add that I'm not aware of Niven having been particularly religious. This would make Flynn's comment (in Niven's account) about finding solace in the Bible a fairly unlikely invention on his part.