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Mail Bag! Errol Flynn Fan Since Age 11!

12 Jul

Received this wonderful mail bag item from Claudia Raab this morning and am sharing it with everybody!

Thanks, Claudia!

 

Hello David,

As an Errol Flynn fan since my 11th birthday when I saw „The Adventures of Robin Hood“ for the first time, I’ve been following your blog for quite a while now. I still can’t get over how much information and interesting tidbits you and the other authors have gathered and presented there.

I’m nowhere close to being a “Flynn scientist” like you guys, but I’ve managed to visit some locations connected to him in one way or the other, mainly during my trips to the Southwest and the West coast (my favorite places to go on vacation).

I visited the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup last year which was mentioned in your blog two weeks ago, and took a picture of the sign at the door of the Errol Flynn room. Feel free to add it to your blog if you think it’s interesting enough! What I really liked is that the room next to Errol’s is named after his friend Ida Lupino.

I also visited Lone Pine with the beautiful Alabama Hills where parts of “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Kim” were filmed. The small movie museum there has several posters of Flynn movies as well as a coat that he wore in “Kim”. Thought you might like the photos (although you’ve probably seen it yourself).

Keep up the great work!

Best regards

 

Claudia Raab

(Munich, Germany)

— David DeWitt

 
7 Comments

Posted in Flynn-related, Mail Bag

 

We Welcome New Author William Russo to the Errol Flynn Blog!

10 Jul

We are happy to welcome our newest Author William Russo to The Errol Flynn Blog! Thanks for becoming part of our l ship’s crew, Wiliam! We look forward to your posts and comments!

 

— David DeWitt

 
3 Comments

Posted in Main Page, William Russo

 

Mail Bag! Contemporaries of Flynn?

10 Jul

William Russo send me another interesting email, and I think it is worth publishing!

Dear David,
    Amazing what turned up from just a few references to MWWW. And thanks for the tip on the Earl Conrad book; I was able to order a copy from Amazon.
    There is another topic I would like to throw open. As a long time student of history (I detest the term “history buff”) I take particular interest in discovering what things or personages were contemporaneous within a given context. That is, when we study certain regions in a linear fashion, we fail to realize the full context of the surrounding world at that time. For example, long ago I knew a few things about Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana purchase. I also knew a few things about the French revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte. But when I realized that Jefferson negotiated the purchase from Napoleon, I was stunned. I had never even considered them as contemporaries!
    So, I started to  wonder a few years ago, who might Erroll Flynn have crossed paths with? Some Googling came up with a few surprises. FDR and Eleanor, for one. Not surprising in the time frame, but interesting that Flynn merited such status. One connection that for some forgotten reason intrigued me, was, did Flynn know Hemingway? What little I found turned out to be even more intriguing. Based solely on comments from Hemingway; Hemingway, early on anyway, without having ever met him, seemed to have a low opinion of Flynn, considering him something like a dilettante and a clown. As time passed, I got the impression that Hemingway resented Fynn’s fame as an adventurer, didn’t want to acknowledge it, and may have been jealous that Flynn was living the life that he, Earnest Hemingway should be noted for. I think Hemingway wanted to be the model for the prototypical, honest, down to earth, man’s man adventurer, without promoting himself as such; except that was exactly what he was doing; promoting himself, which of course contradicts the image. He had the habit of overstating the importance of understatement as a demeanor. In any case he may or may not have met Flynn in Spain during the Spanish civil war. Though he walked out of a screening of  The Sun Also Rises in disgust, after a few minutes, he later commented that he heard Flynn had been pretty good. I did find a picture of the two, presumably from the mid 1950s, both old and grizzled, possibly taken in Cuba. I do not know the occasion or their dispositions.
    I was happy to discover that Erroll and Orson Wells, had a cordial relationship, including as drinking buddies; and that Flynn, the older of the two, regarded Wells as a somewhat wayward youth! I do know that Wells persuaded Flynn to let him use the Zaca as the yacht in Lady from
Shanghi. I know also that Flynn spent a short time with Fidel Castro in 1958 or 59 and I’m sure Castro thought that pretty cool, as did Flynn, in that it re-affirmed his belief that he was a legitimate journalist.
    So who other unlikely or notable personages crossed paths with our man Flynn?
Thanks, William! As I replied to you, it is more a question of Who did Flynn not meet?

— David DeWitt

 
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Posted in Mail Bag

 

Mail Bag! Errol, Audie and the Bird Man!

05 Jul

Received a great email from Audie in Portugal who has a question and an interesting story about how Errol reaches so many people even today!


