— David DeWitt
Author Archive
The Dawn Patrol at The Carolina Theatre!
09
Aug
The Carolina Theatre, 1938 advertising Errol Flynn staring in “The Dawn Patrol.” You can see this photograph at the Regional History Museum downtown Spartanburg! #spartanburghistory #southcarolinahistory #errolflynn #theatrehistory The Regional History Museum is open Tuesday – Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 11am-4pm.
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag! Marvelous Kirt Doke Errol Flynn Paintings!
31
Jul
Rory Flynn received an email from Kirk Doke and he has kindly allowed us to publish it here on the blog:
Dear Rory,
Congratulations on the publication your new book. I purchased a copy of The Baron a couple of years ago and I enjoyed reading it very, very much. Thank you for all of the hard work that you have conducted on your father’s behalf. All Flynn fans are deeply indebted to you for your remarkable passion.
I read on the EF blog today that the Decker portrait of Errol Flynn was recently restored. That is great news and I hope you enjoy the work very much. Your father’s interest in art has always fascinated me.
Please find attached images of Errol Flynn that I have painted. I am contacting you via a secure educational email system and this is not a solicitation.
For the last 35 years I have taught and exhibited art. Before academia called, I was fortunate to work for a year in a movie memorabilia store in Greenwich Village. It was there that I started collecting Errol Flynn items.
Five years ago, I retired from full time teaching and transitioned to part time, which now allows me more time to paint. My goal is to produce a couple EF paintings per year, with ten now being close to exhibition form. I enjoy touching them up now and then.
The main focus has been the swashbuckling movies and I am moving into the war and westerns next. The works are painted in acrylic on canvas and all paintings are 30″ x 48.”
I wish to keep the series intact, and they will not be offered commercially.
In a few years I will be contacting regional art centers and museums to exhibit a retrospective of my career and I plan to exhibit them at that time.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoy my work.
Very Best,
Kirt G. Doke
M.A., M.A., M.F.A.
Adjunct Professor Art
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College
Mt. Pleasant, MI
— David DeWitt
Rory Flynn Restores John Decker Portrait!
28
Jul
Rory Flynn, daughter of Errol Flynn announces on the blog today that she has fully restored the famous John Decker portrait of her father:
During my childhood this portrait always hung at Mulholland Farm in my father’s den … the artist was John Decker most famous for his portraits and characterizations of Hollywood celebrities Katherine Hepburn, Buster Keaton, John Barrymore, Jimmy Durante and others as historical figures.
He was quite well-known, and a friend of my father who invested in an art gallery with him in Hollywood, and I think he painted this in 1947… many years later, another wife later, the portrait was taken to Jamaica where it remained for about 25 years when it was almost completely destroyed in a hurricane.
The water damage was horrible.
My stepmother relocated it to the basement where it sat all these years until I was able to retrieve it after her death. I handed it over to the art curator John Short and John Hamm who run the North Carolina Gallery of Fine Art where it was beautifully and miraculously restored to its former condition with almost exactly the same frame that my father had made for it.
I am thrilled and excited to have this hanging in my home and I can’t thank these gentlemen enough for the year that it took for them to restore it …
Rory Flynn with Curator John Short
Click image to enlarge
… thanks, Rory!
“North Carolina Gallery of Fine Art specializes in 19th, 20th and 21st century museum quality art. Our special exhibit is the “Face of Lincoln” bronze sculpture by Robert Merrell Gage (American 1892-1981). The gallery also provides art restoration services for paintings and frames, art appraisals and the professional curation of small private and business art collections”
— David DeWitt
Errol Flynn … WHY?
13
Jul
[on the squarish question mark that Errol had monogrammed on many of his shirts] “This, my own confusion, became my trademark. My own questioning of myself … I still wear a question mark beneath my handkerchief pocket on all of my suits. I am still wondering why”.
— David DeWitt
Dennis Mullen & the Ghosts of Titchfield
03
Jul
My late friend Dennis Mullen was is a very unique person. He was a writer and an entrepreneur and definitely an adventure or in the spirit of Errol Flynn. He created a website he called in search of Errol Flynn and produced a wonderful blend of specialties he called Zaca Tea. He travel to Jamaica and explored the remains of the The Titchfield hotel which everyone told him would be impossible to achieve. The property was part of the military grounds and no one could ever get access. But they didn’t count on the charm of Dennis Mullen. He made friends with somebody at the base and they trusted Errol Flynn and the blog beside one of the pools where Errol and Errol Conrad sat so many years ago. He was beside Pat Waymore at her 84th birthday. He explored Navy Island. He even discovered a copy of my wicked wicked ways dedicated to Flynn‘s parents and facilitated its sale. He made Sand dial necklaces from the sand at Navy Island. He sent one of these to Rory Flynn and I saw her charmed and delighted eyes when she opened it. He loved the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee! I miss my dear friend …
— David DeWitt
