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Archive for the ‘Flynn and…’ Category

Hedda you Hearst?

31 Jul

Dear Flynnstones,

back in the day Tinseltown gossip was never heard through the grapevine. It was put in dark ink by the top two society columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. They played a decades long heads-up game for the scoops, scandals and skirmishes of the Hollywood elite. With their clout they could make or break a career. Fortunately for Flynn, both liked his boyish charm and his mannish mischief. H. Hopper, besides her poisonous pen best known for her flamboyant headdresses, remembers him fondly in her autobiography “The truth and nothing but.”

At San Simon, Hearst`s $40.000.000 Shangri-La in San Luis Obisco County Louella mingeled with a stream of visiting celebrities, stars and producers that poured every weekend into the fabulous, twin-towered castle or the surrounding marble “bungalows” at the summons of W.R (Hearst) and Marion (Davies). So did I. At the fifty-four foot table in the Renaissance dining hall, you`d see Garbo, John Gilbert, Errol Flynn, Norma Shearer, Nick Schenk, Beatrice Lilly, Cissy Patterson, Frank Knox, Bernard Baruch. Name the biggest and they`d be there, including on one occasion, Mr. and Mrs. Cal Coolidge and Bernard Shaw. San Simeon, two hundred miles from Culver City, was too far for daily travels to Metro, (so) Hearst built a new castle for his princess on the gold coast of Santa Monica. This new ninety-nine room Georgian mansion, with two swimming pools, three drawing rooms and a private movie theatre was called the “Beach House”.

Errol was a shoo-in there. Orson Welles was not. His monumental mockumentary movie CITIZEN KANE  exposing the real relationship between married man William Randolph Hearst and his protegé Marion Davies put him on the black list of the newspaper tycoon. They would never become Rosebuddies again.

Errol used to live directly across the street from me during his marriage to Lili Damita. All I had to do to pick up an item or two for the column, was sit by the bedroom and listen to them shrieking at each other. I got the lowdown on their separation by just lying in bed and listening. It was a screaming, juicy bout. I was all set to put it on the wire the next morning, when Errol came over in dressing gown and slippers at 7 a.m, got me out of bed and begged me not to print it, saying they hadn´t even talked about a property settlement. Like a fool, I promised to keep silent until he gave me a cue. But he couldn`t keep his own secret and told Louella, who scooped me with my own story. I could have throttled him…

Hedda`s tactful taciturnity (completely out of character) secured her a spot on the flynntourage together with NY collegue Mark Hellinger, who later became a producer for Warner Bros. Once a reporter always a reporter, he often called Hopper from a private booth and drove Jack Warner mad wondering where all the inside information about the lot came from.

He (Flynn) worshiped John Barymore and deliberately started the rumor that he was John`s illegitimate offspring. They came to parting ways however, when he invited “Father” up to Mulholland drive. John, who was incontinent toward the end, forgot himself as he sat on the beautiful settee in the lavishly furnished living room that was Errol`s pride. That was the last time John was invited.

Playing mother alongside Father, Hopper gave our Hollywood hero some good advice. One he really should have taken. H.H. implored him not to spend all his money on parties, but to buy a girl a box of candy in the process or send her some flowers once in a while. She said a single rose each time, could have spared him five lawsuits.

“For one revel at his Mulholland Drive home, Errol Flynn imported a transvestite fairy dressed so skillfully as a girl that nobody guessed the secret. Errol had his swimming pool lit from below and brought on a team of divers to brighten the evening. When his guests went on chattering, taking not a blind bit of notice of the performance, he (himself) dived headlong into the water in protest…

One day he was sun-bathing mother-naked on a sailboat in the Mediterranean, when a sight seeing craft loaded with American schoolteachers came by. He chose the moment to stand up and stretch. One gasping teacher fell overboard, covered in blushes, and he promptly plunged in to retrieve her.

As relentless as the Walt Disney friend Hedda Hopper waged war on unamerican activities in Hollywood during the McCarthy era, she always held a soft spot for Errol Flynn, despite his bouts with alcohol and else.

The last time I saw Errol was in Paris, when he was making ROOTS OF HEAVEN. He wanted his teen-age popsie to stay in the room, while I intervied him. She wouldn`t go, so I did, interview or no interview.

Once more she kept mum and not too long Flynn was gone.

