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Archive for the ‘Behind the Scenes’ Category

The Producer(s)

01 Jun

June 1, 1939

Louella O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner

Hadn’t been back but a few minutes when I heard that Jack Warner plans a Westward trek serialization with Mark Hellinger, the well-know Hearst writer, making his debut as a producers, and Michael Curtiz directing. Dodge City, which brought in the shekels, gave Warners the notion. Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Ann Sheridan, will star in Tombstone, laid in 1881, starting with the line in Dodge City, let’s go to Virginia City.” That name cannot be used because of the RKO movie. After Tombstone, City of Angels, a history of early Los Angeles in 1889, will be made with same cast and director.
…

Well, as we Flynnmates know, Tombstone was never made with Flynn, Olivia, or Annie. Nor was City of Angels. Virginia City was made, but not with Mark Hellinger producing. Hellinger, an extremely popular and successful show business figure, known not only for his great writing talent but also for his loyalty and fairness, got fed up and left Warner Bros. in response to Jack Warner’s egomaniacal habit of not giving proper production credit to others. (JW infamously did the same to Hal Wallis over the Oscar for Casablanca.) Hellinger did return, however, to produce his wartime baby inspired by MGM’s first musical (and part Technicolor production,) Broadway Melody of 1929,Thank Your Lucky Stars. So, Hellinger did finally get to produce a film with Errol, Olivia, and Annie, though certainly not how he had originally envisioned. Moreover, he got to act in the film himself, as can be seen in the clip below, in full from ~ 0:50 to 1:50. That’s him with Eddie Cantor.

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Here’s Mark Hellinger with Errol’s Man Friday, Alex Pavlenko, at Mulholland Farm’s legendary bar. This photo is from the Deirdre Flynn Collection. A better image of this can be seen in Robert Matsen’s Errol Flynn Slept Here. Thank you, Deirdre.

— Tim

 
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T minus 22 /// \\\ T minus 33

31 May

T minus 22

Today is 22 days till the Errol Flynn Global Toast on June 20, 2020, the 111th Anniversary of Errol’s birth.

A Global Birthday Toast to Errol

For all those lookin’ to drink like Flynn for this event, here is a post that details dozens of liquid refreshments Errol is known to have enjoyed at various locations throughout his life, around the globe.

How to make an Errol Flynn

T minus 33

Please remember that we are also toasting Olivia d’s birthday on July 1st, her number 104! Olivia herself toasts Errol every year on his birthday with champagne at her home in Paris. So, you may find champagne or French wine apropos on her birthday. But, again, please toast with anything you wish – from Tang to Tangueray – or even, perhaps, some Sake from her birthplace in Tokyo!

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Gentleman Tim, Special Events

 

Friday, May 29 Quiz — What was It? Who was It?

30 May

He was in love with a famous swinger …

There was a lot of drinking and skullduggery involved …

And some weekend fun up at the Farm …

Alas, but not least, you know him well

— Tim

 
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Errol Leaves India for Africa — May 28, 1933

29 May

After a side-splitting incident with a rickshaw boy on the island of Ceylon, Errol left with Erben for the mainland French Colony of Pondicherry. From Pondicherry they traveled an intolerably slow and hot five days on a train “jammed” with “Untouchables”, up the east coast of India to Calcutta, where they witnessed a ~ “dizzying spectacle of temples, beggary, dung in the street, wispy Indian girls in their white wrappings, and whorehouses.” Leaving Calcutta for Africa on the French ship La Stella Errol brawled with a spitting-mad “huge Black Sengalese soldier who bunked above him in steerage. Erben had a good laugh at how decisively Errol lost that dispute.

Finally, on May 28, 1933, Errol left India on the French paquebot Compiegne, through the Gulf of Mannar, then through Arabian Sea to Djibouti, in what was then the French colony of Somaliland.

As depicted below, this route was part of an ancient maritime portion of the old “Silk Road” between China and Europe. Sounds sensible to call it the “Silk Seaway”.

— Tim

 
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Posted in Author Errol Flynn, Behind the Scenes, Gentleman Tim, Ships & the Sea, Travels

 

“Voyage of Discovery” — Asia to Ceylon

28 May

According to My Wicked, Wicked Ways …

Following their escapades in Asia, Errol and Erben sailed on the French ship D’Artagnon*, through the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal, toward India. On this “voyage of discovery”, as he later described it to his father, Errol became enamored with a beautiful half-Swiss, half Japanese, young woman name named Myako. She was from a Swiss Colony in Kobe**. Unfortunately for Errol, Myako had a Swiss husband onboard, one who soon made his own discovery, i.e. Errol below decks with Myako.

“Nuts, screeching, and out of control”, Myako’s extraordinarily-strong and irate Swiss husband discovered Errol with his wife in the couple’s first-class cabin, both half-undressed. First, seized Errol’s throat and attempted to choke him to death. Then, when Errol finally managed to pry himself free, he pulled a revolver threatened again to kill Errol, this time pointing his revolver at one of Errol’s most prized possessions.

Errol was not able to talk his way out of danger with this insanely-jealous husband, but he was able to dodge the shot fired at him and take the gun from him. To Errol’s dismay, however, the noise of the shot and its ” zinging from wall to wall” “in the steel cabin” “through the first-class cabin” “like a blowfly over a piece of cheese” summoning the ship’s French officers, who promptly ordered Errol to permanently leave the ship, in Colombo, on the British island colony of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka. Errol attributed his being booted from the D’Artagnon‘, but not the first-class couple, to “economics” and French practicality.

* The D’Artagnan later became a Vichy French warship (renamed the Teiko Maru and manned by Japanese) and was sunk by the USS Puffer, in the South China Sea, near Borneo.

