DAVID NIVEN - ACTING LEGEND NIVEN ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

ACTING LEGEND NIVEN ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

Late movie icon DAVID NIVEN would have killed himself in his prime if it wasn't for a misfiring gun.
The actor, who played superspy James Bond in the original Casino Royale, attempted to take his life back in 1946 after the tragic death of his wife Primmie.
In new biography David Niven: The Man Behind The Balloon, writer Michael Munn recalls one interview he had with Niven, who died in Switzerland in 1983, during which the Brit recalled the moment he dabbled with suicide.
He told Munn he lost all "sense of reason", adding, "I decided to blow my brains out."
But in an extract from the book, obtained by U.S. tabloid the Globe, Niven states, "I took a gun and put the barrel in my mouth and with barely a thought for my children, which was unforgivable, I pulled the trigger. And the bloody thing didn't fire."
The shock jolted Niven out of his suicidal madness and the gun expert went to his grave without knowing why the pistol didn't fire.
He told Munn, "I think I may have actually thought that this might be God telling me to carry on living for the sake of my children."
Munn's tome also details Niven's many romances with starlets like the young Marilyn Monroe.