In the last week of August many years ago. there was a mutiny on a ship that has a very strong connection to the history of Errol Flynn.
What ship was it, where was it, and who led the mutiny???
— Tim
Author Archive
(Out of Africa) A Star is Born
26
Aug
August 25, 1935
Los Angeles Times
By Muriel Babcock
Adventure again is holding the stage. The cutthroats and brigands and brave seamen of Raphael Sabatini’s swashbuckling tale of the Seventeenth Century, Captain Blood, are coming to life on the Warner Brothers set in Burbank, California, in this year, 1935.
One of the most interesting sets I have seen in visits to many studios, is the great, sprawling layout if a Jamaican slave plantation of the Captain BloodCaptain Blood, as you know, is the story which gives Errol Flynn, the Irish adventurer, his big chance in pictures. Chatting with him idly between scenes, I discovered that while his adventures in Captain Blood are thrilling, he has had almost as exciting ones in his own life before he came to America. He has a terrific scar on his left leg from an arrow shot at him by African natives.
LIFE’S BIGGEST SCARE
He was lost in the African jungles, and for two days, while hunted by the incessant tom-tom of drums, he hid from the natives and tried to make his way to safety. “Never in my life have I been so frightened” he told me.
But more about these interesting sets of Captain Blood. On still another stage are two huge replicas of galleons of that day, on of the Arabella, a Spanish ship, the other the Diligent, a French pirates’ boat. They are a beautiful sight to come upon, and it takes you a moment to realize they are only half ships that move back and forth on pulleys across the stage against the painted canvas sea background, instead of sailing the Caribbean as they did in Captain Blood. I climbed up on one, and I assure you it gives you a thrilling feeling.
…
The Jamaican Plantation*
*Imagery from the superb “Blonde at the Film” review of “Captain Blood 1935”
— Tim
‘The Loved One’
18
Aug
August 17, 2019 – Posted by Paula for TCM’s Summer Under the Stars
…
First there was the book, based on Evelyn Waugh’s tour of Forest Lawn, where Errol was buried against his will! Here’s a plot summary:
“When Evelyn Waugh came to Hollywood in 1947 to discuss the film rights for Brideshead Revisited, he visited a graveyard: Forest Lawn Memorial Park. He had heard it praised as a place unsurpassed in beauty, taste, and sensitivity; a place where “faith and consolation, religion and art had been brought to their highest possible association.” But Mr. Waugh found the cemetery dripping with saccharine sentimentality, edged with macabre memorials, and repellent with cuteness. (Walt Disney’s remains, along with those of myriad other celebrities, are enshrined there.) Mr. Waugh found in that “theme-park necropolis” a grotesque denial of the reality of death, the opposite extreme of Donne’s holy sonnet. He found vulgar euphemisms marketed and crafted by entrepreneurial racketeers. He found, in the end, wonderful material for a story to satirize the bizarre American funeral-home industry.”
“… The Loved One, is a pitiless satire on the shallowness and pretensions of British expatriates and Americans in post-World War II Los Angeles. The action is set principally in two funeral parlors, one for humans and the other for pets. Most of the characters either work in one of the funeral homes or are employed by a Hollywood film studio. Waugh portrays the Los Angeles denizens as part of a culture that fosters and encourages the selfish pursuit of petty goals. In the book, almost everyone is striving to gain or maintain a place in society that they seem to believe is important because other people might envy them for it. The principal character, a young Englishman named Dennis Barlow, is a poet-cum-screenwriter who leaves his job at the studio, which he hates for its bureaucracy and lack of imagination. He takes a job at a pet cemetery, scandalizing his fellow Englishmen in Hollywood, particularly an actor named Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, who believes the expatriate British have a reputation and an image to uphold. When an old screenwriter and fellow Brit named Sir Francis Hinsley is fired from the film studio and commits suicide, Sir Ambrose enlists Dennis to take care of funeral arrangements. At a well-known funeral home called Whispering Glades (Forest Lawn) Dennis meets a young woman named Aimée Thanatogenos, who is a cosmetician in the embalming rooms. Aimée, a thoroughgoing product of Los Angeles, is empty-headed yet yearns for higher things, although she cannot really say what this means to her. Dennis becomes enamored of her. A rival for Aimée’s affections is Mr. Joyboy, the chief embalmer at Whispering Glades, who is widely considered to be a stylish and cultivated man, although he actually is a rather perverse momma’s boy.”
