The red swashbucklerette

My dear fellow Flynn fans,

You may or may well know, that Maureen O´Hara shared some episodes about our Hollywood hero in her autobiography “Tis Herself”. She and Errol met for the first time promoting war bonds at a get- together with  money donors. Both were supposed to give speeches and were seated next to each other. They introduced themselves exchanging the usual pleasantries. While awaiting their turn, Maureen noticed that Errol was hiding something under the table. She glanced down and saw he was holding a Whiskey bottle between his knees. With each new speaker he secretly unscrewed the cap of the bottle filling his teacup under the table. He didn`t mind Maureen looking on one bit. At a certain point, still posing as the ultimate gentleman for onlookers, he began to whisper lovely obscenities to her out of the corner of his mouth.

“I moved my chair away from him slightly, but he pressed on anyway, one dirty and lascivious suggestion on top of another. This was crude stuff and not the slightest bit erotic, which I would have expected from this legendary Casanova. They mounted in their vulgarity, yet Flynn never lost his elegant poise and arrogant smirk on his face. I was fuming and would have loved to knock him on his ass, but I knew I couldn´t make that kind of a scene. So I finally whispered under the guise of a smile: Listen Errol, you better get the hell out of here or I am going up to that microphone and tell everybody what you`ve got in that teacup plus I`ll repeat everything you`ve been saying to me- word for word.”

Then and there Errol opted for retreat, not in a swashbuckling way, but still highly innovative- he slid out of his chair crawling on all fours under the long table for the exit. People down the lenght were jumping slightly as he startled them from beneath. When he finally had reached the end of the long line he stood up, looked back and – smirk still intact- waved good- bye playfully. Irish pride O´Hara saluted with a closed fist and returned his smile.

Now everybody here knows this incident culminated in their starring in the pirate movie “Against all flags” almost a decade later. Suffice it to say his teasing and testing somehow broke the ice and they worked up a great chemistry between them. Maureen was full of praise of Errol`s work ethic, saying he came to work prepared and practiced his fencing scenes meticulously with Fred Craven. Yet this was before lunch time, in the afternoon (due to too many juiced oranges) very little was achieved on film with the main male lead. Everything good they got was shot early in the day. Many romantic close ups happened between O`Hara and a X marked on a black flag that was supposed to be Errol Flynn. Needless to say she found her delivery very difficult when flirting with Jolly Rogers.

Maureen O`Hara regretted that she didn`t manage to catch up with Flynn in Cuba later while filming there “Our Man in Havana”. Soon thereafter he had died.

“He had been such an naughty scoundrel the night of our first encounter. But near the end of wrapping up “Against all flags” he had won me over. I respected him professionally and was quite fond of him personally. Deep within this devilish rogue I found a kind and fragile soul. He was the undisputed king of swashbucklers, still is to this day, and I was their queen.”

I hope you like this piece as much as I do. And if so, I will gladly share other Flynnanigans in future with you,

— shangheinz