Enjoy,

 

 

— shangheinz

 

Goldilegs

20 Jul

Dear Flynnstones,

the pic above is not a still from GOLDFINGER, but an image of dancer-actress Julie Newmar getting ready from the movie SERPENT OF THE NILE.

It stars amongst others Flynntimo William Lundigan and Rhonda Fleming. The Queen of Technicolor encountered Errol some year before on September 30, 1951 when she sang at NBC´s Colgate Comedy Hour, where our Hollywood hero made an appearance. Apparently they all met again at the set of Hollywood at Nile. The bare-chested man with mustache and crew cut (KIM!?) looking on in the shadow is supposed to be Flynn. Is or isn`t he? What in your opinion is the margin for error (Errorrol « The Errol Flynn Blog) here? Do we maybe have a new case of an unannounced, unallowed and undetected cameo by Flynn like in the The Lady from Shanghai (The Lord from Shanghai- Errol after all? « The Errol Flynn Blog)??

Anyways, Julie, who later became famous as Cat Woman in the colorful Batman TV series, is full of praise for Errol Flynn`s dancing skills. “(It`s) Something he`s never been given credit for. This person is not a dancer. But he was a natural…I have never seen such a natural dancer, singer. He is only known as an actor, his timing was out of this world, his instincts were better than dancer-dancers.”

THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS for sure showed that there was gold in them legs of the known legs` man.

Too wrong No, thanks for everyflynn, Julie Newmar.

Enjoy,

 

— shangheinz

 

The Garden of Erben

11 Jul

Dear Flynnstones,

here are the old stomping grounds of Errol`s best bamboozler and favorite friend from Vienna, Hermann Erben. Many letters to and from Flynn bore the adress of the Arenberg Hof at Danneberg Platz 19. The Doc`s top floor apartment was also his medical practice whenever he was back from his worldover trips. It supposedly lacked running water, but had a room with a view. Situated next to Arenberg Park, an oasis within the city, you look straight at one of the monolithic concrete cubes, which were built as bomb shelters in WWII. No use trying to remove it, since blowing it up would leave the surrounding infrastructure in ruins. This towering behemoth serves as perpetual reminder that there still is trouble in paradise.

Enjoy,


— shangheinz

 

Flynntourage

29 Apr

Dear Flynnstones,

what I Iike most in this rare picture is Errol‘s inquisitive side look towards his stoic father. Dr. Theodore Thomson Flynn doesn‘t show one iota of emotion about having three women in tow. Them being his wife, Mother of Errol, plus the stepmother of his son‘s ex-wife and the prospective new Mrs. Errol Flynn, a Romanian princess called “The Geek“. Could it be, the scientist was silently measuring the gravity of family?

Enjoy,

— shangheinz

 

Love at first sigh

18 Mar

Dear Flynnstones,

enjoy this pretty picture of Errol‘s last love.

Make laugh not war,

— shangheinz

 

Girls, girls, girls

02 Mar

Dear Flynnstones,

here is Father Flynn, the perennial ladies‘ man.

 

Enjoy,

 

 

— shangheinz

 

Not Cabot

26 Feb

Read the rest of this entry »

— shangheinz

 

…then he took Berlin.

12 Feb

Dear Flynnstones,

here are the Good, the Bad and the Lovely.

When Errol was trailblazing the Berlinale in 1957, even Goldfinger couldn‘t help but smile at cheeky Flynn getting kissed by a young Romy Schneider.

Enjoy,

— shangheinz

 

O’Driscoll and Rascal in Alaska

09 Feb

Read the rest of this entry »

— shangheinz

 

Mail Bag! Errol Flynn, Shirley Hassau & The Black Dahlia?

04 Feb

Tony Mostrom a writer of LA History for the LA Times and other publications writes us with a question: Having seen the pics on your Errol Flynn pages, I wanted to ask about the possibility, which is quite credible based on what I’ve dug into myself, that Shirley Hassau – through her husband Henry Hassau – knew Elizabeth Short “the Black Dahlia. Shirley’s husband Henry (they divorced in ’44) had some connection to Short’s small circle of friends in Hollywood. Has anyone, I wonder, (Lynn McCormick, for example?) asked her mother if she’s heard anything about this?

