Rory Flynn showed me a hat that her father had given to her from the film Robin Hood, and has told me that the costume department had made two of them. Errol gave one to her and her sister, Deirdre, and Rory still has hers. Sitting on the couch in her office area at her home in North Carolina, she brought it out and let me try it on … The feather is long gone, but the hat fit us both! Here it is on Flynn’s head in this great looking candid …
— David DeWitt
“Actor Errol Flynn, left, sits at his counsel’s table with defense attorney Robert E. Ford, awaiting the start of his trial on Jan 11, 1943 in Los Angeles, on charges he committed statutory rape upon 17-year-old Betty Hansen, seated at left behind Flynn, and Peggy Larue Satterlee, 16-year-old Hollywood night club entertainer. At the left of Ford is Mickey Satterlee, Peggy’s sister. (AP Photo)”
Defendant: Errol Flynn
Crime Charged: Statutory Rape
Chief Defense Lawyers: Jerry Geisler and Robert Neeb
Chief Prosecutors: Thomas W. Cochran and John Hopkins
Judge: Leslie E. Still
Place: Los Angeles, California
Dates of Trial: January 11-February 6, 1943
Verdict: Not guilty
SIGNIFICANCE: Despite the outcome, the Errol Flynn trial focused national attention on Hollywood’s sexual mores, which both titillated and shocked many Americans. The trial also put the phrase “In like Flynn” into the American language.
In 1942, Errol Flynn was at the height of his swashbuckling Hollywood career. In 10 years, the handsome native of Australia had made 26 movies—among them such overnight classics as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk. Flynn lived a boisterous, daring life that was also devil-may-care. He worked hard, drank hard, loved hard. Women everywhere had fallen for his splendid physique, his cleft chin, and his enticing dimples, and women everywhere were available to him.
At a party in September 1942, Flynn met 17-year-old Betty Hansen, who arrived with a studio messenger and who dreamed of moviedom fame and fortune. By dinnertime, Hansen had thrown up from too much drinking.
The next day, Hansen told her sister that Flynn had taken her upstairs to clean up, then seduced her in a bedroom. A complaint was filed with District Attorney Thomas W. Cochran, who recalled a similar complaint by one Peggy Satterlee after a voyage aboard Flynn’s yacht. That charge had been dropped.
Flynn’s stand-in stuntman, Buster Wiles, later said Satterlee’s father had earlier approached Flynn with a demand for money, or, said Wiles, “he would lie to the police that his underage daughter had sexual relations with Flynn.”
Flynn was arrested in October. He hired Hollywood’s ace lawyer, Jerry Geisler.
Fans and sensation seekers thronged Flynn’s neighborhood, spying through binoculars, prowling over his 11-acre property, mobbing the courthouse at his preliminary hearing, pulling at his buttons and shoes.
Selecting the jury on January 11, 1943, Geisler purposely took nine women, gambling that the females’ attraction to the movie star would outweigh concern over the seduction of innocence.
Prosecutor Cochran opened with the Betty Hansen charge. Geisler’s crossexamination proved that her testimony was confused and that she was currently awaiting action on a possible felony charge with her boyfriend, the studio messenger.
Above trial history from:
law.jrank.org…
— Tim
This from Joe Maletta who points out a blooper in Errol’s Charge of the Light Brigade:
Joe Maletta One of Flynn’s best! The young boy is Scottie Beckett who played Perma the son of J. Carrol Nash’s character. Puran Singh. There is a film blooper when Puran finds and holds his dead son after the massacre at Chukoti. Flynn is trying to console him and as he is doing so, the “dead” son is Wiggling his toes! A little levity aside during a sad moment.
Thanks, Joe!
Scottie Beckett with Errol
— David DeWitt
In this October 22,1942 AP file photo, actor Errol Flynn is flanked by his attorneys Robert E. Ford, left, and Jerry Giesler, right.
— Tim
Grossinger’s “Waldorf of the Catskills”
www-recordonline-com.cdn.ampproject.org…
Paul Grossinger was also the man who conceived and arranged the matchless Flynn’s famous tennis match in Manhattan, at the legendary Park Avenue Armory, on February 1, 1945. Based on Farmers’ Almanac historical records, I ,believe it was on the low to mid 20° that day in New York, therefore explaining Errol’s coat. (I was in that Armory during a couple of winters in the mid-70s, and can attest that the area where Errol played tennis was damp, drafty and cold.)
— Tim
[embedyt] www.youtube.com…
1957 Crime drama noir style film starring Errol Flynn, Pedro Armendáriz, Rossana Rory, and Gia Scala, set and filmed on location in Cuba. Once Errol’s grittier performances, at times a bit disjointed, in his reactions, is nonetheless fascinating for its locale. Flynn spent a lot of time in Cuba and some of it is controversial. Here are a few shots towards the ending of the film filmed on the famous El Morro Castle. And a shot of this location as it today, in 2018.
The shots above were made at this location and below we see the same location as it looks today in 2018.
— David DeWitt
To all Flynn aficionados out there, I’m looking for the name of this ship, that was in Errol’s den. I think it was a Dutch man of war, but I don’t know. I have seen many ships on the internet and on many ship model makers that are very similar but it isn’t this exact ship.
I also think that this ship model could be one of the smaller models used in Captain Blood and the model dept at Warners could have given this to Flynn as a gift. They must have copied it from photos of a real ship that had a name to it.
I have a close-up view of this ship but for some reason, I can’t post it in my post here. I’m looking to have a replica made of this ship for my home office. Any help in finding this ship or the name would be an awesome help to me. I’m calling on Gentleman Tim who can find just about anything on Flynn…
Best wishes to you all
Jack Marino
— Jack Marino
