Voyaging Star Appears Next in ‘White Rajah’ or ‘The Sea, Hawk’
SAILS YACHT TO N. Y.
By LOUELLA 0. PARSONS Hollywood,
Warner’s wandering boy, Errol Flynn, has promised at long last to bring his boat into the New York harbor May 12. At least that’s what the brothers Warner hope will happen. That would land him in the big town just in time for the opening of his most successful picture, “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” After he attends the premiere, Flynn will fly to Hollywood and get ready to star in either “The Sea Hawk,” Sabatini’s romantic sea story, or in “The White Rajah,” which he himself selected. Of course, Warners believe this will happen, but you can never be sure what Errol, who gets the wanderlust every so often, will really do.
“Errol Flynn is pictured in a photography accompanying an ABC article lauding Hollywood actors and cinematographers for collecting money in support of Republican Spain (ABC, April 11, 1937, p. 4-5)”
Thank you, Comrade [S.O.B]!
“At a lunch with high-ranking military officers, one of them talked about “the heartfelt emotions and happiness the Spanish people felt that their hero of the screen and upholder of justice, Errol Flynn, was with them. The Spanish people would never forget this … I sat there in amazement, trying not to show surprise to be cast in such a role.” (Errol Flynn, “My Wicked, Wicked Ways.” New York: Cooper Square Press: Distributed by National Book Network, 2003. Orig. pub. in 1959, p. 230. Flynn eventually found out why he was being given the royal treatment and why people had such high expectations about his visit. On his last day in Spain his driver asked him when he was going to donate the money that he and his Hollywood friends had raised. It was then, according to Flynn’s autobiography, that Erben explained that the best way to go places was to say they were bringing $1 million dollars to help the cause. Again, according to Flynn, Erben said that all he wanted was a chance to work as a doctor, performing surgeries. “The only way I could do it and get by in style here was to use you.” To which Flynn responded, “Thank you, Comrade [S.O.B.]!” (Ibid., p. 235)”
On March 31, 1937, the prominent newspaper La Vanguardia published a short note about the visit accompanied by Flynn’s photograph, which he had autographed and dedicated to its readers (March 31, 1937, p. 3). The government offered Flynn a car and driver which made him suspicious: “Fernandez (who is he?) implores me not to go to Madrid but I am intrigued by the offer of the gov’t party members to take us in an official car…” – Robin De Los Bosques in the Spanish Civil War: December 3, 2018 by Anchi Hoh.
The Warner Bros. are sincerely worried over their failure to locate Errol Flynn, who was hastily summoned back to Hollywood when it was learned that he was planning to penetrate war-torn Spain. Errol was in Paris, and last Friday he told his wife, Lili Damita, he was leaving for Spain. He left, while Lili remained in Paris. He didn’t tell her where he was going in Spain, and apparently Lili didn’t bother to inquire.
Robert Schless, head of the Warner Paris office, has not been able to locate him. Errol,
when he left, was determined to do some war corresponding in Spain. He started to make
arrangements with the United States for some special articles, but the studio jumped in
and soured the deal. Errol threatened that he would make arrangements with an English syndicate. This he may have done.
Warners cabled him to be back here by April 15, to start the The Perfect Specimen. I doubt if they actually had a picture ready for him, but hoped to get him back on the plea of urgency.
Miriam Hopkins has been announced for the co-starring spot in The Perfect Specimen, but that
announcement is quite premature, for she has not been signed for the role.
The publication of Errol Flynn’s new book, Beam Ends, has brought a flood of letters from fans who want to make a direct purchase from the star. He has had $350 worth of orders in the last ten days. To supply them, he has to buy copies from the Los Angeles bookstores.
The postage is sometimes more than his royalty, so he actually loses money on these orders.
Howard Hill was an expert bowman, long regarded “The World’s Greatest Archer”. He established the record for winning the most bow-and-arrow field tournaments in succession, a total of 196 competitions. He also wrote several leading books on the topic. Additionally, he was a tremendous athlete, most notably in football and baseball.
