Errol Flynn

Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films and his playboy lifestyle. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1942.

Early life

Errol Flynn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, where his father, Theodore Thomson Flynn, was a lecturer (1909) and later professor (1911) of biology at the University of Tasmania. Flynn was born at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Battery Point. His mother was born Lily Mary Young, but dropped the first names Lily Mary shortly after she was married and changed her name to Marelle. Flynn described his mother's family as "seafaring folk" and this appears to be where his lifelong interest in boats and the sea originated. Despite Flynn's claims, the evidence indicates that he was not descended from any of the Bounty mutineers. Married at St. John's Church of England, Birchgrove, Sydney, New South Wales, on 23 January 1909, both of his parents were native-born Australians of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, with convict links to Tasmania long before Flynn's birth. From 1923-1925 Flynn was in England receiving his education at South-West London College, a private boarding school in Barnes, London, however by 1926 he had returned to Australia and was living at Mclean Avenue Chatswood, Sydney, attending Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore School) where he was the classmate of future Australian Prime Minister, John Gorton. He was expelled from Shore for fighting and, according to his own account, having been caught in a romantic assignation with the school's laundress. He was also expelled from several other schools he had attended in Tasmania. At the age of 20 he moved to New Guinea where he bought a tobacco plantation, a business that failed. A copper mining venture in the hills near the Laloki Valley, behind the present national capital, Port Moresby, also failed.

In the early 1930s, Flynn left for England, and in 1933 he secured an acting job with the Northampton repertory company at the town's Royal Theatre (now part of Royal & Derngate), where he worked for seven months. Northampton's new art-house cinema, the Errol Flynn Filmhouse, which will be joined to the Royal & Derngate complex, is named after him and is scheduled to open in June 2013. He also performed at the 1934 Malvern Festival and in Glasgow and London's West End.

In 1933, he appeared in the Australian film In the Wake of the Bounty, directed by Charles Chauvel in the role of Fletcher Christian, and in 1934 appeared in Murder at Monte Carlo, produced at the Warner Bros. Teddington Studios in Middlesex, England. This latter film is now considered a lost film. During the filming of Murder at Monte Carlo, Flynn was discovered by a Warner Brothers executive, signed to a contract and emigrated to America as a contract actor. He became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 1942, eight months after America entered World War II.

Acting career

Flynn as Captain Blood

Flynn was an overnight sensation in his first starring role, Captain Blood (1935). Quickly typecast as a swashbuckler, he followed it with The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). After his appearance as Miles Hendon in The Prince and the Pauper (1937), he was cast in his most celebrated role as Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), his first film in Technicolor. He went on to appear in The Dawn Patrol (1938) with David Niven, Dodge City (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940) and Adventures of Don Juan (1948).

Working throughout his career with a cross section of Hollywood's best fight arrangers, Flynn became noted for his fast-paced sword fights as seen in The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood.

Flynn co-starred with Olivia de Havilland in eight films: Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Four's a Crowd (1938), Dodge City (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941).

While Flynn acknowledged his attraction to de Havilland, film historian Rudy Behlmer's assertions that they were romantically involved during the filming of Robin Hood (see the Special Edition of Robin Hood on DVD, 2003) have been disputed by de Havilland. In an interview for Turner Classic Movies, she said that their relationship was platonic, mostly because Flynn was already married to Lili Damita.

During the shooting of The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Flynn and co-star Bette Davis quarrelled off-screen, causing Davis to allegedly strike him harder than necessary while filming a scene. Although their relationship was always strained, Warner Bros. co-starred them twice. Their off-screen relationship was later resolved. A contract was even drawn upto lend them out for the roles of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, but that prospect failed to materialise.

Flynn was a member of the Hollywood Cricket Club with David Niven. His suave, debonair, and devil-may-care attitude toward both ladies and life has been immortalised in the English language by author Benjamin S. Johnson as, "Errolesque," in his treatise on the subject, An Errolesque Philosophy on Life.

As Capt. Nelson in Objective, Burma! (1945).

