The Errol Flynn Blog

The mailbag bring us something interesting once again! Steve and Genene Randall (old hands at the subject of Errol Flynn, and well-respected for all they have done for his memory in Tasmania, the land of his birth), offer a look at some amazing look artworks featuring Flynn and say the lady who sent the image is asking 500 AUD to own each of them …

Have a look!

Visit us at the Facebook version of the blog in the comments or leave an inquiry in our  comments, as well …

Thanks so much Steve and Genene!

— David DeWitt

and, in particular, a Flynn (early beginnings) archaeologist:

John Hammond Moore (1924-2017);

and his masterful work?

“The Young Errol Flynn Before Hollywood”.

Published in Australia back in 1975, and at one time RARE as hen’s teeth to even find… was finally RE-published by a Canadian firm, Trafford, in 2011.

Mr.Moore was covered in this space back in the day (including being interviewed by the late Jack Marino LA Talk Radio Show) by way of this link:

www.theerrolflynnblog.com…

and, for more background- here is his “local” obituary which covers but some of his fascinating life story (including loosing his leg):

Columbia historian John Hammond Moore dies at 92

— Karl

that was ALMOST inches from a clean get-a-way!

Fortunately… I alerted our resident keeper of THE TRUTH in all things Cinema and Television history…

After Brian Twist’s INCREDIBLE find- of an extant early Flynn “cameo” effort… still another so-called “listing” has attempted to lay claim to the early Flynn film C.V. also, only~ NOT SO FAST:

— Karl

Our chum and old hand Flynnman , Karl Holmberg sent this photo of Errol Flynn son waving from a hillside near Thanh, Vietnam before being wounded on March 2, 1968.

Troops of an allied strike force take cover in the foreground during the attack. the force counterattacked enemy positions on the hill, and retook the hill, which is 325 miles northeast of Saigon. Flynn’s wounds in his chest did not require hospitalization.

Dana Stone/AP

From Tours of Duty:

“Sean was more than a war correspondent. Embedded with the Green Berets and MACV-SOG, he didn’t just cover the war—he lived it, fought in it, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Special Forces in active combat. When the moment came, Sean picked up a rifle and joined the men he had come to respect, not out of duty, but out of loyalty and shared risk. That choice marked him not just as a witness, but as a warrior.”

— David DeWitt

The Mailbag brings a response by expert Errol Flynn biographer and writer Thomas McNulty to a new biography recently out in by Patricia O’Brian …

Hello David,

Our good friend Karl shared with me the notice of Patricia O’Brien’s Flynn biography. Upon examining her credentials, I was hopeful. A Ph.D. scholar setting her sights on Flynn might have been a marvelous text. Unfortunately, I have seen the publishers hype as well, but worse than that I examined a transcript of her recent talk where I listened to these statements: “There have been so many cases of celebrity men going to trial since Errol Flynn, and I keep thinking what might have happened if he had actually been held accountable back in 1943.” Flynn, of course, was held accountable. That’s what being charged and put on trial means – accountability. In her discussion (the link is below) she is quite obviously wishes Flynn had been found guilty. But that’s not the worst of it. In an interview with “Financial Review,” the tag line is: “Jailing Errol Flynn might have stopped Epstein and Weinstein.” The Financial Review further blurbs: “If Errol Flynn had been called out, it could have been harder for serial offenders like Jeffrey Epstein to get away with what he did.” Shades of Charles Higham! My reaction to this is anger. This is precisely what it appears to be; an author being complicit in intentionally condoning and fabricating clickbait headlines to sell her book. It’s disgusting and unethical, but, sadly, there’s more. 

I heard from Dr. O’Brien via email in March, 2010. I’ll show you the text later. You’ll recall in the “Note and Sources” section of my book, which, incidentally, is more important than the bibliography, I had several notations that were confidential. Those individuals shared private information with me and preferred to remain anonymous. Dr. O’Brien requested I reveal my sources and provide her their contact information to assist her in her own work, which she described as being about New Guinea. I declined, and mentioned I thought her request was unprofessional (I don’t recall my exact words to her.) Her lack of ethics struck me as odd at the time given that she was signing her name as “Dr Patricia O’Brien, Visiting associate Professor, Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies.” 

She has an impressive background, but she’s participating in and propagating a hateful narrative that’s nothing more than an unprovable supposition. And all of this before the book is released in the United States! It’s already a # 1 bestseller in Australia. There’s more I can say here, but now we have to wait, we have to be fair and read the actual book itself. I am hopeful to find some quality research. 

I am not a fan of the Me-Too movement. I was abused by a woman at sixteen and the emotional trauma I experienced took me years to come to grips with. I don’t talk about that normally, but the narrative that men are inherently abusers is a false narrative. Did Dr. O’Brien consider how Flynn’s surviving children and grandchildren will feel by promoting this idea that a jailed Flynn would have prevented the abuse by people like Jeffrey Epstein? Does she understand what legitimate studies in cultural anthropology entail? From my admittedly biased perspective, Dr Patricia O’Brien has become an abuser herself.

Link to the Financial Review article (subscription required, but you can view the headlines:

www.afr.com…

Link to the YouTube video taken at the United States Study Center:

www.youtube.com…

Thanks for responding to this publication, Tom,  and I agree 100%, this is another Higham style attack on a man whose family is left wondering if their father will ever stop being the subjects of these ridiculous, unwarranted self-serving attacks?

d’

— David DeWitt