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David Niven: Pink Panther
built 620 days ago
Stricken by illness, David Niven appeared in one final film in 1982, Trail of the Pink Panther. He passed away at his home in Château-d'Oex in 1983, leaving behind a great collection of precious gems, which were given to his second wife and sold at an auction in 1999.
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In 1949, Niven aligned with Dick Powell, Charles Boyer and Ida Lupino to form Four-Star, a television production firm. Because of this, he became one of TV's first and most prolific stars. However, he remained a film actor and he gained real star quality in the mammoth Around the World in 80 days, 1956. In the 1958 film Separate Tables, Niven played an elderly disgraced British military man for which he won an Oscar. He was ... in the enormously successful Pink Panther, 1964, which started a series of hysterically funny films. Niven died of Lou Gehrig's Disease on July 29, 1983 in his Switzerland home.
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In 1982, Niven discovered he was suffering from a neurological illness commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which would prove fatal within a year. Courageously keeping up a front with his friends and the public, Niven continued making media appearances, although he was obviously deteriorating. While appearing in his last film, Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), the actor's speech became so slurred due to his illness that his lines were later dubbed by impressionist Rich Little. Refusing all artificial life-support systems, Niven died in his Switzerland home later that year. While his career produced a relatively small legacy of worthwhile films, and despite his own public attitude that his life had been something of an elaborate fraud, Niven left behind countless friends and family members who adored him. Indeed, journalists sent out to "dig up dirt" following the actor's death came back amazed (and perhaps secretly pleased) that not one person could find anything bad to say about David Niven.
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Niven died on the same day as Raymond Massey, his co-star in The Prisoner of Zenda and A Matter Of Life And Death. Niven had just completed work on Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther. He was incomprehensible at times during the filming of both movies, and his voice was dubbed over in post-production by impressionist Rich Little, a fact that Niven later learned through a gossip column.
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Niven continued his career as a high-priced, A-list actor well into the '60s. He played the amiable comic thief Sir Charles Lytton in 'The Pink Panther' (1963) and returned to television in the stylish "caper" series 'The Rogues' in 1964. He than played Sir James Bond in the 1967 version of 'Casino Royale'.
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