David Niven (18 page)

If that seems harsh, then here's what John Mills had to say to me in 1985. ‘Niv loved Primmie to death, but he loved
all
women, though not in the way he loved Primmie. So he loved as many women as he could – even when he was married to Primmie. I didn't approve, but it's not my place to judge.'

In 1982, David confessed to me that he had been unfaithful to Primmie. ‘I was a fool. When we were apart during the war, it was all too easy to have sex with other women who wanted to go to bed with a Hollywood movie star. Some of them no more than 16, but I was insatiable, you see – always have been. It's a terrible flaw in me. I can forgive myself by and large, but to be unfaithful to the best wife a man ever had was unpardonable. I knew it at the time, but my erection was stronger than my spirit, if you'll pardon the vernacular.'

In the late summer of 1941, Niven made a film for the British Government,
The First of the Few
. ‘We weren't doing well in the war and the government needed something to inspire the nation during a time of crisis and films were an ideal way to do that, so they persuaded Sam Goldwyn to let me do
The First of the Few
. I was still under contract to Goldwyn and even the British Government had to borrow me from Goldwyn for a suitable sum of money.'

David was released temporarily to civil employment so he could make the film which was backed by the RAF. It was the story of R.J. Mitchell, the aircraft designer who invented the Spitfire. Niven played the fictional role of an ex RAF officer who joins Mitchell as a test pilot. Leslie Howard produced and directed the film, and he and Niven became firm friends. Released in 1942 in Britain, the film found favour with British critics and audiences. ‘The film is full of action…and flashes from the Battle of Britain with which, pointing its moral, it begins and ends,' wrote the
Sunday Times
. ‘It has moments of pathos and many scenes of agreeable, flippant comedy, contributed for the most part by David Niven who gives one of his best performances.'

The
Observer
noted, ‘David Niven's flippant assurance is just right here. The real-life story is the more real for his imagined presence; he gives the rather abstracted film a body.'

The Scotsman
, said, ‘David Niven's performance as the test pilot is one of the best he has ever done.'

Niven told me, ‘It wasn't a difficult role for me to play. Like the character from
Dawn Patrol
, I knew men like him. Things hadn't changed in the military since my days at Sandhurst. I could play an officer. I played many officers. I suppose it took another world war for me to find my niche in pictures. I probably played more military officers than anybody else. It
took just four weeks to film. Leslie Howard did a wonderful job of both directing and acting in it, and we became very good friends.

‘It didn't do well in America where it was released through Sam Goldwyn who hated the film. He renamed it
Spitfire
which didn't mean much to the Americans, and he cut the film and ruined it.'

During this break from active service, David met with Churchill for another garden stroll, and the Prime Minister confided his fears of an invasion of Britain to Niven who asked Churchill if he thought the Americans would ever enter the war. ‘Mark my words,' Churchill told him, ‘something cataclysmic will occur.'

It did, on 7 December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and effectively brought the United States into the war. Some months later, Niven reminded Churchill of his prediction about America and asked him what made him say it. Churchill replied, ‘Because, young man, I study history.'

Pearl Harbor had a positive effect upon David. ‘I stopped having nightmares about Britain being invaded. I knew then we could beat the Germans, and I thought that if I could just manage not to get myself killed then when the war was over I'd be completely happy with Primmie for the rest of our lives.'

Although
The First of the Few
was filmed quickly, Niven was given extended leave over the Christmas period and returned to service in Phantom in late January 1942. It proved to be a particularly harsh winter, and in freezing and icy conditions Niven led his men to Wales for a two-month reconnaissance along the coast to plan for a potential German invasion from Ireland.

When he returned home in March, Primmie became pregnant and gave up her work at the aircraft factory. She went with David wherever he was sent, and they lived out of rented rooms but were blissfully happy. ‘I don't think David was ever so happy in his life,' John Mills said. ‘The war was on and we all hated that, but out of it came moments of extreme bliss, and that was true of David and Primmie. He told me once, “Johnnie, the war took the lives of some wonderful friends, caused untold misery for millions and, although not profoundly important in the scheme of things, it almost wrecked my career. But the war gave me Primmie and my first son and the greatest happiness I ever knew.”'

