suppose, my screen persona sprung from all that. I didnât invent myself for the screen. What you got was what you saw, a man with a military background speaking ever so nicely and trying not to stretch himself beyond his abilities as an actor. If the audience laughed, I felt Iâd done well.â
But behind the wit and the charm, the twinkle in the eye and mischievous manner, and the often impeccable manners was a very different man â someone even his closest friends rarely got to see.
He told me in 1982,
I was often petrified that I would disappoint everyone. I donât think there was a great deal of substance to me. I was far more insecure than anyone would have realised. Thatâs why I worked so hard to be liked. If I hadnât done that I think I would have been a basket case. There were times in my life when terrible depression overcame me, and when it did I had to give in to it. But most of the time I fought off depressing thoughts.
There were two versions of the younger me. There was the poisonous little me who got into trouble and even crime -1 could have easily gone on to become a criminal and would no doubt have been a dismal failure and ended up in prison â and there was the âlife canât get me downâ young me charming everyone he could with banter and wit, which is the preferable me. I think because that was the more successful me, it was the one that took over, and thank God for that. Thank God for the people in my life who had the tolerance and patience to put up with me and also to inspire me to want to better myself. Perhaps coming from my background, I could only go in two directions; either become an officer and a gentleman, or become a crook. Maybe even a gentleman crook.
I told him that was an interesting analogy because James Cagney had told me something similar; he came from a deprived background from which you became a gangster, a priest or an actor. That almost made David laugh but because of the Motor Neurone Disease he stifled it and said, âThank God I didnât have to decide between those three options. I would never have cut the mustard as a priest. I mean, how do they get by without
girls?â
By his own admission, in 1970, he was, as a young man, before, during and after Sandhurst, âa randy fellow with an unfortunate tendency to get an erection on all forms of transportation, and the best way to work it off was with the local prostitutes. There was little time to find girlfriends, although Nessie came down to Sandhurst for the Ball we had that summer of 1929. She made it very clear to me. âDavid, weâre only together for the larfs and the fuckinâ, so donât go gettinâ all serious on me.â I think by then I knew the score, and my crush on her had waned.â
By then he was seeing Ann Todd regularly. He had first seen her in a play in London and was so taken with her that he went to see her perform whenever he could.
She told me,
He would hang around the stage doors. He wanted to meet all the actors, or mostly the actresses. He seemed to have a liking for me especially. I was always bothered by what we called stage-door Johnnies.
I went on tour in a play by Ian Hay, and David started turning up to see this play in Portsmouth â every night â and he drew love hearts against my name in the programme and sent them to my dressing room. That got very irritating because it was so childish and I didnât believe he was really in love with me. We hadnât even met. I was desperate that he shouldnât come near me and on the last night I was waiting for Ian Hay to come and see me and I was going to tell him to make sure that a chap called David Niven didnât come to my dressing room, and as soon as Ian walked in he said, âIâd like you to meet David Niven. I knew his father.â And there he was, right behind Ian Hay, smiling and full of charm and very handsome. But I was still