Buenos Dias, Amigos.
Errol was a very frequent traveler to Mexico during his heydays in Hollywood. He drove, he flew, and he sailed to South of the Border. In celebration of today’s Cinco de Mayo holiday, here are five chronological photos taken in Mexico City, Acapulco, and Morelia, plus a bonus bow-and-arrow-fishing film with Howard Hill in the famous sportfishing waters off the coast of Old Mexico.
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— Tim
Two notable Bruces have identical connections to this date, May 3. Who were they?
The first knew Errol in three decades.
The second knew him in two.
— Tim
During Nazi occupation of France in World War II, the showing of “American, Russian, and British, films were out of the question.” Directed primarily by Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, film censors were especially assiduous in barring presentation of Jewish productions out of Hollywood. Warner Brothers were/was at the top of their hit list. In the post war years, however, movie fans in France and throughout Europe very much welcomed, even clamored for, great Hollywood films. Hence, on May 2, 1947, La Charge Fantastique (They Died with Their Boots On) was released in France.
— Tim
In addition to its connection to Robin Hood, May Day has had a very long and very strong association with the Virgin Mary, most especially among Roman Catholics. The legend of Maid Marian may have arisen from that association, as did apparently Olivia’s costuming, as well as her physical appearance, in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
In the 1400s Catholics, as all Christians were at the time, in England celebrated May Day on the religious holiday of Whitsun featuring a quasi-religious rebel who robbed and murdered government tax collectors and wealthy landowners in plays and games. Agrarian discontent lay at the foundations of the feudal system that was built on the shoulders of toiling peasants. As time went on, the characters of Maid Marian, Friar Tuck and Alan-a-Dale entered May Day rituals as well. Robin Hood was actually shown at this time participating in Mariology, the cult of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Originally Maid Marian (or the French Marion) was a shepherdess associated with the Queen or Lady of May or May Day. Keeping this in mind, “the world’s foremost authority on Robin Hood,” author Jim Lees in The Quest for Robin Hood set forth that the hypothesis that Maid Marian may originally have been the personification of the Virgin Mary and derived from the older French tradition of a shepherdess named Marion and her shepherd lover Robin in Adam de la Halle’s Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, 1283. In fact, Marian’s association with May Day celebrations lasted long after Robin Hood’s did, as pointed out by Scottish born poet Alexander Barclay in 1500, “some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood.”
May Day in the Catholic Church
The Legend of Robin Hood and Maid Marian
Here’s a May Day Celebration in England from the Days of Errol Hood and Maid Olivia:
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Hell, even atheist Katie Hepburn celebrated May Day!
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Here’s a majestically beautiful May Day ceremony in 2018 from a Catholic School in St. Louis:
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— Tim
No other aspect of the history of the Robin Hood legend deserves more notice than the hero’s participation in the May Day Games.
May Day Games and the Robin Hood Legend
Robin Hood ballads reflect the discontent of ordinary people with political conditions in medieval England. They were especially upset about new laws that kept them from hunting freely in forests that were now claimed as the property of kings and nobles. Social unrest and rebellion swirled through England at the time the Robin Hood ballads first became popular. This unrest erupted in an event called the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.
The earliest known mention of Robin Hood is in a ballad called Piers Plowman, in which a character mentions that he knows “rimes of Robin Hood.” This and other references from the late 1300s suggest that Robin Hood was well established as a popular legend by that time. One source of that legend may lie in the old French custom of celebrating May Day. A character called Robin des Bois, or Robin of the Woods, was associated with this spring festival and may have been transplanted to England—with a slight name change. May Day celebrations in England in the 1400s featured a festival “king” called Robin Hood.
Dressing up as the medieval social justice warrior was among young Henry VIII’s favourite pastimes.
— Tim
“On the night of April 30, 1972, 38-year-old Scala was found dead in her Hollywood Hills home. Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi reported her cause of death was from an “acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication” and was later ruled accidental.”
“The circumstances surrounding Scala’s death have been questioned, with some believing it was a result of either murder or suicide rather than accidental. Her sister, movie actress Tina Scala, believed that she did not intend to take her life nor that her death was accidental. Scala had a prescription for valium and three tablets were missing from the bottle, but valium is a benzodiazepine, not a barbiturate. Also, Scala was discovered nude sprawled across her bed and bruises were found on her body and blood was on her pillow.”
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On May 23, 1956, Louella Parsons reports that “while Errol Flynn was making Istanbul in Hollywood, he saw Gia Scala at Universal-International. ‘That’s the girl I want for my picture, The Big Brodie,’ he said. So what Errol wants, Errol gets.”
