recently on The Stu Show, talking about their (Gary and Ralph’s) book recently highlighted here, and Mike’s documentary on the subject and… of their collective passion for it all!
The appearance has been preserved and is available via audio or video download for a nominal fee.
The palpable ENTHUSIASM of all assembled will positively bowl you over… 4 (host included) not so youthful kids rediscovering those roots!
Here’s an announcement for the program.
— Karl
The book entitled “Death Valley Superstars” by author Duke Haney has an excellent chapter on the life and death of Sean Flynn. It is also one of the saddest to read in a great book filled with many sad chapters. Has anyone else here read it? Ralph Schiller
— Ralph Schiller
January 29, 1938
Jimmy Starr
LA Evening Herald Express
STARS FLEE BRIGHT LIGHTS FOR LONELY REST SPOTS
Hollywood is fast becoming fed up with the glitter and the glamour, the hustle and the bustle of the more prominent “between pictures” holiday spots. The trend is definitely toward smaller, more isolated hideaways. Like other people, the stars occasionally tire of the brights lights, the night clubs, the theaters, the traffic, crowded sidewalks, hotels with super-service and the necessity of properly creased trousers and correct coiffures.
Errol Flynn has found the perfect method of “losing himself” between films, on weekends or other days of leisure. The popular Warner star ducks down to Santa Monica, boards his yacht and sails away.
— Tim
January 27, 1938
Harrison Carroll
LA Evening Herald Express
Purchase of a 75′ ketch in Boston makes Errol Flynn the No. 1 boat owner in Hollywood.
The Warner star, who planed in yesterday from a shopping tour of eastern shipyards, reveals that he now has a collection of seven boats with still another under construction.
The prize exhibit is the ketch Avenir*, which Flynn just purchased in Boston and which he will later sail through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast.
Besides the Avenir, Flynn still owns a 50-foot yacht, a yawl named the Cheerio, a 25-foot speedboat, an outboard fishing smack and two 20-foot yacht tenders.
Then, in a western shipyard, he is having a lifeboat made over into another tender for his latest acquisition.
When and if he gets a vacation, the star plans a long voyage to the South Seas.
…
* Errol subsequently named the yacht “Sirocco” after the yacht he owned and captained in Australia and New Guinea before he achieved world fame.
— Tim
I am back on the blog again and wish to thank our host David Dewitt and Rory Flynn for sharing these rare treasured photos of Errol Flynn. I’ll be back later with a book that has an entire chapter on Sean Flynn. Ralph Schiller
— Ralph Schiller
January 23, 1936
FLYNN OPERATED ON “FOR ART”
For the sake of art, Errol Flynn, Warner Brothers film star, yesterday underwent a surgeon’s knife.
Flynn was stricken at his home Tuesday with an attack of appendicitis and was taken to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. An examination made by Dr. Harley Gunderson revealed an operation was not immediately necessary.
Flynn, however, declared he would like to undergo the operation at once rather than be bothered by the offending appendix.
“I want to play in a picture entitled The Charge of the Light Brigade in April,” Flynn declared, “So let’s have the operation and I’ll be fit by that time.”
So, yesterday the appendectomy was performed. Flynn was reported as “resting comfortably.”
…
Might this be Errol, too? (Doubtful, but intriguing)
— Tim
January 20, 1936
Harrison Carroll
LA Evening Herald Express
It’s Scotch that Errol Flynn is, instead of Irish, if you ask the fan magazines. Since Captain Blood, they’ve all been clamoring to run a life story of Flynn, but he turns them all down.
“I’m writing it myself in book form,” he cannily replies.”
— Tim
“Not too tight, and not too loose.”
In The Courage to Love, renowned psychologist and hypnotherapist Stephen Gilligan recounts Errol’s response to a question regarding how best to hold a sword when fencing. Dr. Gilligan observed that Errol’s answer can be adapted as a guiding philosophy to many facets of life. He coined it “The Errol Flynn Principle”.
Errol said that when holding a sword, one should imagine holding a bird. If you hold the bird too tightly, you will crush it and lose it forever. However, if you hold it too loosely, it will fly away. “Not too loose and not too tight” was Flynn’s advice. And sage advice it was. After all, who knew both swords and birds better than Errol?
— Tim
December 28, 1937
Hollywood Citizen News
Sidney Skolsky Presents
Watching Them Make Pictures
Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains, and a crowd of extras are getting ready to play a scene for the picture, Robin Hood.
The setting is Nottingham Castle in England, and a feast is about to take place. Errol Flynn is Robin Hood, and Claude Rains is Prince John. The extras, dressed as knights, stand out in their shining armor. Director Mike Curtiz seems out of place, wearing trousers and a sweater.
Dirctor Curtiz gives the signal that he is ready. The cameras are turning. Robin Hood Flynn, lugging a deer, walks toward the banquet table. Here Prince John, with meats and wines before him, is entertaining. Robin Hood Flynn offers him the deer for the feast.
It is then that Prince John interrupts the scene and becomes Claude Rains.
He says to Curtiz, “Mike, I forgot to tell you something. I’ve been doing some research on the part. And according to history, Prince John was a vegetarian, and he never drank wine.”
Miss de Havilland and Mr. Rathbone, standing at the banquet table, are amazed, but say that history is history.
But this doesn’t stop director Curtiz. He says: “We need this big scene for the picture. In the movies we don’t make historical pictures, we make history.”
— Tim
