John Mortimer once wrote that David Niven never quite acted as well on screen as he did after dinner telling anecdotes - but this collection of stories, his second volume of memoirs, gives some idea. It's a different shape to The Moon's a Balloon, consisting of a series of stories rather than an overall narrative - but this allows Niven to go into greater depth and detail for said stories.
There are illuminating, entertaining sketches of other famous people he knew - Clark Gable, Bogart, Errol Flynn (one of the best pieces of writing on Flynn ever done), Ronald Colman, Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh (disguised), Mike Romanoff, Fred Astaire, Hedda and Louella, Marion Davies. There are some less famous people too, such as a prostitute Niven knew. He can go into more detail on the dead rather than the living (so Cary Grant and Garbo are more sketchy than say Errol or Bogie).
Niven appears too, as a happy go lucky soul who got along with everyone, was polite and sensible, but also knew great tragedy (he and Gable bond over dead wives). However the focus really is on other people and the result is one of the best memoirs on Hollywood's golden age ever written.
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