During the early months of 1942, Churchill and the Allied commanders prepared for Operation ‘Jubilee', a joint Canadian and British amphibious attack on the French port of Dieppe. The plan was to seize the port, occupy France for about 12 hours, capture enemy documents and prisoners, and generally test the Germans for what would eventually be a complete Allied invasion of France.

‘Jubilee' was launched in the early hours of 19 August 1942 – 252 ships loaded with troops and equipment followed mine sweepers in near radio silence, sailing from four south coast ports. There were around 4,000 Canadians, 1,000 British commandos and 50 US Rangers. They arrived 8 miles [13 km] off the coast of Dieppe at 03.00. The whole area to be attacked was divided into nine different sectors: Yellow Beach 1, Yellow Beach 2, Blue Beach, Red Beach, White Beach, Green Beach 1, Green Beach 2, Orange Beach 1 and Orange Beach 2.

Douglas Fairbanks Jnr led a series of small diversionary raids along the French coast by commandos under his command on HMS
Tormentor
from which his landing craft was launched.

It has always been assumed that Niven didn't take part in the actual attack by Lovat's force, but Laurence Olivier, perhaps in revenge for Niven spilling the beans about his SOE operations, told me that David was in ‘the midst of the action and was nearly killed, which wouldn't have pleased the Government one bit as there was a general policy of keeping famous film stars away from the action. So the reports of the time said that Niv stayed out of the action. But he was there, amid the carnage and the horror, the blood and the bodies.'

In 1979, I asked Niven if what Olivier said was true about him taking part in the raid, and he said, ‘Yes I was there. I came through it. Too many didn't. I can't bear to remember Dieppe. The loss of life was unpardonable.'

Leading ‘A' Section of Phantom, Niven accompanied Lord Lovat's No 4 Commandos in an attack on ‘Hess' battery at Orange Beach 2, about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) west of Dieppe. They landed on the shore at 04.50. Half the unit of 250 men followed Major Derek Mills-Roberts up a narrow gulley to the clifftop while Lovat took the rest of the unit in a wide arc to attack the battery from the rear.

Niven said, ‘I was one of the lucky ones. Those of us with Lord Lovat had comparatively few casualties. Just about anything that could go wrong did go wrong.'

A gunboat leading No. 3 Commando in 20 landing craft to Berneval on Yellow Beach 1 came across five armed German trawlers and a fire-fight ensued. Although the 20 landing craft were able to disperse while the gunboat was destroyed, the sound of battle was heard by the Germans. Nevertheless, one landing craft managed to land and the Goebbels battery was captured before it fired a single shot. It was the one success in what turned into a tragic disaster.

A landing craft carrying men of the Royal Regiment of Canada lined up behind the wrong gunboat and found it was heading for the wrong beach. It took 20 confused minutes in darkness to sort out the problem but by the
time the men landed on Blue Beach, the Germans, now aware they were under attack, cut them down with machine gun fire.

Niven recalled, ‘There were 27 officers and over 500 men who landed on Blue Beach, and only three officers and less than 60 men survived. It was pretty much the same story all along the coastline, I'm afraid.'

A total of 1,027 Allied men lost their lives, and 2,340 were taken prisoner. David told me he had to write letters to the wives and girlfriends of the men lost in his squadron. ‘It was like a scene from
Dawn Patrol
when the Commanding Officer wrote letters of regret. I was struggling to find the words to say, and the adjutant told me, “It doesn't matter how you word it, sir, it'll break her heart just the same.”

‘You wonder if the cost of the operation in human lives was worth it all. You could say that the mistakes at Dieppe taught us invaluable lessons that ultimately saved lives later during the Normandy invasion.'

