On 8th August 1985, Hjördis Niven attended a promotional photo call at the National Film Theatre in London. Accompanied by Lauren Bacall, she got a first look at a special set of postage stamps due for launch on 8th October in support of British Film Year. Among the well-known faces adorning the stamps was David Niven, smiling brightly out of the 22p edition.
‘They are delightfully elegant,” Hjördis said. “David would be proud to be associated with them.”
Perhaps because of how Sheridan Morley’s revelations in ‘The Other Side Of The Moon’ had torn open her private life in October 1985, Hjördis doesn’t seem to have associated herself with further tributes. Author Charles Francisco managed to interview David Jr and Jamie for his 1986 Niven biography, but had to rely on a 1957 magazine article for words from Hjördis.
Hjördis did however come to David’s defence when required. In October 1987 a UK tabloid newspaper quoted David’s 87-year-old wartime commanding officer Lt Col Hignett as saying that David was a bloodthirsty killer with a fondness for the bayonet. [!] “He was a magnificent soldier but in war, the other side, the killer, came out.”
Speaking from Lo Scoglietto, Hjördis responded, “David was not the type of person to do those things. This is a slur on the memory of a fine man.”
On the social
Hjördis kept her Mayfair flat (located near the Connaught Hotel) for London visits, which by May 1985 were taking place every other week: “to visit friends and start living again,” according to London’s Daily Mail, in an article titled ‘Welcome back Mrs Niven.’
On 18th October Hjördis was pictured laughing and smiling in the company of family friend Tessa Kennedy (an interior designer, and no relation to JFK) at the charity premiere of ‘Wild Geese II’ in Leicester Square. As an aside, this was the last movie produced by Euan Lloyd, whose previous work included ‘Paper Tiger’ and ‘The Sea Wolves’ with David.
Graham Lord wrote that Hjördis also continued her affair with Andrew Vicari: “For a couple of years until they had a row and never saw each other again. ‘She was a hell of a nice woman,’ insisted Vicari. ‘We all loved her, and people who didn’t were just jealous. She loved art and painting and bought several of mine.’”
Hjördis doesn’t seem to have stayed in touch with many friends from her days with David, but did make new ones. In 2002 Graham Lord searched some out in London, all of whom remembered her warmly.
“I did find three women who became friends of hers after Niv died and who all said she was very pleasant and not drinking at all.”
One was Jill (Robertson) Hulton, who met Hjördis in 1986 and was married to the Duke of Hamilton from 1988 until leaving him and moving to Australia in 1990.
“She was charming. Often I’d stay at Lo Scoglietto for the weekend and she’d always send the car to collect me, and when I left Angus (the Duke) she lent me her flat in Mayfair. She wasn’t drinking at all when I knew her, or if she was it was secretly. She was nice.”
“Another titled lady who met and took to Hjördis after Niv’s death, Lady Christopher Thynn (Antonia Palmer), said, ‘I liked her very much. She was lonely and rather sad and obviously missed David and adored him, but she was charming and very friendly.’ Another of Jill Hamilton’s friends, Roxie Clayton, told me that Hjördis ‘was sweet and spoke fondly about David’.”
The artists Freddie and Fiona Owen also became close friends of Hjördis, through to the end of her life. “We all accepted and loved each other for the trust and companionship we shared together,” Fiona says. “She adored our two children and they thought she was wonderful – they used to spend hours with her in the private sanctuary of her bedroom at Cap Ferrat, chatting and playing. She had a child-like innocence that was delightful and we always felt protective towards her. She never drank when we stayed with her.”
Home time
By the end of the 1980s, barring the short 1994 resuscitation of the Rainier rumours, Hjördis slipped out of public life and seems to have spent more and more time at home in Lo Scoglietto and Chateau D’Oex. (Which is fair enough, she turned 70 in November 1989).
In 1991-92, Christine Lewis had a short spell as Hjördis’ cook / house-keeper at Chateau D’Oex. It proved to be a lonely experience:
“She lived as a virtual recluse, only going into Geneva occasionally to see her doctor. In my opinion, she was a very lonely, unhappy lady, who spent hours alone in her bedroom each day. I found it very sad that such a life she must have led had resulted in her current situation.” You can read more of Christine’s memories here.
“She always spoke about David with great affection and respect,” Jill Hulton told Graham Lord. “She talked about the first wife, and was very upset about the rift between her and the two sons.’”
In ‘The Other Side of The Moon’ Jamie revealed the difficulties he’d encountered with Hjördis in the 1960s after Kristina and Fiona had been adopted: “Some days it got very bad indeed. Other days we’d manage to make a joke of it.” However, interviewed in 1988, he expressed sympathy for his stepmother, regretting her inability to gain equality within the marriage.
Despite that, Graham Lord wrote that the relationship between Hjördis and her stepsons deteriorated. The fact that David had left her money and properties in a trust fund which David Jr and Jamie controlled can’t have helped. “Because of the trust we had to have a family meeting in Switzerland every year,” Jamie said, “and it became so cantankerous and acrimonious that my wife stopped coming with me.” Some of the acrimony may have concerned the trustees pushing to sell Lo Scoglietto.
By early 1996 Lo Scoglietto was on the market, much against Hjördis’ wishes. “We’re selling Dad’s house which is in a unique spot with its own waterfront,” David Jr told the Daily Mail.
An April 1996 sale was mentioned but must have fallen through. Graham Lord wrote that Hjördis tried to obstruct progress, but by 1997 the house was back on the market, and being advertised internationally.
