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Archive for March, 2020

Dodgin’ Like Flynn

31 Mar

March 31, 1939

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express

Lili Damita let Errol Flynn go on to the Dodge City preview trip alone. She and Dolores Del Rio are spending time at Palm Springs.

Dodgin’ Like Flynn

— Tim

 

The Mostly True Story and “Adventuring Career” of Errol Flynn

29 Mar

March 30, 1938

Sidney Skolsky

TINTYPES
Hollywood Citizen News

(All Photos Added)

Errol Flynn is an actor who always tries to act his role, that of a handsome man dashing around in search of adventure. He was that kind of actor before he ever looked at a camera, and he would be that kind of an actor had he never got into the movies.

He is a skilled boxer. He was England’s representative in the 1928 Olympic Games at Amsterdam.

He has an ugly scar on his ankle, the result of being hit by a poisoned arrow by natives in the bush country of New Guinea.

He went to Spain to take a look at the fighting and he wrote an adventure book, “Beam Ends,” which was banned in Germany because it contained too much levity.

The movies aided him with his “adventuring career.” An English film company produced Mutiny on the Bounty, and cast him as Fletcher Christian. The company went to Tahiti for the location shots, and after the picture was finished, he stayed on. He bought a boat and hired a crew and went into the pearl fishing business.

Then he got restless and went prospecting for gold in New Guinea. With the money he made, he bought a schooner and went into the inter-island freight service. Then he just kept on adventuring around. Why, he just kept on, sounding like a scenario.

He even had an adventure while on the boat on his way to Hollywood. He met Lili Damita.

He danced with her, thought she was lovely, enjoyed himself, and didn’t think about it until after they kept seeing each other in Hollywood. Then, in his customary dashing style, he boarded a plane with Lili, flew to Yuma, and married her.

He calls her Damita. She calls him Flynn.

He was born June 20, 1909, in the north of Ireland. He went to school at the Lycee Louis Grand, in Paris, and at St. Paul’s in London. He claims he is a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian, who led the mutiny on the Bounty.

He is 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 180 pounds, has brown hair, and is an excellent cook.

On the set he wanders about and seem to behaving a good time. He appears to enjoy his work, as if it were another adventure for him. He reads his script over at home, and then tries to learn a scene the night before he is to play it. He will often rehearse a love scene on the set, reading over the dialogue with the script girl.

He often takes his dog, Arno, on the set with him. He’ll park the dog in his portable dressing room, and the dog knows enough about picture making not to bark. It is the only dog allowed to enter the Warner commissary.

His pet aversion is to be hurried by people. He also hates alarm clocks. A valet wakes him every morning.

Recently, his valet quit him to become a picture actor. He didn’t see the valet again until one day on the set of Four’s a Crowd. He was playing the role of Flynn’s valet.

He likes to write. Besides several books he has written a play, “White Rajah,” which the Warners are supposed to make into a movie. He also wrote articles for a fan magazine. He reads newspaper editorials earnestly, and then writes “letters to the editor,” giving his views on various subjects. He sings to himself as he writes.


He resides in a modest house in Beverly Hills. There is one room in the house, his den, which even his wife can’t enter without his permission.

His favorite outdoor diversion is sailing. He is now getting ready to cruise on his new yacht, Sirocco. He also swims, rides, and plays tennis. He is considered one of the best tennis players in the movie colony.

Sleep annoys him. He doesen’t believe in more than six hours sleep, and likes to get up while he’s still tired. He believes that sleep should be taken sparingly and that indulging in it is like indulging in any other vice, such as drinking or smoking. When he sleeps a great deal he feels sluggardly all day. He resents the idea of devoting too much time to sleep.

When he does sleep, he sleeps with the windows open, and without a pillow, which he believes ruins one’s posture. He sleeps in an old-fashioned, four-poster bed. He always sleeps alone. Damita sleeps in another room.

He doesn’t own a pair of pajamas or a nightgown. He sleeps in the raw. Occasionally, he dreams. And the dream is usually about some thrilling, bold adventure, modeled after a scenario.

— Tim

 

A Plea of Urgency

29 Mar

March 30, 1937

Elizabeth Yeaman
Hollywood Citizen News

The Warner Brothers are sincerely worried over their failure to locate Errol Flynn, who was hastily summoned back to Hollywood when it was learned he was planning to penetrate war-torn Spain. Errol was in Paris, and last week he told his wife, Lili Damita, he was leaving for Spain. He left, while Lili remained in Paris. He didn’t tell her where he was going in Spain, and apparently Lili didn’t bother to inquire. Robert Schless, head of Warner Paris office, has not been able to locate him.

Errol, when he left, was determined to do some war corresponding in Spain. He started to make arrangements with the United States for some special articles, but the studio jumped in and soured the deal. Errol threatened that he would make arrangements with an English syndicate.This he may have done.

