The Moon's A Balloon

The Moon’s A Balloon by David Niven (2016(1971) Penguin 336pp)

 

This is a 2016 reprint of a memoir that originally was published over 50 years ago (the same year I was born!). It’s been wildly popular and sold millions of copies over the decades. As a result, it pretty much set the template for the modern celebrity tell-all book.

Niven basically runs through his life on chronological order, from the death of his father at Gallipoli in 1915 to the late 1960s. Oddly enough for a book about a movie star, I found the non-movie stuff far more interesting. We follow the ups and downs of his childhood school life including a strange long-term relation he develops with a prostitute he meets whilst walking the streets of London at night, age 14. His spotty academic career leads him to all sort of horrible situations before he ends up training to be an officer in the Army. His first posting overseas to Malta bookends this fascinating section of the book after which we are regaled by tales of his travels to America and his eventual new life in the movie business. The showbiz stuff is a seemingly endless list of meeting certain famous people – actors directors and agents etc and going to assorted parties. He lives a good life but never seems to be far from disaster and melancholy. Things pick up again when he returns to England after the outbreak of World War Two determined to enlist in the armed forces and play his part. He ends up in what we would today call “Special Forces” and takes part in many important actions against the Nazis. Having pissed off the wrong big-wigs in Hollywood, he struggles to find regular acting work after the war and ends up setting up his own production company to make TV programmes along with some friends. In the late 1950s and early 60s Hollywood comes calling and he ends up winning an Academy Award for his efforts. He rapidly ends things there after showing some disdain for the then current ‘counter-culture’

The book is entertaining enough and 50+ years ago some of the content must have been shocking to many readers. To a twenty-first century reader, the writing style does feel somewhat dated. The terminology Niven often uses seems to be from even further into the past – he was educated a century ago. Niven is often self-effacing and quick to point out his mistakes but then a few pages later he’s blowing his own trumpet, seemingly the most intelligent, attractive and all-round wonderful guy in any room.

Celebrity memoirs continue to be written and sell in huge quantities, all as a result of this book paving the way. I had read references to and quotes from this work for decades, now I finally read it and you could do much worse than to pick it up.