Even though Lo Scoglietto was too big for her to live in on her own, Hjördis said that her heart belonged there, and its sale caused her real unhappiness. Another piece of her earlier life was lost forever.
The trustees found Hjördis a “more manageable” house in the area – “the only house on Cap Ferrat without a view of the ocean,” David Jr later told Graham Lord with a chuckle.
“It was a distressing end to her life,” Fiona Owen says. “She took us to see her new house in the making but her heart wasn’t in it.” Hjördis died before she had to move.
Below is a fascinating set of photos taken by David McKendrick at Cap Ferrat in 1999, including Lo Scoglietto undergoing renovation – mostly involving the windows. Note that the front door still has the “Lo Scoglietto” address plate.
Hjördis lived out the final months of her life in the Château-d’Oex chalet. “It’s the legal residence of Hjördis and the girls and must be worth the same as the Cap Ferrat property. Eventually, everything will be split four ways as our father wished,” David Jr told Nigel Dempster, who qualified the tone by adding that his interviewee “has never been close to his step-mother.”
In a Daily Mail interview conducted a few months after Hjördis’ passing, David Jr did not disguise the lack of closeness, referring to her throughout with what the interviewer took to be a “disparaging” nickname: “The Swede”.
I want to be free
Hjördis passed away in Switzerland on 24th December 1997, after suffering a stroke, two months after the death of her oldest sister, Gerda Margreta. She had turned 78 the previous month. In her last interview, for a local newspaper in mid-December, she spoke proudly about David, as ‘godfather’ of the annual International Hot Air Balloon Festival at Château-d’Oex. (‘The David Niven Cup’ was a long-distance competition).
She revealed that David was actually afraid of balloon flight, and only did it on one occasion when filming ‘Around The World in 80 Days’.
“He didn’t want me to tell anyone… but he was absolutely petrified about climbing into the balloon. While in flight, he kept his eyes fixed on the horizon and didn’t stop talking. He was a good actor, and I don’t think that anybody noticed. I think the balloon used for the shoot was tied to the ground by ropes!” she recollected with a smile.
Asked how she and David ended up living in Château-d’Oex, Hjördis remembered being told of a rental opportunity in the village. “I did what I would hate to see others do,” she laughed. “I rang the bell of this chalet that I found so pretty, and I asked to visit!”
Hjördis’ last printed words about David concerned his in-between movie visits to Château-d’Oex: “He was very open and very friendly with everyone.”
Despite the warmth of her recollections, Hjördis had already told her daughters that she did not want to be buried alongside David in the village cemetery. “I want to be free,” she told Kristina.
Instead of joining David in the double plot that he had bought in Chateau D’Oex, she was cremated and her ashes scattered in “the clear green water” of the Mediterranean at Lo Scoglietto.
“According to the wishes of the deceased,” her death notice ran, “there was no ceremony and her family took leave of her privately.” An oddly worded (or oddly translated) version of the notice ran in the UK, announcing that Hjördis had “disappeared” rather than passed away.
The Hjördis we knew and loved
Six years after her death, Graham Lord’s ‘Niv’ biography became a best seller, and completely changed the public perception of Hjördis. It presented her as an ungrateful, cold-hearted, adulterous drunk. David Niven, despite a few grumpy moments, emerged as someone who endured unhappiness in his life (partly caused by Hjördis, the reader is regularly reminded), while remaining an entertaining charmer with a justifiable roving eye.
That said, when Graham Lord serialised his book for a British newspaper, the double-page spread looking at David’s character was titled “Heartless. Ruthless. Treacherous. Was this the true face of David Niven?” A bit extreme! By comparison, Hjördis’ section was simply titled “Humiliation of a star.” I’m not saying she got off lightly.
Autobiographies by David’s friends Roger Moore and Robert Wagner reinforced the negative view of Hjördis, and led to some unpleasant descriptions of her in tabloid newspaper features over the following decade.
Of course, there are at least two sides to every story. When interviewed by Graham Lord for ‘Niv’, Lauren Bacall’s last words on Hjördis were: “About a year before she died she wanted me to stay at Cap Ferrat, but she was horrible to me those two days, so rude.”
And on the other hand… Fiona Owen recalls: “I remember Hjördis finding Lauren Bacall a difficult guest at Lo Scoglietto – very demanding on her staff!”
The ‘Niv’ book also claims that in her later years, Hjördis became suspicious of her daughters. There may have been complications, but Fiona Owen is clear that Hjördis: “always loved them and worried about them.”
As time passes, and David’s friends have said all they have to say about her, I hope that Hjördis can now be viewed in a different light, and over the full span of her life. I didn’t know her and am sure that she wouldn’t have approved of a lot of what I have written [understatement], so I feel her story should be rounded off by someone who did know her.
Her friend Fiona Owen has sent a touching description, remembering the lady twenty years after her passing.
“Newspaper gossip never reflected the Hjördis we knew and loved, she was fun and kind and warm, loyal and constant and we miss her still.”
…
Hjördis Paulina Genberg / Tersmeden / Niven, 1919-1997
…
Next page: 25 years after Hjördis’ passing, a visit to Cap Ferrat: “In Search of Lo Scoglietto“.
Or, as a tribute to Hjördis Genberg’s supermodel days in Stockholm, here’s a millinery gallery: “Hats on to Hjördis“.
Hjördis Genberg Niven 