When Flynn became a naturalised American citizen on 15 August 1942, he also became eligible for the military draft, as the United States had entered World War II eight months earlier. Grateful to the country that had given him fame and wealth, Flynn attempted to join every branch of the armed services, but he had several health problems. His heart was enlarged, with a murmur, and he had already suffered at least one heart attack. That was not all: he had recurrent malaria (contracted in New Guinea), chronic back pain (for which he self-medicated with morphine and later, with heroin), lingering chronic tuberculosis, and numerous venereal diseases. Flynn, famous for his athletic roles and promoted as a paragon of physical beauty, was classified 4-F – unqualified for military service because of not meeting the minimum physical fitness standards.

This created a public image problem for both Flynn and Warner Brothers. Flynn was often criticised for his failure to enlist while continuing to play war heroes in films. The studios' failure to counter the criticism was due to a desire to hide the state of Flynn's health. He was also expensive – in the late 1940s his fee was $200,000 a film.

By the 1950s, Flynn had become a parody of himself. Heavy alcohol and drug abuse left him prematurely aged and bloated. In 1952 he became seriously ill with hepatitis and liver failure. He won acclaim as a drunken ne'er-do-well in The Sun Also Rises (1957), and as his idol John Barrymore in Too Much, Too Soon (1958). Flynn starred in a 1956 anthology series The Errol Flynn Theatre that was filmed in England, where he presented the episodes and sometimes appeared in them. About this time he also guest starred on NBC's comedy/variety show, The Martha Raye Show.

Flynn and Beverly Aadland met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss appearing together in Lolita.

Flynn went to Cuba in late 1958 to film Cuban Rebel Girls. He met the rebel leader Fidel Castro, not yet known to be a communist. Flynn was a great supporter of Castro and narrated a short movie titled Cuban Story: The Truth About Fidel Castro Revolution, one of his last works as an actor.

Writing and journalism efforts

Flynn's first book, Beam Ends, is an autobiographical account of his sailing trips around Australia, and was published in 1937. His adventure novel Showdown was published in 1946.

Flynn went to Spain in 1937 as a war correspondent to report for the United States during the Spanish Civil War.

Newspaper articles written for the New York Journal American by Flynn documenting his time in Cuba with Fidel Castro and his rebels went unpublished, and were to remain missing until 2009, when they were discovered in the University of Texas at Austin's Center for American History.

His final book, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was written from August to October 1958 with the aid of ghostwriter Earl Conrad as Flynn, who was suffering from depression, anxiety and alcoholism, had long lost the discipline to write. Published shortly after his death, the book contains humorous anecdotes about life in Hollywood as well as his youth in New Guinea. According to one literary critic, the book "remains one of the most compelling and appalling autobiographies written by a Hollywood star, or anyone else for that matter". Flynn wanted to call the book In Like Me, but the publisher refused.

Popularity

In 1940, he was voted the 4th most popular star in the US according to Variety and the 7th most popular in Britain.

In 1984, CBS produced a television film based on Flynn's autobiography, starring Duncan Regehr as Flynn. Regehr commented that it was an amazing coincidence in his life that he'd had the opportunity to portray two characters (the other being the fictional character Zorro) that "helped define our image of swashbuckling in movies".

Personal life

Lifestyle

Flynn had a reputation for womanizing. His freewheeling, hedonistic lifestyle caught up with him in 1942 when two under-age girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, accused him of statutory rape, alleging that the event occurred at the Bel Air home of Flynn's friend Frederick McEvoy. A group was organized to support Flynn, named the American Boys' Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn (ABCDEF); its members included William F. Buckley, Jr. The trial took place in January and February 1943, and Flynn was cleared of the charges. The incident served to increase his reputation as a ladies' man.It is believed this is the source of the phrase "in like Flynn."

Marriages and family

Flynn and first wife Lili Damita at Los Angeles airport in 1941.

Flynn was married three times: to actress Lili Damita from 1935 until 1942 (one son, Sean Flynn, born 1941, reported missing in Cambodia in 1970 and presumed dead); to Nora Eddington from 1943 until 1949 (two daughters, Deirdre born 1945 and Rory born 1947); and to actress Patrice Wymore from 1950 until his death (one daughter, Arnella Roma, 1953–98). In Hollywood, he tended to refer to himself as Irish rather than Australian (his father Theodore Thomson Flynn had been a biologist and a professor at the Queen's University of Belfast in Northern Ireland during the latter part of his career). Flynn lived with Wymore in Port Antonio, Jamaica in the 1950s. He was largely responsible for developing tourism to this area, and for a while owned the Titchfield Hotel, which was decorated by the artist Olga Lehmann. He also popularised trips down rivers on bamboo rafts.