Among his many achievements in archery, Howard Hill in 1928 set a new world record for the farthest recorded flight shot with a bow and arrow, at 391 yards. That same year, he won his 196th field archery competition in a row. Hill, though, was not only one of the most decorated archers in the modern era of target shooting, hunting, and flight archery competitions, he was also a celebrated writer and producer. During his career, he produced 23 films about archery for Warner Bros. He also produced 10 different films of his own and was a technical adviser in many more motion pictures, providing his expertise in the field.
Forward to Howard’s book, WILD ADVENTURE
Written by Errol
When you meet Howard Hill you know darn well you have met him before, but you can not remember where or when.
Let me solve your problem. If, like myself, you sometimes find yourself hanging on a bar rail and staring over the head of the bar-tender, behind those character-destroying bottles of Four Posies or Old Step Mother, you will spot Hill. There you will see a reproduction of a painting, the cultural contribution of some beer cartel like Somebody and Rusch, depicting Custer’s Last Stand. That American aborigine, that Indian on the piebald pony is Hill. Yes, the guy giving out with the bloodcurdling war whoop, drawing a bead on the heroic general (if a bead can be drawn with a bow and arrow Hill is the one who can do it) is our boy. This is no quaint flight of fancy; It has to be Hill. God knows, I have stared at both Hill and his weapon often enough, chilled to the marrow.
When Hill goes after any living creature with his bow for whatever reason, whether for food, motion pictures or sport, he has the same intensity, the same piercing black eyes, the same unmistakable snarl, leering with the triumph of the Indian about to wade up to his navel in the gore of the Paleface, He may be stalking only a rabbit, but it is still Hill.
He calls himself a Cre, I think, and is inordinately proud of it, But he is a real Indian, make no mistake, as this Paleface knows. Confronted by Hill bearing down upon me over the bar on that pinto pony charging over countless hordes of Four Posies, I have always felt a keen sympathy for the unlucky Custer.
It is only our long and enduring friendship (based upon a mutual love for hunting and the Great Outdoors) that has induced me to write this foreword to his book, a thing I would do for no one else. As yet, being on a different continent from him at the moment, I have not had a gander at Howard’s book, but I am sure it is a work calculated to bring out the best kind of savagery in American youth. The book is a cinch to stir many a nervous pulse as Hill has stirred mine in the past. It has to be filled with wild adventure. In it naturally, he will not tell you of the time we were out hunting mountain lions, and having just lassoed one, he had the frenzied brute screeching and turning somersaults at the end of a rope snubbed around a tree. Suddenly Howard yelled, “Here, hold this, and I did, only to find out that I had hold of the tail of the enraged cat instead of the rope. Nor, I suppose, will this savage recount another incident that occurred while we were hunting wild boar on Sana Cruz Island when he left me hanging on the side of a cliff several hundred feet above the rocky sea-shore. While he sat in safety fifty yards away, eating boiled eggs and going into sporadic gales of laughter, he watched me suffer the terrors of chronic vertigo, too petrified to move an inch. Yes, Hill is an Indian.
Although no Indian myself, and having no claim to being perhaps even an exceptional hunter, yet I do have much in common with Hill. The wailing note of the loon floating across a placid lake, the distant high pitched cry of the timber wolf, the roar of the jaguar and the blood-curling cough of the charging wild boar, call to some deep inner response within us both that is not acquainted with modern civilization.
“Cupid” Hill, as I have called Howard ever since we first met while making the picture Robin Hood, has done things with a bow and arrow that few have essayed with the rifle and I for one am going to read his book with great nostalgia, for some of the truly wonderful moments of my life have been spent tagging at Howard’s heels on our hunting trips in many strange corners of the world.
Errol Flynn
Rome, italy
…
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Errol-Related Filmography
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
– Technical adviser and archery instructor
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
– Captain of Archers (credited)
– Elwyn the Welshman (uncredited)
Sword Fishing (October 21, 1939)
– Short Documentary – Himself
Shark Hunting (November 9, 1940)
– Short Documentary – Himself
They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
– Stunts (uncredited)
San Antonio (1945)
– Henchman (uncredited)
Deep Sea Fishing (1952)
– Short documentary – Himself
Cruise of the Zaca
(Released December 6, 1952)
– Short Documentary
– Filmed 1946-47