 This photo of Fishing Pier is courtesy of TripAdvisor. Photo by Audie!

I read MWWW in the late 70’s/early 80’s in paperback edition, borrowed from a friend and was hooked!

It wasn’t until much later while at a St. Simons Island, GA, USA library I found a book about his son and himself and was hooked all over again.

My future (and now) husband (living as expats in Portugal) attended a Flynn celebration in St Augustine, Florida when Rory was supposed to be there at a “Sea Hawk” film in 2015.

Even tho she was not there, my future husband and myself enjoyed the festivities. We will always remember that time as “young” oldsters.

I have followed (lurked) this blog since a bit before then and have collected many books about ELTF.

My all time wish about MWWW’s is to know about the first edition copy, printed in England in which “Tiger Lil’s” comments were deleted for the USA edition. If anyone knows, I would be very much interested in what she had to say about him.

Does anyone know?

I have several first edition books about our favorite playboy and also have several first edition books by David Niven, who has several amusing (or not, in David’s case) anecdotes about his Hollywood friend.

From a somewhat long time lurker (only about 4 years, now), I very much like the daily edition of this great blog.

Keep up the good work David!

Warm regards,

Audie

And an addendum:

About giving books to interested Flynn fans, here is another personal Flynn story.

There happens to be a bird loving gentleman who frequents the park next to the pier on St. Simons Island, GA. He arrives in the morning with his lawn chair and several bags of day old bread. Once settled in, he tosses up bread tidbits and watches the starlings (and now sea gulls) play their swoop and grab game in mid air. The amazing thing is that the birds respect him and never leave their “calling cards” anywhere near where he is sitting. They light upon his head and his arm, when extended, for the treat. He can individually identify them and one he calls Niki because of the recognizable white brand on its wing. The locals call him “Bird Man” and he has been the focus of a couple of news worthy articles.

The first time I met him, somehow within the first 10 minutes of conversation settled on Flynn. Not a usual topic for a first meeting. He told me that his middle name was Errol and it seems as though he was conceived one night after his parents watched an amorous Flynn movie.

While making plans to visit the Flynn blowout at St. Augustine Florida with my future husband on our first date… I had noticed a duplicate first edition copy of MWWW in my library and gave it to him. He was very grateful and hesitated to take it but after knowing of the duplicate, he accepted the book, smiling.

I didn’t have a chance before we left to let “Bird Man” know that the man I introduced to him (and also this blog) is now my husband and we moved to Portugal a year ago. Maybe he will reading this and I am raising my hand from far away, wishing him well. I will call him by the name he wished his parents had used, “Ian Errol”.

I love this blog and it is the only one I read faithfully every day. Thank you everyone for your contributions.

 

Audie in PT

— David DeWitt

 
1 Comment

Posted in Flynn and..., Flynn-related, Mail Bag

 

Mail Bag! Dead Ringer for Flynn, The Sons of Flynn!

03 Jul

The mailbag brings us a wonderful email from William Russo:

I’ve been reading your stuff I guess for a couple years now. Truly enjoy it. Takes me into a world I truly love. Though it was the world of my parent’s generation, I feel a nostalgia for it I cannot explain. Though I grew up on Flynn’s movies, I did not come to become immersed into his life and personality until late hippie years. One of my best friends then was a guy named Steve Gilbert. He was a dead ringer for Flynn. Amazingly he had gone to Hollywood High, knew and even dated, I think, Rory! I introduced him to “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”. We each had a copy and would quote from it regularly. We both thought of it as kind of a Bible. I started a club; called it “The Sons of Flynn”. I always kept a couple copies of the book and whenever I met someone who reminded me of Flynn in some significant  way, I’d give them a copy. There were only about four additional that I deemed worthy. Most recently, a couple years ago, I met a twenty something attractive blonde from South Africa by way of Canada, at a Cannabis farm in Humboldt county. Not only was she into Flynn, but astonishingly, knew that Vivica Linford played the Queen of Spain, in Don Juan ! She wanted a copy of the book (I didn’t have one at the time), and demanded to become a member of the club!  Unfortunately, we lost touch before she could be initiated. This was never a club in anything more than a name, and in my own imagination. One “member” lives in Honolulu, a good  look-a- like, the most like Flynn athletically, an ex Army Ranger. Another lives in western Massachusetts. The other is the guy who owned the cannabis farm; eerily reminiscent of the Robin Hood persona.  As for Steve, sadly he died about the same age as Erroll, from drug and alcohol abuse. I think Rory’s book, the Baron of Mulhollandis a treasure. It’s like being there, feeling it all. I am going to be traveling in Europe soon (doing some sword fighting!) and living my own version of The Sun Also Rises. Though most of my reading material will on kindle on my tablet, I will be taking only one book, my original paperback copy of  My Wicked, Wicked Ways. 
 