Flynn was a long-time friend of the painter Boris Smirnoff, who painted his portrait several times, as well as those of Lili Damita, Patrice Wymore and celebrity friends such as Edward G. Robinson, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer and Barbara Stanwyck.

The gossips took note of his friendships with Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich and Dolores del Río. Dietrich flaunted her promiscuity throughout her life, and Del Río allegedly succumbed to Flynn's charm immediately, but Lombard is said to have resisted his advances. She had already met and fallen in love with Clark Gable, but she liked Flynn and invited him to her extravagant soirees.

In the late 1950s, Flynn met and courted the 15-year-old Beverly Aadland at the Hollywood Professional School, casting her in his final film, Cuban Rebel Girls (1959). According to Aadland, he planned to marry her and move to their new house in Jamaica, but during a trip together to Vancouver, British Columbia, he died of a heart attack at the age of 50.

His only son, Sean, an actor and later a noted war correspondent, disappeared in Cambodia in 1970 during the Vietnam War while working as a freelance photojournalist for Time magazine. Flynn was presumed dead in 1971, probably murdered by the Khmer Rouge. In 1984, he was officially declared dead in a granted petition of declaration sought by his mother, Lili Damita. Sean's life was recounted in Inherited Risk by Jeffrey Meyers (Simon & Schuster), and he is also mentioned on page 194 in the Colleagues section of Dispatches by Michael Herr.

Flynn's daughter Rory has one son, Sean Rio Flynn, named after her half-brother. He is an actor. Rory Flynn has written a book about her father entitled The Baron of Mulholland: A Daughter Remembers Errol Flynn.

Death

Errol Flynn's coffin on Los Angeles Union Station train platform in 1959.

Errol Flynn's grave

Flynn flew with Aadland to Vancouver, Canada, on 9 October 1959, to lease his yacht Zaca to millionaire George Caldough. On 14 October, Caldough was driving Flynn to the airport when Flynn felt ill. He was taken to the Vancouver apartment of Caldough's friend, Dr. Grant Gould, uncle of pianist Glenn Gould. A party ensued, with Flynn regaling guests with stories and impressions. Feeling ill again, he announced "I shall return" and retired to a bedroom to rest. A half hour later, Aadland checked in on him and discovered him unconscious. Flynn had suffered a heart attack. According to the Vancouver Sun (16 December 2006), "When Errol Flynn came to town in 1959 for a week-long binge that ended with him dying in a West End apartment, his local friends propped him up at the Hotel Georgia lounge so that everyone would see him." The story is a myth; following Flynn's death, his body was turned over to a coroner (George Brayshaw), who performed an autopsy, and released his body to his next of kin. The results of the autopsy discovered that Flynn had a number of ailments including: "fatty degeneration of the liver, portal cirrhosis of the liver and diverticulosis of the colon." Years of hard living had apparently taken a toll on Flynn's body and an unnamed official from the coroner's office said the actor's body was that "of a tired old man—old before his time, and sick."

Errol Flynn is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. Both of his parents survived him.

Film portrayals

• Duncan Regehr portrayed Flynn in a 1985 American TV movie My Wicked, Wicked Ways, loosely based on Flynn's autobiography of the same name.
• Guy Pearce played Errol Flynn in the 1996 Australian film Flynn, which covers Flynn's youth and early manhood, ending before the start of his Hollywood career.
• Flynn was portrayed by Jude Law in Martin Scorsese's 2004 film The Aviator.
• Kevin Kline is to play Flynn in a movie about his final days, The Last Days of Robin Hood to be made in 2013.
• The character of Alan Swann, portrayed by Peter O'Toole in the 1982 film My Favorite Year, was based on Flynn.

Posthumous allegations

In 1961, Florence Aadland co-authored with Tedd Thomey The Big Love, a book alleging Flynn was involved in a sexual relationship with her 15-year-old daughter, actress Beverly. It was later made into a play starring Tracey Ullman.

