Book to share - September 2025

The Moon's a Balloon is a hugely successful 1971 memoir by British actor David Niven, which has sold over 5 million copies and is widely regarded as the gold standard for actors' memoirs. The book is celebrated for Niven's humorous and engaging storytelling, blending anecdotes about his early life and the golden age of Hollywood with surprisingly candid personal accounts, although later biographies have questioned the strict accuracy of some of his stories.

Here Rupert Everett joins John Mitchinson and Andy Miller (of the Blacklisted Podcast) to discuss amongst other things the memoir. Who better to join them as a guest than an actor, writer and director who has had his own tussles with Hollywood and who has published a series of bestselling volumes of memoir and short stories? I especially liked it when Everett read the passage in which Niven recounted the moments when his first wife Primula "Primmie" Rollo fell down basement stairs at Tyrone Power's house, initially suffering a concussion but later experiencing a clot to the brain, which led to an unsuccessful operation. What emotion expressed there!

[media=https://youtu.be/f77ru4LL4G8]

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Thinkerbell · 41-45, F

Niven died of ALS, a cruel, presently incurable disease where one dies by inches.

val70 · 51-55

@Thinkerbell Oh yes, curiously enough, he became severely ill already, reportedly from septicaemia or a blood infection, after shooting scenes in a dirty cave elevator pit for The Guns of Navarone (1961). He was then hospitalized for several weeks, but felt obligated to finish his scenes before fully recovering, which led to a relapse and a further period of illness.

While a definitive causal link is not proven, recent research suggests a potential association between hospital-treated infections, such as sepsis, and an increased risk of developing ALS, as well as potentially influencing the disease's clinical presentation and prognosis. Infections, including enteroviruses, have been proposed as environmental factors that might trigger or exacerbate the disease by affecting pathways like oxidative stress and inflammation, but their role requires further investigation.

I'm thankful for the existance of Niven's three marvelous books in the period in between (1971, 1975 and 1981), but I do keep wondering about that link between frequent blood infections and such and ALS. I know that the husband of someone close died of that disease and it's indeed not something pleasant to think about. My own mother died of Dementia with Lewy Bodies.

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@val70 there was recently a study showing a new medication promising to slow the progression of the disease.

val70 · 51-55

@samueltyler2 Yes, my mom had about five years to live after diagnosis. It's the end that's terrible in both diseases 🥺

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@val70 i think ALS is worse, you know you are getting worse and get short of air