It’s being so cheerful that keeps me going

When asked why he was always so incredibly cheerful, David Niven (Stowe, Sandhurst and the Silver Screen) used to reply, ‘Well, old bean, life is really so bloody awful that I feel it’s my absolute duty to be chirpy and try and make everybody else happy too.’ Niven’s extraordinary charm and delightfully light touch made him the perfect choice for Bertie Wooster in Thank You, Jeeves (1936), his first leading role in Hollywood after he had risen from the ranks of Central Casting (‘Anglo-Saxon Type No. 2008’). John Mortimer, who gave the address at the actor’s memorial service 20 years ago, nicely summed up Niven’s life as ‘Wodehouse with tears’.

Unfortunately Graham Lord’s rather plodding biography proves better at the tears than the Wodehouse. In fairness to the author, this is not entirely his fault. The trouble is many of the autobiographical anecdotes that Niven liked to trot out in order to cheer people up had little or no basis in reality.