** The Swiss had very extensive enterprises in Japan prior to WWII. In fact, they were responsible for more than a third of all raw silk exportation from Japan. They also exported – predominantly via French and German ports and ships- weaving machinery, wool, muslin, aniline dyes, drugs, perfumes, and watches. In fact, over 90% of all watches exported into Japan were imported from Switzerland.

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Gentleman Tim, Ships & the Sea, Travels

 

Memorial Day 2020, 3 PM

25 May

In addition to his early and enthusiastic anti-Nazi tour of South America, his war bond tours, his appearances for the Red Cross, and his anti-Axis war films, Errol also supported the troops and country as a star on USO tours, including in 1943, at various locations in Alaska, including Amchitka, Attu, and Dutch Harbor, with Martha O’Driscoll, most notably.:

Meanwhile, Back in Korea

And here is a 5-minute preview of Our Man from Mulholland’s, i.e. Jack Marino’s, magnificent tribute to our Forgotten Heroes, part of which was filmed at the location of the former Mulholland Farm. Thank you, Jack!

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Co-Stars, Dates & Girlfriends, Errol Helping Out, Flynn and..., Gentleman Tim, Main Page, Movie Trailers

 

Talk is …

24 May

May 24, 1938

Louella O. Parsons

Los Angeles Times

Talk is that Errol Flynn will start a winter sports colony in Colorado …

— Tim

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

 

Flynn and Coop Bought Coupes – Rode Bikes, Too

20 May

May 20, 1953 – What Errol Flynn knows Gary Cooper already knows a very long time!: And therefore Gary Cooper did not buy only one but three Mercedes cars of the type 300 and 300S in the Mercedes works in Stuttgart-Untertuerkheim. He took just with himself a sedan car, the 300S cabriolet is to belong to his wife and the third Mercedes 300 is for a movie picture society.

Gary

Errol

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Errol Flynn Cars, Flynn and..., Gentleman Tim, Main Page, Newspaper & Headlines, Travels

 

Errol’s Royal Geek

19 May

70 YEARS AGO TODAY – GHICA FINDS ERROL IRRESISTIBLE

New Orleans, May 18, 1950– Errol Flynn is irresistible to Rumanian Princess Irene Ghica
“because he keeps his mouth shut when I want quiet,” she said.

Forty-year-old Flynn
and the 19-year-old princess will probably marry in September – he for the third time.

He brought her to the United States from Bermuda so that he could finish a film based
on Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim.”

Flynn explained that the princess’ nickname, “Geek,” was the first syllable of Ghica.
She commented: “When I found out that a ‘geek’ is a person who, bites off chickens’ heads
at a carnival, I threw a pan at Errol.”

Flynn, who earns about £A89,286 a year, complained that he was going deeper into debt every day.

“There seems to be a lot of people I owe money to, he said. “You would think I had paid enough to one of the
ladies to whom I’ve been paying alimony for 10 years. Those payments are a terrible drain on a man’s income.”

He was referring to his first wife, Lili Damita. He recently asked the court for alimony relief, saying he was
paying £10,357 a year to support her and their nine year-old son, Sean.

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Here are the Nearlyweds in November of 1949.

…

— Tim

 
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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Dates & Girlfriends, Flynn and..., Gentleman Tim, Main Page, Newspaper & Headlines, Sean Flynn, Travels

 

Errol Collapses on the Set of The Last Man

18 May

May 18, 1943

Syracuse Herald Journal

FLYNN COLLAPSES OF HOLLYWOOD SET

Hollywood, May 18 – Actor Errol Flynn was recovering today at Hollywood Hospital after collapsing on a Warner Bros. set.

he was expected to remain in the hospital for at least a week. His physicians, Dr. Carl F. Stevens and Thomas W. Hern, said Flynn suffered “a recurrence of an upper respiratory ailment” which he has had for some time.

Flynn collapsed yesterday while working on To the Last Man. Action will be shot around him until he returns.

Northern Pursuit was originally known as To the Last Man and was based on a magazine story. A.I. Bezzerides wrote the first screenplay under the supervision of Jesse L. Lasky. William Faulkner later worked on the script.

According to Tony Thomas:

“During the production of Northern Pursuit, Flynn took ill in May 1943, collapsing on the set and being hospitalized for a week. The studio released information indicating he had a “upper respiratory ailment,” but he was battling tuberculosis.”

…

Errol was said to have collapsed soon after the filming of this scene from To the Last Man, later renamed Norther Pursuit..

…

Errol was also reported to have “collapsed on the set” the year before, in Gentleman Jim, as discussed here and below.

This video review by Richard Brody of the New Yorker, shows the great fight scene (against Ward Bond playing John L. Sullivan) after which Errol is said to have collapsed, beginning at about 2:00. Also featured in this review is EFB’s own world champion biographer of Flynn, Tom McNulty, who wrote:

“Flynn collapsed during one of the boxing sequences and was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital. He was diagnosed as having experienced a mild heart attack. He was then flown to Baltimore and admitted to the Johns Hopkins University Hospital where physicians conducted a thorough physical examination. Their assessment was grim.”

www.newyorker.com…


02:00 There’s something special
02:10 about the character of Corbett.
02:12 He seems peculiarly modern,
02:13 in fact, even more modern than Walsh imagined.
02:17 Unlike the other boxers he faces,
02:18 he isn’t just a brawler, he’s a dancer,
02:21 he’s a master of fancy footwork.
02:23 And with his fancy footwork comes high-flowing verbiage,
02:27 the ability to use taunting to get
02:29 under his opponent’s skin and,
02:31 with his confection of his public image
02:32 and his careful attention to his appearance,
02:35 Corbett seems nothing less
02:36 than a precursor to Mohammad Ali.
02:39 [boxing bell rings]
02:41 [crowd cheers]

— Tim

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

 
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