There is a book on the Dahlia case which claims that Elizabeth Short knew “Hassau’s wife” (first name not mentioned. The book is Severed by John Gilmore, see pp 181-86. I am a columnist, as mentioned, and I’m working on a new edition coming out. You can see my writings at tonymostrom.com….

Many thanks!

 

Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia

New Edition for 75th Anniversary of Slaying

Seventy-five years ago, on January 15, 1947, the Black Dahlia murder hit post-World War II Los Angeles like a bombshell. In the seventy-five years since her murder, the Black Dahlia has become a magnetic icon in American pop culture, a mythical symbol of noir Hollywood.

 

The question of who killed the Black Dahlia stands today as one of the most intractable mysteries in all of true crime. The Black Dahlia murder—unlike such earlier headline-grabbing cases as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the Lindbergh kidnapping—was the first case to command the attention of post-war America with its stark carnality. Author John Gilmore plumbs to the dark core of this terrifying story that he argues can never be truly solved. Here is the real Elizabeth Short—the enigmatic Black Dahlia.

 

In Severeds hard-boiled yet haunting prose, Gilmore evokes some of the spookiest corridors of old-time Los Angeles, the wartime world of Hollywood bars, dance halls and rooming houses where, as the author says, no one remembers the names,a place of substance and shadowwhere people left no trace. Severed also unfolds the tangled inside story of the police investigation and the remorseless Hearst-stoked press hoopla that paralleled it.

 

Severed remains the first and only non-fiction book to offer a documented exploration of the Black Dahlia case as endorsed by law enforcement and forensic science experts. Gilmore reveals the twisted psychology and down-and-out life story of the murder suspect including transcripts of his taped indirect confession.In his book The Cases That Haunt Us, legendary FBI profiler John E. Douglas (author of Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit) states that Gilmore has done extensive research into the Short case. . . Had Detective St. John had the opportunity to interview Arnold Smith, the outcome might have been different.

 

Through Gilmores relentless spade work, the spectral luster of this most spectacular unsolvedmurder in American crime history seems not diminished but enhanced. The updated third edition of Severed includes Black Dahlia-inspired poetry by the author, new foreword and afterword, expanded photo section, index and never-before-published corroborating evidence and forensic material from the Los Angeles County Coroners Office. Ultimately, John Gilmore boils down its undying allure to this haiku-like equation: The pale white body severed in two and left for the world to view, and her name: Black Dahlia.”  

John Gilmore

-30-

Praise for Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia

   

The most satisfying and disturbing conclusion to the Black Dahlia case. After reading Severed, I feel like I truly know Elizabeth Short and her killer.” —David Lynch

 

The best book on the Black Dahlia in fact, the only reliable book.Colin Wilson

 

Delves deeply into one of Hollywood’s most celebrated murder cases.Publishers Weekly

 

The most uncanny evocation of L.A. during and after the war; Ive read it seven times. When I was in L.A., I went to the locations he cites in the book—all the fleapit hotels, the place where the Dahlia was murdered . . . The ghosts are still around. His portrait of Elizabeth Short as a strange, unknowable somnambulist sleepwalking through that unique junction of time and space is permanently haunting.—Gary Indiana

 

My god this is a frightening tale . . . The most famous murder in L.A., and we suddenly see that we knew nothing before, only the glitter and red of blood. This is now a Pandora’s Box.Kenneth Anger

 

About John Gilmore

It is truly fitting that author John Gilmore should be the one to penetrate the multi-layered mystery of this archetypal Los Angeles murder. Described by the Sydney Morning Herald as “the quintessential L.A. noir writer,” John Gilmore has been internationally acclaimed for his hard-boiled true crime books, literary fiction and Hollywood memoirs and biographies. Gilmores father was an LAPD officer at the time of the Dahlias murder and was involved in the citywide dragnet that immediately followed the discovery of her corpse. His mother was once a would-be starlet under contract with MGM Studios; and Gilmore himself was a rebel-type young actor in the 50s, carousing with the likes of James Dean, Dennis Hopper and Vampira. His works include The Garbage People, Laid Bare, Cold-Blooded, Live Fast, Die Young, Fetish Blonde, Inside Marilyn Monroe, L.A. Despair and have been translated into numerous languages. John Gilmore died in Los Angeles in 2016.

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Contact:

Stuart Swezey

Publisher, Amok Books

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www.amokbooks.com…

 

— David DeWitt