In 1962, Gia and her husband, Don Burnett, starred together in The Triumph of Robin Hood. He as Robin Hood, she as Anna, much the equivalent of Maid Marian. Later that year they bought a home on Mulholland Drive.
— Tim
Louella 0. Parsons in Hollywood
International News Service
Louella O. Parsons Motion Picture Editor
After six years abroad Errol and Mrs. Flynn (Patrice Wymore) return to Hollywood with baby Arnella.
He’s a real homebody now.
DASHING, happy-go-lucky, colorful Errol Flynn, who lost millions, is poorer today but happier than he’s ever been in his life. And he didn’t hesitate to say that Patrice Wymore (the present Mrs. Flynn) is responsible. Six months ago, Errol owed $900,000. Today, he has paid off $750,000 and sees his way clear to handing over the remainder by December. This is a changed Errol. No longer does that roving eye of his look at every pretty girl who enters a room. In the past, Errol was as wild, unpredictable and full of pranks as anyone I ever interviewed. He always talked with his tongue in cheek, and while I always liked him, I used to have the feeling that some of his nonsense was due to the fact that life was not happy. He asked me to have dinner with him and Patrice at La Rue. You can always depend upon Errol to say something different and to make an interview an occasion, and his first words to me were: “Well, what do you think of her?” pointing to the calm, gracious Patrice. A little embarrassed with such frankness, I countered with, “What do you think of her yourself?” “Well, she’s not my type, but 1 love her,” he laughed. “You know, she saved my life. I’d have run when the going was so tough, but, Pat, without a word of complaint, helped me straighten out my affairs, stuck by me and gave me encouragement. “I never thought I’d ever say I’d be lonely for any woman,” he continued, “but, do you know something? I can’t bear to be separated from her. She gives me a confidence I all but lost during those months of worry.”
The Flynns have been in Europe for six years. They left Hollywood in 1950, and Errol had considerable trouble with William Tell, the picture he was to make in Italy. He says he lost over $200,000 of his own money in it. Errol said, “To show you the kind of girl Pat is, she was expecting our bambina any hour when I got word that I had to be in New York on business. She said, ‘You go right ahead and I’ll wait until you return to have the baby.’ I got back Christmas Eve to find that she’d invited 30 people for Christmas Day egg nogs. On Christmas I rushed her to the hospital where the baby was born within a few hours. We just left all our guests at the party. “I never thought I’d want to settle down to family life,” Errol went on, “but you should see me now. You know how I never wanted domesticity. Whenever it threatened me I’d go away on my boat or take a picture assignment away from home. We now have the greatest family life you ever saw.
“Since I’ve been back in Hollywood,” he said, “we’ve had Pat’s parents from Kansas, her grandmother, and all the children with us My two little girls, Deirdre and Rory, by my marriage to Nora Haymes, spend every week end with us, and our daughter Arnella loves playing with them.” His fourteen-year-old son, Sean, by his marriage to Lili Damita, is the spittin’ image of Errol. Patrice told me Sean spent a little time with them in Europe. “He is so handsome and so intelligent,” she said. “He’s now in Florida with his mother.” A woman who can praise a previous wife’s child is all right for my money. Usually there is a feeling of resentment, but if Pat has any feeling of this sort she’s a great actress. Errol said, “At Universal-International they gave me some of rry ‘face’ back with a great part in Istanbul. I hope to come back and make another picture for them; it’s a nice studio. I’ll return in December.” “Didn’t you almost turn in at Warner Brothers studio by mistake?” I asked him. He started his career Warners with Captain Blood [the film which made him] one of the top stars in the country.
Errol is older now and wiser. He has taken off some of the weight which so shocked me when I first saw him after his return here. But he’s still and always will be the same charm boy. When domesticity threatened in the past, he’d be off to other shores.
— Tim
Huston was a very skilled boxer, with a very long reach. Both went to the hospital, were complimentary of each others fighting skills and etiquette, and subsequently became friendly. The fight is thought to have been over OdH, with whom both Errol and JH had been in love.
— Tim
Jimmy Starr – April 29, 1936
LA Evening Herald Express
Already ranked as one of the movie village’s tennis greats, Gilbert Roland took it upon himself to name Hollywood’s 10 best racket wielders.
On the set of Paramount’s The Last Train from Madrid, Gilbert put Garbo in the top spot among feminine tennis players, Errol Flynn equals her in the men’s division. Others are Marlene Dietrich, Cedric Gibbons, Constance Bennett, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Harold Lloyd, Elizabeth Allen and Ronald Colman.
Errol Backstroking in Hollywood Circa 1935
— Tim
