David Niven's Autobiography

Comments

• Barbel ScotlandPosts: 37,868Chief of Staff

  April 2018

  Yes, I've read both "The Moon's A Balloon" and "Bring On The Empty Horses". Very entertaining.
• Zingari Posts: 15MI6 Agent

  April 2018

  I've read 'Moon's a Balloon' and very entertaining.
• Napoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,467MI6 Agent

  May 2018

  As entertaining is Sheridan Morley's Dark Side of the Moon a bio of Niven that provides another (sympathetic) angle on just how truthful or not his autobiography was. There also Niv, which is less sympathetic, more dirt digging.

  "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
  
  Roger Moore 1927-2017
• Barbel ScotlandPosts: 37,868Chief of Staff

  May 2018

  Neither "Moon" or "Horses" are very accurate as autobiography, although they are very enjoyable to read. Niven was a great raconteur and was understandably prone to "improve" his stories over many years of telling them. There's very little outright lying, of course- for example, in his tale of sharing a house with Errol Flynn which was nicknamed "Cirrhosis-by-the-sea" it is true that he was there for a time but Flynn mostly shared that with actor Robert Coote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Coote) rather than Niven.