Cisco Bill

Thanks so much for the note! and what a read MWWW’s is … I envy anybody who is reading it for the first time, and understand why we keep going back it! Here is the first paperback I read of it:

And two others I read later on:

— David DeWitt

 
2 Comments

Posted in Author Errol Flynn, Books about Flynn, Collectibles, Errol Flynn Book Covers, Mail Bag

 

Guinn Big Boy Williams Night on Boot Hill …

15 Jun

Found this out on the Prairie, near Dodge City in an old newspaper found blowing in the wind …

Under the headline “Film Star Sleeps on Boot Hill,” in the Monday, April 3, 1939, Dodge City Daily Globe, a story begins: “For a great many years only concrete faces and the cowboy statue have rested in historic old Boot Hill cemetery. But Saturday night there was a newcomer there.

”The story goes on the tell how Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, one of the stars of “Dodge City,” was found sleeping on Boot Hill Sunday morning after the festivities surrounding the premiere.

Williams woke up sufficiently to elude authorities, who later learned that he had spent the day sleeping in a rooming house on West Chestnut street. Williams had missed the train back to Hollywood. He appeared in a west side grocery store later in the afternoon, took a taxi to the airport and caught a plane to Wichita. From there, he made it back to the coast.

Williams reportedly told a Dodge City man he wanted to sleep among the dead men for his wild West thrill.

 

Ah, Hollywood!

 

— David DeWitt

 
8 Comments

Posted in Behind the Scenes, Flynn and..., Flynn-related, Friends & Family, Newspapers & Magazines

 

Errol Flynn: The Quest for an Oscar by James Turiello is now in Hardcover!

07 Jun

Over at Bear Media you can see the softcover reviews for James Turiello’s wonderful book Errol Flynn: The Quest for an Oscar. Jim tells me the book is now available in Hardcover! Run over to Amazon to get the hardcover version there, too! From the Amazon/Bear Media sites Jim writes:

“Take an incredible journey with Errol Flynn on his quest for an Oscar. Errol went from complete obscurity to become one of the most sought-after men in Hollywood. Men wanted to be him, and women wanted to be with him, yet Errol had little interested in acting. He was a cadet, an overseer at a copra plantation, he ran a charter schooner, and he mined gold, to name only a few of his ventures all before the age of twenty-one. He was a free spirit who played by his own rules, much to the chagrin of the Hollywood producers.

Throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, moviegoers loved Errol as Robin Hood, The Seahawk, and as General Custer. To quote Jack Warner of the famous Warner Bros. Pictures, “He was all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package . . . he showered an audience with sparks, when he laughed, when he fought, or when he loved. I just wish we had someone around today half as good as Flynn. Includes 200 photographs of Errol Flynn in his many movie roles, candid never-before-published images, rare posters from around the world, and some unique Errol Flynn items. 266 pages. Complete filmography with synopsis and cast of each movie.” -James Turiello.

Jim, great work and thanks for letting us all know about the new edition!

 

— David DeWitt

 
No Comments

Posted in Main Page

 

Mail Bag! French Curtiz Bio & Film Book!

16 Apr

Dear Sir,

For all those who love Curtiz and read French, I found this book. He presents an excellent biography and analyzes each of his films including his pre-Hollywood production.
Best – Erik Anzi
Thanks, Erik!

— David DeWitt

 
1 Comment

Posted in Directors, Film Collections, Film Reviews, Flynn-related, France, Mail Bag, Promo

 

Instagram: Dame Olivia de Havilland!

25 Mar

If you love Olivia de Havilland as much as we do on this blog you can follow a great Instagram page dedicated to her by Tess X. There is a link in this post to audio of her legal case. Clicked the image to go to the Instagram posting!

Thanks, Tess Wagner!

 

 

— David DeWitt

 
8 Comments

Posted in Candids, Co-Stars, Flynn and..., Flynn-related, Main Page

 

Mail Bag! Errol pitches The White Rajah to Jack Warner!

07 Mar

Our new subscriber, Eric Clarke, sends us a couple of images of Errol’s pitch to Jack Warner about his script of The White Rajah and a page of the 14 page synopsis.

 

 

Thanks, Eric!

— David DeWitt

 
20 Comments

Posted in Collectibles, Documents, Films, Flynn and..., Flynn-related, Main Page

 
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