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Dinner-Dance at the BHTC

14 Jul

July 14, 1937

May Hobart
Hollywood Citizen News

Attracting an impressive array of filmland notables, the formal opening of the Beverly Hills Tennis Club on N. Maple Dr. began Saturday night and didn’t end until Sunday evening, although the activity wasn’t quite continuous. The return from Europe of Fred Perry and Ellsworth Vines, two of the club’s directors, was celebrated at the invitational dinner-dance Saturday evening, which was held out-of-doors, with tables placed around the swimming pool.

In addition to the orchestra which played for dancing, Benny Goodman, with a trio, was present to entertain the throng. Impromptu entertainment was offered by Groucho Marx, Charles Lederer, Oscar Levant and others.

Those who dined and danced included Mssrs. and Mmes. Harpo Marx, Arthur Sheekman (Gloria Stuart), Basil Rathbone, John McCormack, Zeppo Marx, Robert Riskin, Donald Woods, Gordon Jones; Misses Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Bennett, Eleanore Whitney, Paula Stone, Paulette Goddard, Mary Brian; Messrs. Robert Taylor, Richard Rodgers, Johnny Downs, Charlie Chaplin, Eddie Buzzell, Ernest Pascal, Walter Kane, Arnold Kunody, William Wyler and Charles Butterworth.

The membership returned Sunday afternoon to pack the gallery for the official opening matches.
…

Beverly Hills Tennis Club 1938

Errol at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, 1945

Fred Perry, Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx and Ellsworth Vines at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, 1937

And here’s how astonishingly hot Benny Goodman was in 1937, the very year he and Gene Krupa soared with Sing, Sing, Sing in Hollywood Hotel!

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines

 

Cover of The Queenslander — July 13, 1938

13 Jul

The Errol Hood cover below was selected last week as one of her top ten favorite Queenslander covers of all time by Joan Bruce, Specialist Librarian at the Queensland State Library in Brisbane.

The Queenslander was the weekly summary and literary edition of the Brisbane Courier, the leading journal in the colony — and later, federal state—of Queensland since the 1850s. The Queenslander was launched by the Brisbane Newspaper Company in 1866, and discontinued in 1939.

— Tim

 
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Posted in Errol Magazine Covers, Gentleman Tim, Newspapers & Magazines, Other Countries

 

A Slightly Imperfect Specimen

13 Jul

July 13, 1937

Harriet Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner

Errol Flynn off production for a couple of days because of a fractured rib acquired during a boxing workout over the weekend
…

May 11, 1937

Elizabeth Yeaman
Hollywood Citizen News

Errol Flynn will lay aside his rapier and don boxing gloves for his next picture, The Perfect Specimen, for in this story he will portray a gent who is handy with his dukes. Furthermore, he is going modern in more ways than one. He is to have a smart-cracking leading lady in the person of Joan Blondell. Joan, however, should not be classified as a leading lady, but as a co-star. Incidentally, the Flynn physique can now be bared for the entertainment of feminine fans. The age of chivalry and its uniforms will be tossed out completely.


…
Sparring for The Perfect Specimen

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines

 

Eighty Five Years Ago Today — Captain Blood Gets Ready to Sail Again

12 Jul

July 12, 1935

Jimmy Starr
Evening Herald Express

Nearly a dozen years ago, 150 carpenters and laborers reported to work at the old Vitagraph studio on Talmadge Street. They started construction of ancient man of war vessels for the rapidly-declining film firm’s last lavish venture, Captain Blood.

Today the Warner studio now owns the Vitagraph plant, and nearly 300 carpenters and laborers are starting the construction of three Seventeenth Century war vessels for Captain Blood, to be one of the most costly of the Warner specials this year. Something near $100,000 will be spent for the ships and reproduction of the village of Port Royal on the Spanish Main.

Odd, isn’t it, that 12 years later the Vitagraph studio is again the setting for this adventuresome tale of the sea?
…

Vitagraph’s Captain Blood

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Films, Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines

 

“An Unscrupulous Writer”

12 Jul

On July 11, 1981, UPI reported that Rory and Deirdre sued low-life Chuck Higham, correctly describing him as:

“An unscrupulous writer with gross imagination given to extravagant charges, deceit and defamation of deceased persons as his modus operandi of authorship.”

“A skilled and practiced character assassin who used the law preventing libel suits of relatives of a deceased person to defame the family without any threat of legal action.”

UPI News Report

Our Man Flynn by Tony Thomas
Tony Thomas cites another outrageously unscrupulous writer and notorious fraud in his “Our Man Flynn” article -Falseman Capote.

