Dear Flynnmates,
whatta ham.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Author Archive
Mulholland House
28
Dec
Dear Flynnmates,
“How is all this?”, wondered Errol Flynn in a home story for an architectural magazine about his new built house at 7740 Mulholland Drive. “I am still in my thirties and I am sitting on top of the world”.
He refers to his new home as Mulholland House built in the style of Connecticut farmhouse and graciously offers a glimpse not only into his habitat but also his soul.
“I was a pirate in another life and believe dying is only dying on this earth..”
He elaborates how via way of Tahiti he was washed ashore at Warners and beat out Leslie Howard, Ronald Coleman, Frederic March and Clark Gable for the role of Captain Blood vacated by Robert Donat.
Marion Davies had been first choice to star opposite him, but William Randolph Hearst considered the part not prestigious enough for his protegé and consoled her with a ocean front beach house at Santa Monica instead.
Flynn meanwhile built his dream house on eleven and a half acres in the Hollywood hills with panoramic view of the ranch lands of the San Fernando Valley before it became sub urbanized.
“She went up fast, like the sails of a boat,” he remembered the costs escalating from $35.000 to $ 125000 after he made various additions like the circular stables copied from the Lipizzaner stables in Vienna.
The den true to style mimicked a pirate`s lair with a zebra skin rug, a model galleon over the fireplace, a ship`s clock, a barometer and another ship`s model top the stairs with a brass tab on its glass case engraved with four lines of verse that pretty much summed up its owner`s philosophy:
“One ship sails east/the other west/by the same winds that blow/it`s the set of the sails and not the rules/that decide the way to go.”
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Ho Ho Ho to Yo
25
Dec
Dear Flynnmates,
we wish you all a very merroly Christmas and a happy`n`healthy New Year.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
EUrrol
21
Dec
Dear Flynnmates,
since Hitler did not only wage war on the world, but on Warner Bros. too, Errol`s movies were banned in most of Europe until 1945. Once released they instantly became huge successes. In 1951 Flynn was awarded the “Bambi”, a feline golden statuette, for favorite screen actor in Germany of that year. This may even have prompted him to come over to take over the Old Continent. Here are some marvelous hand painted European movie posters, which in their own right contributed to his outstanding cinematic reputation.
Enjoy.
— shangheinz
Black Flynnday
28
Nov
Dear Flynnmates,
this is the original farewell article of PARIS MATCH about our Hollywood heroe‘s untimely demise.
It shows a pensive Flynn, who may very well have felt the night coming on.
The in the headline suggested cause of death: too much heart(beat)…
Adieu,
— shangheinz
Love Boat
25
Nov
Dear Flynnmates,
let me take you on a little ship trip again. Some images have been shown here before and if you remember we wondered who the lads and the ladies in attendance were.
Weekend Cruise with Errol Flynn! « The Errol Flynn Blog
The opinions varied and in the end we had some pretty educated guesses as well as far out assumptions. Let`s rock the boot one more time and look at the who`s who at the helm of the Sirocco.
I think Karl is right, the lady in white looks a lot like Cabot`s girl from the Vanderbilt wedding and not Beverly Tyler .
Then I opt for a black tanned Bud Ernst and his two time wife Betty Furness holding on to the steering wheel.
Big Boy is a fix, while Lupe Velez is a nix. That`s not her. Not sure if it is Barbara Weeks either.
Now things get interesting. I think I saw a young Otto Reichow pleading love to one of the girls. This would be quite a find, since we know Otto only from photos at Flynn`s funeral and poolside with Beverly Aadland.
Here is a picture at a different angle with the man facing the camera.
If I had any money I`d bet it on Reichow to win by a whale`s length.
Maybe that`s why I don`t have any.
Here he is in later years.
I leave it for you to decide.
But the real trove would be, if that girl behind his left was a young Ava Gardner. In her biography she wrote she went out with Flynn before her career took off. They stayed friendly and years later were starring together in “The Sun also rises”. Flynntimo Ventu Sala told me Errol stood her up once in Mallorca, when she came to his hotel room door and he wouldn`t/couldn`t open the door.
Anyways, what do you think?
Here she is on the movie lot in another relaxing pose.
I may have a winner here.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Shooting the Breeze with the Boys
22
Nov
Dear Flynnmates,
here is a picture of Errol Flynn and the crew of the Kathleen (more likely the sloop than the schooner) at the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club.
The first blog member that guesses, who the lady at his side was, wins a rum punch lollipop.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Flynn`s footsteps- Harry, Peg & Paesano
30
Oct
Dear Flynnmates,
As some of his letters show Errol stayed at the Hotel Bauer when in Venice.
While its name literally means peasant, very few homini agricolae are encountered there, for it is one of the top spots to stay in the City of love.
The cubic building is only a gondola`s drive over the canal away from Peggy Guggenheim`s one story palace with its fine surrealistic art works and garden sculptures, a feast for an art lover like Flynn.
But their liaison dated back even further according to the bio Mistress of Modernism- The life of Peggy Guggenheim.
Harry`s Bar completes the bohemian triangle, of historic places our Hollywood hero visited: www.italianfoodmadesimple.com…
Arrigo (Italian for Harry) Cipriani`s culinary expertise secured him a franchise outlet atop the Rockefeller Centre called the Rainbow Room. The family`s signature drink is the Bellini, made of white peaches and sparkling wine.
Enciao,
— shangheinz
