It was Lucille Ball who once said of herself, "What surprises people most about me is that off-camera I'm not funny. I know how to be funny but I don't think funny." It was quite the opposite with the elegant fellow who is our Star of the Month for October. David Niven did "think funny" and initially became well known--long before he began making high marks as an actor--for adding laughter at every gathering he ever attended.

It was, in fact, that quick wit of his and his ability to keep people constantly amused that was a major factor in his rise in show business. Many filmmakers--Errol Flynn, Merle Oberon, Ernst Lubitsch among them--lobbied early on to have Niven in their Hollywood films primarily because they knew their days at work would be much merrier if this funny fellow from England was close at hand during those long waits between camera setups. (Interestingly, it's said Loretta Young, with whom Niven would make five films, was one of the few who never found him amusing.)

His comic bent not only served Niven extremely well off screen but also on, and this month a third of the 38 Niven films we'll be showing are ones which allow that comedic nature of his to reign supreme. But his acting range went far beyond comedy. He became an Oscar® winner for his decidedly dramatic, extremely moving performance in 1958's Separate Tables, winning that Best Actor Academy Award® over such heavy-weight competitors as Spencer Tracy, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis.

You can see Niven's own alltime favorite film and performance (among his own work) on TCM on October 19 (it's 1956's Oscar®-winning feel-good epic Around the World in 80 Days), on the agenda for Oct. 12, is his mystical, often-underrated 1946 British film A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven), and we'll also be having the TCM premieres of three Niven movies we've never shown before: Elliott Nugent's 1938's Splendor; Guy Hamilton's 1961 The Best of Enemies; and J. Lee Thompson's 1968 Before Winter Comes.

Niven had what seems to me to be the ideal life as an actor: he kept constantly working for 50-plus years in a profession he adored, sometimes playing the lead role, now and then in a secondary part, which he made more interesting simply by being cast in it. He also had the good fortune to make every type of film imaginable--dramas, musicals, mysteries, adventure epics, war stories, spy tales, historical biographies, horror tales and satires. (Everything but Westerns.) Further, he was welcomed on projects made all over the world (a nice bonus: being paid big bucks to travel to exotic places), the other great plus, of course, his "talent to amuse."

I never had the pleasure of meeting Niven, but always wanted to. The closest I got to him was at a post-Oscar® "Governor's Ball" party one year. Across the room from where I was seated there was a constant stream of hardy laughter flowing from one particular table. Curious as to whom it was having such a merry time, at one point I went over for a look. It was a table of 10 elegantly dressed people and in the middle of it all, holding court and delighting the other nine, was David Niven. I shouldn't have been surprised.

by Robert Osborne