Warners cabled him to be back by April 15, to start The Perfect Specimen. I doubt if they actually had a picture ready for him, but hoped to get him back on a plea of urgency. Miriam Hopkins has been announced for the co-starring spot in The Perfect Specimen, but that announcement is quite premature, for she has not been signed for the role.

— Tim

 

Captain Blood on the Saddle

28 Mar

March 27, 1939

Evening Herald Express

Errol Flynn will bounce along in a $25,000 silver saddle for the rodeo at Dodge City. The history of the Santa Fe Trail is engraved on it.

Dodge City’s First Rodeo

“A mile long parade featured the actors and elected officials, including the governors of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. This was followed by a rodeo” at McCarty Stadium. Though there was not enough time to stage a full-fledged rodeo, the event inspired Dodge City to have its first real rodeo, the Boot Hill Roundup, later that year. This event has evolved into today’s PRCA’s Dodge City Day’s Roundup Rodeo.

For Those Who Want to be Dressin’ Like Flynn in a Long-Haired Beaver, Frontier Fur Felt Cowboy Hat!

— Tim

 

Sword & Crosses??

27 Mar

March 26, 1936

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express

Interesting that when Errol Flynn leads The Charge of the Light Brigade in the Warner Brothers film he will be carrying a sword that is an actual relic of the charge. It was supplied by a Los Angeles man, George A. Bowman, whose brother got it from a survivor of the battle.

Did you know that the first Victoria crosses were struck from the metal of Russian cannons captured on this fateful day, and were given to all the survivors of the charge?

Was this the sword? Or was this a prop? Was such a battle “relic” really used in the movie?

The Victoria Cross Myth

“The Victoria Cross is the highest honour that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth Armed Forces for gallantry in active service. This decoration consists of a Maltese cross formed from the cannon captured from the Russians. This bronze metal is cut from cannons captured from the Russians at Sebastopol during the Crimean War.”

Merely a Myth?

— Tim

 
 

Honeymoon, Yes — Marriage, No

27 Mar

www.todayifoundout.com…

Honeymoon Over Miami Way

March 28, 1938

Jimmy Starr

Although maritime laws permit a captain to perform a perfectly legal marriage ceremony, it isn’t as easy as it might sound. There are certain official papers that a seaworthy captain must have.

Of course, Errol Flynn is the captain of his yacht, but that doesn’t alone give him the right to tie the holy bonds of matrimony, as he was informed by local maritime officials.

And that revelation somewhat changes the marital plans of Gertrude Hemmer and Ralph Cobley, Miami friends of Errol’s, who planned to have the Warner star perform the wedding ceremony for them aboard his new yacht, which stops over at the southern city en route to Hollywood. The couple will be married on shore and will spend a brief honeymoon aboard Flynn’s boat.

Miami Beach 1938

Miami 1938

— Tim

 

Spongerob Errolpants

26 Mar

Dear fellow Flynn fans,

in January of 1947 the National Geographic Magazine published an article called “The Errol Flynn of Sponge Divers”.

The Errol of this and the Flynn of that were honorary titles at the time. But in the case of one exceptionally dangerous profession we can well picture our Hollywood hero genuinely taking a liking to the complimentary comparison.

World traveller and life time adventurer that he was, I wonder if he read this article and got the idea for the movie “MARU MARU” then and there, or if the namesake hotel in Tanzania did the deed.

Take a deep breath and dive in here yourselves: sanceau.com…

Enjoy,

 

 

— shangheinz

 

The Train to Spain ====== Mainly on the Plain

26 Mar


“Beautiful spring day, warm sunshine, country beautiful. How can people fight a war in this lovely weather? Four hours train journey from here the most savage cruel patricidal war is being waged.”
First entry in Errol’s Spanish Civil War Diary- March 26, 1937 (83 years ago today)

===

Excerpts from Robin de los Bosques in the Spanish War

See, also: Lincoln Douglas Hurst: The True Adventures of a Real-Life Rogue

“In 1935, Flynn married French-American actress Lili Damita (divorcing in 1942), with whom he had a very stormy relationship, with frequent physical fights. They were called the “Fighting Flynns,” and he called his wife “Tiger Lili.” When his friend Dr. Herman F. Erben Read the rest of this entry »

— Tim

 

A Pirate’s Role for Flynn

25 Mar

March 26, 1935

Errol Flynn, the husky Irish actor at Warners, gets his second film assignment. He will be see as a pirate with Robert Donat in Captain Blood. He is the first member of a supporting cast selected. Now it is uncertain if Jean Muir will have the feminine lead.

Midsummer Night Players: Ross Alexander & Jean Muir, Olivia DeHavilland & William Powell

Jean Muir – Why the 1930’s Warner Brothers Actress Left Film

— Tim

 

Sea Scout Scuttled

24 Mar

It’s overboard with the Sea Scout, but a wonderful day in the neighborhood for Fred Rogers and John Glover…

www.theerrolflynnblog.com…

March 23, 1938

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express

…The two young men who will accompany Errol Flynn on his cruise are John Glover and Fred Rogers, both of New York.

— Tim