The Moon's a Balloon
David Niven's Autobiography. It's fantastic.

He was in the Army and worked as a Booze Salesman in New York before getting into acting, and moving into a bachelor pad with Errol Flynn.

It's a hilarious account of a quite traditional Englishman who gradually becomes a massive star and doesn't seem in the slightest bit fazed by the whole thing. Packed with great anecdotes, as is his other book - 'Bring on the Empty Horses'.

If you like your hilarious Hollywood memoirs slightly more bittersweet and even more sozzled, try Errol Flynn's 'My Wicked, Wicked Ways': he gets drunk, gets in a fight, and ends up shagging someone roughly once every five pages.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 12:23, 3 replies)

Read it on holiday this year
Well, part of it. I got about half way through it and wasn't enjoying it at all. Maybe the good stuff happens after then, but I found it a humourless slog of a book and deleted it from my Kindle as I lay on the beach. I know loads of people love that book though, so maybe I was missing something.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 12:24, closed)

I think it's his character
coming through on the page. I warmed to him a lot, laughed a lot, and kind of wanted to be David Niven by the time I'd finished it. And the bits about being in the Army and the frequent stupid behaviour to get through it all were great. I am also quite interested in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, which probably helps.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 12:27, closed)

There you are
I'm not particularly interested in that era and read the book as I'd heard it was brilliant, but just didn't warm to it or Niven himself. I found the whole section in the army pretty tedious and by the time I packed it in (again, about half way through the book) I hadn't laughed at all. Says a lot that the other books I'd read on holiday were all around 600 pages long and I read each one in a day and a bit, but after three days I was half way through "Moon". I guess it just wasn't for me.
(nasalhair The Twix guy!, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 12:32, closed)

I understand Errol Flynn originally called his biography
"In Like Me", but his publishers didn't like it and made him change it.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 12:35, closed)

It's quite interesting
his feelings about the whole thing in the book. He gets a bit pissed off about the 'In like Flynn' thing, and complains that he was misrepresented and had an undeserved reputation for pursuing young girls. And then he tells you about how during his trial for statutory rape, he started shagging the 19 year old who sold cigarettes in the courthouse lobby...

Flynn comes across in the whole thing as someone who's fundamentally a good bloke, but lacks much self-awareness or self-control.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 12:43, closed)

Which is what made him bloody marvellous.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 12:44, closed)

Oh God, yes.
I got it and 'Bring On The Empty Horses' for 25p each in 'My Back Pages' in Balham about 15 years ago. I loved them so much.

I wish I knew where they were actually, I like my battered second hand copies, I don't want to have shiny new ones.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 13:25, closed)