Dear fellow Flynn fans,
our Hollywood hero had more than one way to connect with people.
There was his charm and then there was his left jab. Funny enough this fisticuffs were meant in an almost friendly way. He picked well documented fights with John Huston, Dan Topping, Duncan Martin, Jack Easton and Olympian tough man & native Indian Jim Thorpe. During filming “They died with their boots on” Errol poked the former football player and all star athlete in the back at the Brown Derby bar and challenged him to hit him with his best shot. Thorpe, who supposedly was able to lift up & bring down a sledge hammer with on hand, did just that. He ducked a right and put his polar bear paw to Flynn`s chin. General Custer was down, but not out and ordered a round. Another friendship had just been sealed with a fist.
Here`s the blow by blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te8U2K70qYs
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Gentleman Tim
February 25, 2019 at 5:13 am
Olympic work, decathalheinz. Thank you. Jim Thorpe was the greatest all-round athlete in American history. His talent and achievements were absolutely astonishing.
One of your great nation’s immortals, the also mega-talented Michael Curtiz, was an admirer of Thorpe and had a major role in the recognition and revival of his life and legacy. See, for example, one of Curtiz’s masterpieces, “Jim Thorpe, All American”.
Here they are together on the set of Errol’s first film masterpiece, Captain Blood:
[img]https://filmkultura.hu/regi/articles/essays/images/kertesz/blood.jpg[/img]
Gentleman Tim
February 25, 2019 at 5:35 am
This is what a Jim Thorpe right cross might have looked like. Fesrless Flynn was a brave man indeed challenging this brave. No one, not even the Mighty Flynn, should have ever taunted Jim Thorpe, who – in addition to being a tremendous runner, jumper, thrower, decathlete, equestrian, ballroom dancer, baseball and football player – was a very skilled boxer.
thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com…
Gentleman Tim
March 2, 2019 at 7:26 am
They were much tougher in the days of Thorpe, helmetheinz. Here’s a football foto from 1912, the year J.T. showed the world who was the greatest athlete on the globe.
[img]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6_Oq5Wk4uYo/VADf4YLtS_I/AAAAAAAAJxs/aHCbaCeCeGE/s1600/Testing%2Bfootball%2Bhelmets%2C%2B1912.jpg[/img]
The Real Person!
July 17, 2022 at 8:51 am
[img]https://www.theerrolflynnblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/F122A693-4FBF-47F0-B960-1380B440D83D.jpeg[/img]
Errol got decked by an immortal. The IOC has reinstated Jim Thorpe as sole Olympic champion 110 years after his double victory in the penta- and the decathlon.