Brava Rory & Deirdre!!

— Tim

 
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Posted in Deirdre Flynn, Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines, Rory Flynn, Rory Flynn

 

VIRUS X!

11 Jul

“VIRUS” X STRIKES BING CROSBY AND ERROL FLYNN!

In late 1947 or early 1948, Errol and Bing Crosby were stricken by a very serious and mysterious disease the Los Angeles Health Department of Health called “Virus X”. Ultimately, a ‘Virux X’ epidemic spread through California, Oregon, and Washington. In Greater LA alone, there were hundreds of thousands of cases. It contributed to the early death (at 53 years old) of Hollywood star Warren Williams.

It’s not known how Errol got the virus. Perhaps kissing the wrong person?

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Flynn and..., Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines

 

Bon anniversaire Liliane

10 Jul

Lili Damita was born Liliane Marie Madeleine Carré on July 10, 1904, in Blaye, France. As a child she studied ballet and attended school in several different countries, including France, Portugal and Spain. She enrolled at the Opera de Paris and by the age of sixteen was working as a professional model and dancer. In 1921 she won a beauty contest and was offered her first acting role. She appeared in the Casino de Paris and starred in about a half dozen French films.Then she met Mihály Kertész

In 1928 she was brought to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn, she appeared in films with leading men such as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, James Cagney and Maurice Chevalier.

As her film career was beginning to wind down, she met Errol Flynn, for the first time in Paris apparently, then more famously on the SS Paris, on Errol’s first trip to America. Lili fell for Errol and used her connections in Hollywood to get him a chance at Captain Blood, which her old fling, now known as Michael Curtiz, waa directing. The rest is history.
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…


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youtu.be/OxzFLy0Oon4…

— Tim

 
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Posted in Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines, Wives

 

Sailing the Bounding Main

09 Jul

July 8, 1938

Louella O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner

Talked with both Errol Flynn and Lili Damita together and both deny that Lili is planning to take a holiday in Europe. These two kids have been married four years now and while occasionally they may have a little spat as do all married people, they both tell me there has never been any thought of divorce between them. Errol is bringing his boat to California, the very one which caused Warners so much worry while the adventurous Errol was sailing the Bounding Main and couldn’t be located and he and Lili will probably take their vacation together. Lili probably has the right idea. When Errol wants to go away with his men friends fishing or on a holiday, she gives him her blessing.
…

Sailing along circa the Spring ’38

…
July 8, 1938

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express

Lili Damita and Errol Flynn are touring the late spots together again, so their troubles must be patched up.
…

Speeding along a year or so later

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines, Wives

 

Opening of the Vogue

08 Jul

July 8, 1935

Reine Davies
Hollywood Parade

The Vogue Theater will be the bright spot on the Boulevard tomorrow night, when Winnie Sheehan’s brother, Howard, opens the ultra-modernistic theater with Ladies Crave Excitement and the thriller, The Phantom Fiend.

Howard opened his first theater in 1916 in San Francisco, has since been vice president of Fox West Coast Theaters, and there is little he doesn’t know about “packing ’em in.”

Felicitating friends who will be on hand tomorrow night are Winnie Sheehan, Jesse Lasky, Sam Briskin, Louis B. Mayer, Carl Laemmle, Norman Foster, Evelyn Knapp, H.B. Warner, Thelma Todd, Hardie Albright and Martha Sleeper, Esther Ralston, Jack Oakie, Jack La Rure, Charles Ray, I. Wolfe Gilbedrt, Bill Robinson, Bert Wheeler, Monte Blue, Patricia Ellis, Alice Faye Lily Damita and Errol Flynn, and loads of others.
…


Images from the excellent Los Angeles Theatres website.

Original Architectural Drawings for the Ultra-Modern Facade

Fifty-two or so years later with another famous Hollywood American Australian

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Flynn and..., Gentleman Tim, Newspaper & Headlines, Wives

 

Behind the Green Light

06 Jul

“You’ve done it, Newell, you’ve found a vaccine.”

Before Covid-19, there was Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Before Dr. Anthony Fauci, there was Dr. Errol, I mean Newell, Paige.

“In the 1937 movie Green Light, Hollywood heartthrob Errol Flynn plays a doctor investigating a devastating new ailment plaguing a remote town in Montana. The story of a heroic doctor infecting himself with the disease to find a cure is fictional, but it’s based in truth. In the early 1900s, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a deadly tick-borne disease, was erupting. No one knew exactly what caused it or how to cure it.”

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Flynn-related, Gentleman Tim, New Articles

 
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