In 1980, author Charles Higham published a controversial biography, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, in which he alleged that Flynn was a fascist sympathiser who spied for the Nazis before and during World War II, and also that he was bisexual. Higham did confess to the New York Times, however, that he had no documents proving Flynn was a Nazi agent. Flynn's ex-wife Nora Eddington Black denounced the allegations and members of Flynn’s family subsequently attempted to sue Higham and his publisher Doubleday for libel, but since the actor had died in 1959 the suit was dismissed. Other biographers accused Higham of altering FBI documents to sustain his charges against Flynn. That Flynn was bisexual was also claimed by David Bret in Errol Flynn: Satan's Angel (2000), although Bret denounced the Nazi claims.

In a 1982 interview with Penthouse Magazine, Ronald DeWolf, previously known as L. Ron Hubbard Jr, claimed that his father had a strong friendship with Flynn, who was considered a family friend to the point of being looked upon as an adoptive father to DeWolf. He claimed Flynn and his father were alike, and engaged in various illegal activities together, including indulging in sexual acts with young underage girls and also drug smuggling. Flynn, however never became a practitioner of Hubbard's religious group, Scientology.

In 2000, Higham wrote an article that also claimed that Flynn was previously accused of sympathising with Adolf Hitler based on his association with Dr. Hermann Erben, an Austrian who served in the German military intelligence. Unreleased MI5 files held by the British Home Office were claimed in 2000 to demonstrate Flynn worked for the Allies during the war. Flynn offered to spy on Ireland for America during the war but was turned down because of FDR's fear that he sympathised with the Nazis.

Subsequent biographies – notably Tony Thomas' Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was (Citadel, 1990) and Buster Wiles' My Days With Errol Flynn: The Autobiography of a Stuntman (Roundtable, 1988) – have rejected Higham's claims as pure fabrication. Flynn's political leanings, say these biographies, appear to have been leftist: he was a supporter of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War and of the Cuban Revolution, even narrating a documentary titled Cuban Story shortly before his death. Flynn also wrote, financed and starred in the film Cuban Rebel Girls in which his character helps Castro's revolution. Flynn defended his visit to Cuba in an appearance on a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) television show Front Page Challenge early in 1959. According to his autobiography, he considered Fidel Castro a close personal friend and drinking partner.

Posthumous cultural references

• The 1965 Marvel Comics character Fandral, a companion of the Norse God Thor and a member of the Warriors Three, was based on the likeness of Flynn by co-creator Stan Lee. Actor Joshua Dallas, who played the character in Thor, based his portrayal on Flynn.
• Errol Flynn's life was the subject of the opera Flynn (1977–78) by British composer Judith Bingham. The score is titled: Music-theatre on the life and times of Errol Flynn, in three scenes, three solos, four duets, a mad song and an interlude.
• "Errol" was the title of a 1981 hit pop song by the band Australian Crawl. It appeared on their album Sirocco, which was itself named after Flynn's yacht.
• Roman Polanski's 1986 film, Pirates was intended to pay homage to the beloved Errol Flynn swashbucklers of his childhood.
• In 2005, a small waterfront reserve in Sandy Bay, a suburb of Flynn's hometown of Hobart, was renamed from Short Beach to the "Errol Flynn Reserve".
• The Pirate's Daughter, a 2008 novel by Margaret Cezair-Thompson, is a fictionalised account of Flynn's later life.
• In June 2009 the Errol Flynn Society of Tasmania Inc. organised the Errol Flynn Centenary Celebration, a 10-day series of events designed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth On the actual centenary, 20 June 2009, his daughter Rory Flynn unveiled a star with his name on the footpath outside Hobart's heritage State Cinema.
• In 2009, the Port Antonio mega-yacht marina in the northeastern coast of Jamaica underwent a name change to the Errol Flynn Marina.
• The 2010 novel Errol, Fidel and the Cuban Rebel Girls by Boyd Anderson is a fictionalised account of the last year of Flynn's life in Cuba.
• Jay Electronica song "2-Step" Lyrics: "Chillin' in the circle, Errol Flynnin' it up"
• In the 1991 film The Rocketeer, the characterization of Neville Sinclair was inspired by Flynn, or rather by the image of Flynn that had been popularized by Charles Higham's unauthorized and fabricated biography of the actor, in which he asserted that Flynn was, among other things, a Nazi spy. The film's Neville Sinclair is, like Higham's Flynn, a movie star known for his work in swashbuckler roles, and who is secretly a Nazi spy. Because Higham's biography of Flynn was not refuted until the late 1980s, the image of Flynn as a closet Nazi remained current all through the arduous process of writing and re-writing the script.