Dear fellow Flynn fans,
I went on a book binge this weekend.
The account of Errol`s look and live- a like Aussie friend Frederick Joseph McEvoy is a page burner. Very little is know about the Olympic medal winner, world class race car driver and wizardry whirlwind womanizer. Dubbed the International man of mystery, he is finally revealed by Australian author Frank Walker. A foreign correspondent in Germany and the United States for 40 years he penned two bestselling books “The Tiger Man of Vietnam and Ghost Platoon” and “Maralinga”. Now “The Scandalous Freddie McEvoy” makes three.
Many blind spots about Freddie Mac are blotted out with amusing anecdotes starting with his education at the Jesuit school of Stonyhurst, giving Hitler the stare carrying the British flag at the opening ceremony of the Olympian Winter Games of 1936 in Garmisch- Partenkirchen and filling in as Flynn’s wingman both at the rape trial as well as his best man at the wedding with Pat Wymore in Nice and Monaco.
Having the FBI at his frock’s tail didn’t bother him one bit. He set out marrying dollar spouting and dried up oil heiresses, gambling fastearned fortunes away at the Riviera and when asked what his profession was, cooly countered: “Pleasure is my business“. No wonder he became part of the Flynntorage in no time.
Walker managed to uncover previous classified archive files, which shed further light on how McEvoy steered clear of military service and may have served his own cause in the process. The infamous highpriest of mayhem Charles Higham is cited and again put into the right perspective.
“Higham described his book on Errol a ‘deductive biography‘ and often added up one and one and got three or four…there was no need for him to exaggerate- the story of Errol and Freddies’ lives was already larger than life.”
I can`t wait to compare notes with Frank on the still murky death of the perennial playboy when his ship sank off the coast of Morocco in 1951. Only three man survived the shipwreck of Freddie’s lavish Kangaroa yacht in a torrid storm on their way to the Bahamas, where he was supposed to meet Flynn. The dashing sportsman and deepwater diver that was called Suicide Freddie did not.
His right hand man Manfred Lentner, an Austrian ex commando wanted by Interpol for murder of a prostitute in Berlin of 1945, escaped unscathed. When I interviewed his wife, sister, nephew and brother in law the picture became a little clearer, but still simmers like an impressionist painting of Monet.
Anybody on the blog who’s up for real life intrigue, mystique and the usual flynnanigans will be a delighted customer.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
