Errol Flynn: The Centenary of Hollywood's "Tasmanian Devil"

David Niven and Errol Flynn were close friends in Hollywood's Golden Era (just before World War II) and shared a home in Beverly Hills as bachelors about town. (Errol was a semi-bachelor, technically, since he was just separated from his first-wife, the long-forgotten Lili Damita.)  Between squiring ladies about town and going on weekend sailing expeditions in the Santa Catalina Channel off Los Angeles-sometimes with a nearly all-female crew--they also did films at Warner Bros  they were teamed up for "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1936) and a remake of the 1930 film, "The Dawn Patrol", filmed eight years later.  

Niven said of his friend, whom he saw sporadically after the Second World War and unto the latter's death in 1959:

"The great thing about Errol was you always knew exactly where you stood with him because he always let you down.  He let himself down, too, from time to time, but that was his prerogative and he thoroughly enjoyed causing turmoil for himself and his friends."

He was born almost exactly a century ago (June 20,1909) in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Recently one of his three children, Rory Flynn, went back to Hobart for a film festival and ball celebrating the island's most famous former resident on the centennial of his birth:

If you're interested, here's more on that recent event from an official website: 

 http://www.inlikeflynn.com/

     

As a youth he became a first-rate amateur boxer, shipping clerk, boat captain, plantation supervisor (on a rubber enterprise in New Guinea), gold prospector, etc.,  and later found his way to England, leaving in his wake a capacity for seducing women and living beyond his means. 

  He went into  acting on the advice of friends.  Plucked from the theatrical provinces to appear in a couple small British films, he was soon flown to Hollywood by a Warners' scout.  A year after his arrival he was a major star, thanks to "Captain Blood" (1935), a costume adventure that cemented his reputation.  He also did a variety of other films--straight dramas, screwball comedies, a lot of Westerns, et al, but it was as Robin Hood and the Elizabethan "sea hawk" John Thorpe that made him one of the biggest stars in the world. 

His desire for younger women brought infamy in two statutory rape trials, one famous one in Hollywood and another in France.  He escaped being found guilty thanks to having good lawyers and the fact that some of the young ladies were more opportunists than innocents. Along the way, he tried marrying and settling down and having children, but that never lasted long.  

   It seems he never quite learned--or could control his desires--for too much.  Too much alcohol.  Too many drugs. (He probably would have smoked crack if somebody had invented it back then--he settled for regular cocaine.)  Too many young ladies, married women, etc ,etc.  In the latter case it certainly is easy to judge him too harshly--how could I know what temptations I could withstand  were I handsome and driven as he was to seek excitement in everyday life?    

The other side of Errol Flynn is also interesting.  He found time to write three books (two novels, and a memoir "My Wicked Wicked Ways", co-written with Earl Conrad) do some oceanography--his father was a professor of marine biology back in Hobart, and appeared at USO shows in Alaska and other remote spots during World War II and the Korean War. 

 Biographers note that Flynn himself was given an Army induction physical in California in 1942 and was declared ineligible to serve due to an enlarged heart, tuberculous and a few other lingering illnesses picked up from  his days in the New Guinea ports and jungles.  He later said not being in the war was his greatest regret.  I rather think it was at least a major regret since he went by his own volition to Spain during the Spanish Civil War as a sort of celebrity journalist and in 1958 he went into the guerrilla hideaway of Fidel Castro for an interview on Cuba. 

The author Charles Higham claimed in a bestselling 1981 book "'The Secret Life of Errol Flynn"  that Flynn had been a Nazi spy.  That he knew a shadowy German doctor named Hermann Erben, was was either a Nazi or a Communist pretending to be a Nazi depending on the source you look up.  Simple guilt by association. (Flynn was investigated by the J Edgar Hoover's  FBI, but so was any other star, especially one who raised a bit of hell in his off-hours.)  

 Higham is the type to always put a scandal in his books to sell more copies.  No one who knew Flynn from those days and were still around to refute the book, including David Niven and the rough-and-tumble actors and stuntmen Flynn hung around with, believed such a curious theory.  

The most important thing about Errol Flynn today is the legacy of great films he played an intergal part in. Besides great supporting casts and outstanding directors and composers, he is the lynchpin of exciting movies like "The Adventures of Robin Hood", "Gentleman Jim", and "The Sea Hawk".  His non adventurous roles, such as that of Lord Soames in "The Forsyth Saga" (1949) and as an older adventure seeker in  "The Sun Also Rises" also proved he had real talent to move an audience without need of gun or fencing foil. His persona is as recognizable of John Wayne's steely American gunfighter or as Clint Eastwood's anti-heroes.  And, for my money,as natural for the roles he played as the both of them.     

Here's Flynn cleaning up an old Spanish bed and breakfast when the service turns sour in "The Adventures of Don Juan" (1949). Note the great film score by Max Steiner.  He and the magnificent Erich Wolfgang Korngold did the scores for all the best Flynn vehicles, as well as a variety of other film work.