Then there was the movie in ’65, even more out there than the book I’d say:
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The book also inspired Tom Paxton to sing the satirical Sixties song “Forest Lawn”:
…
— Tim
Island Cruise Quiz
16
Aug
Circa August 16, 1946, the Zaca was in the waters surrounding this island. What island is it?
Two new names came into the world and history of Errol because of Zaca’s trip to this island. What were those two names??
…
10PM EST – Clue No. 2 – A VERY BIG CLUE:
A Half Hour Past Midnight EST or so:
Monday, August 17, ~ 6PM EST:
Here’s a couple more Cruise Clues. Though physically very small, they are very big quiz clues – even bigger quiz-wise than the elephant seal and fur sea lion above:
Tuesday, August 18 – 10:30AM:
Wednesday – August 19 – ~ 3:10 AM:
The island is infamous for its huge and destructive goats. Here is an old photo of a couple:
— Tim
“A Tawdry Tale from Tinseltown”
14
Aug
“In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America’s first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars’ (alleged) secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out scandalous facts about the stars, including sexual affairs, drug use, and sexual orientation, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities’ carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the bestselling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Eventually the stars fought back, filing multimillion-dollar libel suits against the magazine. The state of California, prodded by the film studios, prosecuted Harrison for obscenity and criminal libel, culminating in a famous, star-studded Los Angeles trial.” Errol was one of those stars. He and others, including Maureen O’Hara, won via settlement, helping to eventually financially bankrupt the morally bankrupt gossip rag, which was said to be the largest read magazine in America (mostly read in grocery store lines, I suppose.)
“Actor Errol Flynn puts his fingers to his nose as he passes opinion on “Confidential Magazine” on arrival in New York City from Paris on Aug. 14, 1957. Flynn is scheduled to testify as a witness in the criminal libel trial of the magazine in Los Angeles. (AP Photo)”
And here are a couple of photos of Francesca de Scaffa and her ex-husband Bruce Cabot – who she divorced the day before! – out on the town with Errol and Pat in 1951. De Scaffa was secretly paid by Confidential for providing information about Errol. Some friends those Cabots.
De Scaffa Dining with/Spying on Flynn
— Tim
Zaca Cruises into San Diego
14
Aug
August 13, 1946
After Setting Sail Out of Balboa:
The Zaca cruised into San Diego to load dredges, seines, dipnets, lobster traps, gill nets, microscope, aquariums, sorting trays, jars, preservatives, and smaller paraphenalia, collected by prominent Scripps Institute Professor Carl Hubbs for the scientific explorations and studies on what later became known as “Cruise of the Zaca” Errol’s arrival was met with “a flurry of reporters” and a “feminine hubbub on the dock as girls from nearby Navy offices came to beg autographs from their hero.” The athletic actor was limping that day, having somehow sprained his ankle aboard ship on the way down from Long Beach. Errol signed autographs with a flourish while Nora watched with amusement and Professor Flynn remarked on “the depths to which humanity will fall.”
The reporters had already had a field day, by discovering from Nora that she was expecting a child and so would require a doctor on the voyage.
Zaca was manned by a crew of ten and also carried an artist (John Decker), three above-and below-water photographers, Flynn’s manager, Errol and Nora, and Flynn’s father.
…
Thanks to Betty Shor for her superb account of the Zaca’s scientific expedition from which the above info has been extracted!
These are the downton docks in San Diego, the foot of Broadway, circa the time of Zaca’s arrival. Lane Field (Home of the PCL Padres) is on the right and the Pacific Fleet’s Navy Supply Center (where the flock of Navy girls likely came from) is on the left.
— Tim
