The Other Side of the Moon: The Life of David Niven

Sheridan Morley's 'The Other Side Of The Moon' is an incredibly absorbing biography of Hollywood film great David Niven. Niven starred in over 80 motion pictures, but the charming, suave actor is revealed to be a hollow man deeply wracked with personal insecurities. David Niven won the 1959 Academy Award Oscar in a starring role for his magnificent performance in 'Separate Tables', yet he spent the rest of his career looking over his shoulder. Author Morley does extensive interviews with many of Niven's co-stars and former close friends that reveal something of the darker side of the star. A horrible turning point in Niven's life, was the death of his young British wife from injuries sustained at a Hollywood party, while playing 'hide and go seek' at the house of Tyrone Power! On the positive side, the writer highlights David Niven's heroic service in the British Army in World War 2, and his nearly lone defense of the long deceased Errol Flynn against charges of being a Nazi sympathizer. Sheridan Morley's 'The Other Side of The Moon' is a terrific, page-turning look at the complex actor we knew and loved as David Niven, and is a must have book for movie buffs.

Sheridan Morley's biography of David Niven is a more concise an indepth look at the British actor's life and career than that portrayed by Niven in his own autobiography "The Moons a balloon". As Morley points out Niven writes more about his Hollywood experiences then actually about himself, creating a narrative that delves superficially in terms to his own life story as to that of his famous friends. Morley is an equitable writer who provides a fair and detailed account of the man and actor who was always slightly bemused by his own success. Morley offers no nasty hidden skeletons in the Niven closet but does clarify those stories that the actor alluded to in his books, especially the affair he had with Merle Oberon and the traumatic mental breakdowns that plagued Vivian Leigh. An interesting biography of a truly charming man.