Xmas for Xenia in Zurich

The Twelfth Day of Christmas, 1939

Harrison Carroll
LA Evening Herald Express

Those who saw Errol Flynn knock out polo player Alden Roar should have seen him yesterday — talking for six minutes in stumbling French to a sick youngster in a Zurich sanitarium. It gave quite a different slant on the Irish star ….. Easy to picture, too, the thrill of the 12-year old girl at the other end of the line. Her name is Xenia Thorn and she has been in the Swiss sanitarium for two years, victim of a lingering illness.

About a month ago, Kelly Anthony, head of the hospital, wrote Flynn about the girl….saying Flynn was her idol and asking the star to arrange some time after the holidays to make the call. Enclosed was a check to pay for three minutes. Flynn doubled the time, paid the rest himself.

I don’t know the name of the sanitarium, only that it was in Zurich, in 1938. Perhaps Trolley No. 55 passes by it during its zipping around Zurich is this film clip from 1938:

— Tim

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