Highlighted by an outstanding portrayal of a late-1950s Flynn by Kevin Kline, who, many believe, should have played Flynn in a major biopic way back when he could have portrayed Errol at his physical and cinematic swashbuckling peak. Unfortunately, apparently due to screenplay and budget problems, the film itself is not nearly on par with Kline’s superlative performance. Susan Sarandon does an excellent job, as well.
— Tim
Duncan Regehr in My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn, Broadcast TV, 1985
— Tim
“A bumper year of great performances and thrilling productions”
www.tasmaniantheatreawards.org…
— Tim
We got this email in the Mail Bag today from Annette who says:
Hi … I’m trying to find a way to contact Mr. Memmo the owner of Zaca. I have a beautiful watercolor of Zaca in San Francisco Bay … Any idea how I can reach him?
I suggested Luther Greene and the Sausalito Historical Society but can’t find Luther’s email address for the life of me! I once had a correspondence with a friend of Mr. Memmo, but that is lost, too, to the sands of time …
Any ideas?
— David DeWitt
Cairns, Queensland’s northern-most city, is an international gateway to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. For much of the twentieth century, including during Errol’s youth, its economy depended on sugar growing and farming. Later tourism became the dominant industry.
The city looks east to the Coral Sea at Trinity Bay, which was named by James Cook in 1770. It had an excellent harbor, “lush soil” and rich mineral mines, all of which drew a motley population, including a very significant percentage of fan tan playing immigrant Chinese.
This extraordinary setting eventually developed and became widely known for a uniquely wild environment, with gambling dens, opium smugglers, Japanese geishas, and an infamous red light district.
And (therefore) then along came Flynn:
“By 1923, Cairns’ “polychromatic population” had reached 8000, enough for Cairns to be declared a city, if a very rough and ready one.
Among its visiting chroniclers was the Hobart-born Errol Flynn, then still an aspiring unknown. He found his way to the Chinese Fan-Tan gambling joints, where he witnessed an operatic all-in brawl that seems to have provided some inspiration for his swashbuckling film roles:
“It was canecutters versus Chinese,” he records in Beam Ends, his supremely unreliable celebrity memoir: “Every moment more and more belligerents joined in the scrap, for no good reason other than it was anyone’s fight. Chinamen rushed about shouting and squealing in their high-pitched voices.
In the middle of the room, Chinamen, canecutters, Malays, half-castes, dark-skinned Italians and all other multi-hued nationalities were mixed up in a confused and struggling mass, amid the tumult and babel of shouted curses and imprecations in unknown tongues.
After a while the thing assumed an impersonal aspect. A man recognised an enemy simply because he happened to be nearest to him or of a different colour. A carload of police arrived on the scene and laid heavily and indiscriminately with their truncheons.””
Perhaps a similar scence: The Battle of Paramatta Park – Cairns, July 1932.
How it looks today, in the Post Flynn era:
— Tim
While watching “Midsomer Murders” (S10E1) I happened to see this image on a sign outside a pub (The Airman). I could only capture on my cell phone -but what do you think?
— Maria
Errol’s Fellow Aussie, Friend and Behind-the-Scenes Hollywood Costume Designing Superstar, Orry-Kelly.
See what he had to say about Errol
— Tim