Niven was not supposed to have taken part in the raid. He said, ‘Because I was considered a popular actor, my safety seemed to be of greater importance than anyone else's. That was not only an insult to me but to the thousands of men who had no choice in the matter. I talked it over with Doug [Fairbanks] and Lord Lovat, and they said that if I really wanted to go then I must. I said, “I don't
want
to go. I'm a soldier, and it's my duty.” You see, I was sending men to their deaths because one of my duties had been the assigning of men from Phantom to the mission.'

He had told me in 1978 about what he described as ‘the hardest decision of my life. I had to choose between two radio operators who were both excellent at their jobs but the one who was the better was married with three children. I chose the better man – and he didn't come back. I had nightmares about that decision. I still do. In my dreams I see his wife and children asking me, “Why?” I asked myself the same question over and over, but I could only answer that I made what seemed the right decision. I could have chosen the bachelor – I often thought I should have – and those are the kinds of decisions you were making all the time.'

He admitted that he had to make life and death decisions that haunted him all his life, but he hated admitting that he took part in actual action. He said, ‘There were men – and women – who were in danger far more, and more often, that I ever was, and they are more scarred than I will ever be. The mental scars of war stay with you. My mental scars are more than I can handle. I leave them alone when I can. The horror of actual battle is more than I can stand. But I can say, today, that I am proud of the part I played.'

He was proud but not to the point of ever wanting to boast about it. ‘I was a bighead in Hollywood,' he said, ‘but not in the war.'

He disobeyed orders by joining the attack force on Dieppe and risked court-martial, although as Douglas Fairbanks told him, ‘If you get killed, old boy, they'll call you a bloody hero instead of a bloody idiot.' Lord Lovat was complicit in the cover-up; officially Niven was never there. That suited David because he didn't want to have to remember being there.

I asked him if he would have been more inclined to admit he was at Dieppe had the mission been a total success. He said, ‘Oh no, old bean, I would have been court-martialled for sure. No, the only way to have been officially recognised was to have been found among the dead and I'm very glad that wasn't the case.'

The horror of war gave way to personal joy on 15 December 1942 when Primmie gave birth to David William Graham at the Royal Northern Hospital in London. Niven was given permission by his commanding officer to spend each night with Primmie and their baby, so every evening he got on a motorcycle and rode from Richmond to the hospital through a blacked out and heavily blitzed London to sleep on the floor next to Primmie's bed. Not long after he took her and David Jr home to Dorney, the hospital was hit by a bomb and 12 children were killed.

‘David [Jr] had a good thespian start in life,' David Snr once told me. ‘His godfather was Nöel Coward and his godmother was Vivien [Leigh].' Larry Olivier was also at the christening and presented young David with a Jacobean drinking mug. Coward's present to the child was a silver cocktail shaker with the inscription,

Because, my Godson dear, I rather

Think you'll turn out like your father
.

Unable to escape his film star status, David Niven was sent to Glasgow on a recruiting drive, making speeches and shaking countless hands, and in January 1943, he was seconded to the Army's director of PR and became active in discussions with film director Carol Reed in an attempt to come up with an idea for a further morale-boosting picture. The result was
The Way Ahead
, a film about ordinary men recruited into the Army, and of their experiences from their first day in the Army to their first battle. It was based on a short story by Eric Ambler who, with Peter Ustinov, wrote the screenplay.

Ustinov had enjoyed his first success as a playwright with
House of Regrets
, and as a private in the Army he was attached to the Army Kinematograph Service, and in that capacity he became a writer on the film which Niven would star in and which Carol Reed would direct.

Goldwyn was reluctant to allow Niven to make another movie without
being properly compensated and demanded that the production company, Two Cities, pay in full for Niven's services. Two Cities told Goldwyn that they would simply order Niven to make the film, and Goldwyn reluctantly agreed to let them ‘borrow' David for $100,000.

He still had his ‘A' Squadron duties to perform and he led his men on manoeuvres on Dartmoor where he and his men lived off the land without food and water for three days. When German E-boats were sighted off shore, Niven and his men were put into boats with their anti-tank rifles for several nights to try and find the German boats, but the Germans slipped away without a shot being fired.