The Errol Flynn Blog

8Our chum, Karl Holmberg sends this eBay item to us, a great photo of Shirly Hassau. I have a personal connection to her daughter Marilyn now Lynn McCormick who opened her home to an impromptu gathering on the occasion of my father Earl DeWitt suddenly passing away of a heart attack in 1977. Alone for a moment in her kitchen she told me she had only seen her father two or three times as a child. She was raised by the Salvation Army, she said. She told me how sorry she was for my loss, and said it was a huge loss for AA, too. Her husband was also a member, and so was my father who with a partner opened the first Halfway House for alcoholics in Washington State.

Thanks Karl!

— David DeWitt

The Mail Bag brings an interesting item today.

David,

I live in NYC and have just found a cache of Dr Erben material, some of it in German, from the estate of the late Rudolf Stoiber, renowned Austrian journalist and playwright. Some of it is letters to and from Frederick Justh, in which Justh defends a Dr Miorini with whom Erben was living in China.

That part is auf Deutsch and I will translate slowly and carefully, along with other material.

A large part of it is an unpublished manuscript from Joan Erben, the wife he married by impressing that he was Errol Flynn’s best friend. It too will take time to read and digest, but already I have the opinion that she spent the rest of her life miserable seeing that her husband was a thief and a liar, and nobody’s best friend. Poor girl. The manuscript was sent to Charles Higham ca. 1979, and then copied to Stoiber. 

Both, I understand, feel that Flynn was a nazi. So far as I can see there is no proof.

I look forward to going through this in the weeks to come and meeting you here in NYC where you can take a look. Also, if you have time, you can meet a Jewish friend of mine who was an American Army officer in charge of the Berlin Autobhan ca. 1952, when he was asked to escort a visitor to the film fest, to wit, Errol Flynn. He tells me that Flynn and his wife were excellent company and that through Flynn he got a job; and that later, he worked at TRUE as an editor when TRUE ran a bio on Flynn. Hopefully he will find the photo taken of himself with Flynn and provide more details when we meet in NYC.

Regards,

Ken Gibson

These Nazi claims by Higham has been rather thoroughly debunked by researchers and scholars, and some of the Stoiber material has been translated from German before but the Joan Erben manuscript is new to me. Should be intersting to hear what Ken thinks of the material after he has has had a chance to study it.

Thanks, Ken!

— David DeWitt