Niv by Graham Lord

Author:Graham Lord [Graham Lord]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography
ISBN: 9780752859286
Amazon: 0752859285
Goodreads: 1059065
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2003-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

At the Pink House there was always tension between Hjördis and the boys, Jamie told Grace Bradberry of the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine in 2002, ‘and it never went away. It was really kind of tragic. We did go on family trips and she made an effort, but she just didn’t want to deal with the two young boys she’d inherited.’ Pat Medina told me: ‘She told the boys to stop calling her Mummy. She said, “You have to call me Hjördis, you can’t call me Mummy,” and I said, “You cannot do that. They’re very fond of you but you keep correcting them and they can’t remember what to call you and they’re totally in confusion.” Jamie was so upset that he locked himself in his bedroom.’

Niv’s attempts to economise were laughable: he reduced the boys’ pocket money and insisted that the housekeeper should stop buying bottled water, but otherwise life continued as extravagantly as before. He chartered an expensive boat to take a party of friends to Catalina Island and wafted Hjördis off to Barbados for a two-week holiday, though Jamie told Grace Bradberry: ‘It was pretty much wipeout time in 1952, ’53 and ’54. He was around the house. He had nothing to do. But he was blessed with an enormous sense of humour. He used to come and watch me play baseball, and always said, “Well done.” He also came to see me in a school production of The Haunted Tea Room that my brother starred in too. I wasn’t much of an actor, but he was nothing but enthusiastic.’ Young David had parts in lots of school plays too. Because he was fair-haired he was always playing a girl. ‘They used to stuff two football socks up my sweater!’ he said. ‘It was all most embarrassing, and it put me off acting for life.’

It was three years before Niv’s luck began to change for the better. He made two live drama appearances on TV in 1952, The Petrified Forest and The Sheffield Story, and did a couple of guest spots on the Bob Hope and Jack Benny shows, and they were to lead to a crossroads in his career that would save him from bankruptcy and eventually make him rich. The Hollywood moguls saw TV as a dangerous rival and hinted that actors who appeared on it would be blacklisted, but Niv had little to lose now and gambled $20,000 to join Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino and Dick Powell in forming a new company, Four Star Television, to make live half-hour TV films under the title Four Star Playhouse. In the first five years they made 1800, from Somerset Maugham and Zane Grey short stories to series such as The Rifleman, Burke’s Law and The Rogues. Ida Lupino soon dropped out but Niv, Boyer and Powell each travelled to New York once a month to direct or appear for free in a play, one of which started young Steve McQueen on his road to stardom.

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