Ah, fickle fame. When I was young, David Niven was one of the most recognisable actors in the world. Everyone knew him, particularly in England. But now, when I ask my sons, none of them had ever heard of him. The same is probably true for most of the stars that pepper the pages of his memoir: Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Olivier, James Stewart. Once, gods of the screen, now largely forgotten.

But if any of the young should ever open this book, they would find the most entertaining memoir. All right, it might feature people they have never heard of and films they’ve never seen, but the charm and the wit and the sheer comedy of many of the anecdotes will carry even those for whom the names carry no frisson of memory through the pages. It’s a delight. Niven brings his somewhat chaotic upbringing to vivid life, including the important part played in his growing up by a young lady with a generous heart, and then his somewhat unlikely route to Hollywood via the army. His portrait of 1930s Hollywood is fascinating and then – he goes to war. As soon as Britain declared war on Germany, Niven, by this point a major film star, leaves it all behind, sails back across the Atlantic and enlists.

And there, Niven stops. He tells us nothing at all about his time in the army, drawing a complete veil over that part of his life, before he returns to Hollywood and resumes the story, all wit, charm and glamour.

Niven was the consummate actor. His book is a performance and, as such, bears as much relationship to the real man as any part to the actor who plays it. But what an actor, and what a role: movie star in the Golden Age of Hollywood. How much is true? Who knows. But does it matter, when the lights roll and director cries, “Action!” Probably not.