David Niven

Born in central London on 1 March 1910, David Niven moved through Sandhurst and a commission in the Highland Light Infantry before deciding the peacetime army wasn't for him. He resigned in 1933, found work as an extra, and made his way to Hollywood, where small parts led to a contract with Samuel Goldwyn. By 1939 he was a leading man in Wuthering Heights, but when the Second World War began he returned to Britain and rejoined the army as a lieutenant. After the war he built a long career across postwar classics - A Matter of Life and Death, The Bishop's Wife, Around the World in 80 Days - and won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1958 for Separate Tables, a performance that lasted 23 minutes and 39 seconds, still the shortest in that category. He kept working through the 1970s in The Pink Panther, Casino Royale, Murder by Death, and Death on the Nile, dying on 29 July 1983.