While we’re down Mexico way on Cinco de Mayo, here’s a photo of Hedda Hopper, Errol, and Faye [future daughter-in-law of FDR and “First Lady of television”] Emerson boarding a flight to Mexico City for a Red Cross benefit premier showing of Yankee Doodle Dandy at the Palacio de Bella Artes in May of 1942. The premiere would be broadcast over WMCA Radio, with members of the cast interviewed by “The Perfect Ingenue”, Helen Twelvetrees.
Palacio del Bella Artes
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is known as the “Cathedral of Art in Mexico”. Construction began again in 1932 and was completed in 1934. The building is best known for its murals by Diego Rivera, Siqueiros and others, as well as the many exhibitions and theatrical performances its hosts, including the Ballet Folklórico de México.
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.”
“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.
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miner’s Advocate
New South Wales, Australia
Errol Flynn Sues Magazine
LOS ANGELES, April 27. A.A.P.
Errol Flynn, the actor, has lodged a claim for 300,000 dollars damages against the film magazine “Movie Stars Parade.”
His action followed publication in the magazine of an article entitled: “My First Screen Kiss by Errol Flynn.” Flynn’s statement of claim said he did not authorize or write the article, which was untrue and harmful to his professional standing.
The article described a scene in which Flynn and Olivia de Havilland acted. It quoted Flynn as saying of his first screen kiss: “I looked forward to that tender passage with the same placid approval a wolf lavished on a herd of spring lambs.”
Flynn also seeks an injunction against alleged unfair trade practices and invasion of privacy.
Restaurant Employee Pays For Olivia De Havilland’s Meals For Signature
REDEEMS HER CHECKS
Player Is Now With Errol Flynn in “Adventures of Robin. Hood”
By FRANK HEACOCK Hollywood,Cal., March 3, 1938
The prophet may be without honor in his own country but the movie star certainly isn’t. One of the demonstrations of the honor in which the screen darlings are held is their pursuit by autograph hunters. And nowhere does the autograph hunter flourish more lustily than in California, country of the movies. And California signature-seekers have several times achieved new highs of ingenuity in devising methods of obtaining the coveted name scrawls of their film favorites. Most unusual of them came to light recently during the filming of “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” when the company was on location near Chico, Calif.
Signs the Checks
When a film troupe is on location, be it explained, the studio takes care of meals and accommodations for its members. And to simplify the business of paying for meals the studio arranges for members of the company to sign their checks; a company auditor paying them later. Members of the “Adventures of Robin Hood” company, in which Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland are co-starred, ran up a healthy accumulation of meal checks to be paid off. But a week after her arrival at Chico it was found no meal check signed by Miss de Havilland had turned up at the hotel where she was staying.
Auditor Stumped
Now Miss de Havilland, by her own admission, is a girl who likes her victuals. She wasn’t on a diet and she certainly wasn’t paying for for own meals. The auditor couldn’t figure it out.
Sold Autographs
Investigation disclosed that a kitchen employee had been removing her “autographed” meal checKs from the daily collection and dropping into the cash register an amount equivalent to the price of her meals. The hotel employee then proceeded to sell the “autographs” to a Hollywood autograph broker of whom there are dozens. The broker, according in the avid autograph collector, was paying him fifty cents more for each signature than the check bearing it cost him. Considering that there was nothing intrinsically dishonest in his actions, the hotel contented itself with a reprimand and a proposal that he denote his profits to a local charity. But by that time eighteen Olivia de Havilland autographs had found their ‘way to market’.
Tribute to California’s ingenious autograph hunters. Tribute, too, to the healthy appetite Miss de Havilland worked up during the making of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” in Chico’s bracing atmosphere.
In Belfast, Olivia de Havilland spent a day with Errol Flynn’s parents. His father, a professor of biology at Queen’s University, still isn’t sold on Flynn’s acting career. He told Olivia he wishes that Errol would give up the cinema, return to Ireland, and take up a more serious profession.
Warners would be satisfied if he would even get off his yacht and return to Hollywood.
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Drunk or Not So Drunk – That was the Question
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LIFE Magazine – April 1, 1939
“Last fortnight [Virginia City’s] population totaled 500, most of whom got so drunk that Warner Bros. curtailed its visit and hustled its valuable stars back to Reno’s safer streets.”
THE UNDERSIGNED REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA CITY DEMAND THAT YOU RETRACT AND APOLOGIZE IN YOUR NEXT ISSUE THE FOLLOWING ISSUE PUBLISHED IN IN APRIL FIRST ISSUE, PAGE 32: “LAST FORTNIGHT ITS POPULATION TOTALED 500, MOST OF WHOM GOT SO DRUNK THAT WARNER BROS CURTAILED ITS VISIT AND HUSTLED ITS VALUABLE STARS BACK TO RENO’S SAFER STREETS.” THE STATEMENT IS FALSE AND AN INSULT TO THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA.
WILL COBB, STATE SENATOR – THOMAS LYNCH, ASSEMBLY MAN
VIRGINIA CITY, NEV.
Editor’s Response: Thousands of visitors poured into Virginia City that day. Probably they were the ones that raised most of the commotion. The fact remains that what made the movie stars hustle back was the conduct of the patrons of the Virginia Theater where the stars were scheduled to make personal appearances. Said a U.P. dispatch to the New York Times: “So gala was the occasion that Manager Hart installed a bar in his lobby and served free whiskey and champagne to all ticket holders…. Manager Hart rushed new relays of case goods from the Bucket of Blood across the street.” When the Warner Bros. executives reached the theater, they decided the patrons were drunk, that the situation was too dangerous for them to risk their valuable stars. If Errol Flynn, for instance, had received a black eye from a flying bottle, it would have cost them $20,000 a day. So they took everybody back to Reno.
I read your issue of April 15 that Warner Bros.could not risk taking Errol Flynn et al into the Virginia City Theater because they decided “the patrons were drunk” and there was some danger Mr. Flynn’s being hit by a flying bottle.
I do not know who your informant is, but he or she s – to put it mildly – a liar. I was in that theater. My family was there. great many people I know were also there. There was no drunkenness and no disorderly conduct. Mr. Flynn would have been very much safer than he was in Reno.
True, Mr. Hart did dispense free champagne, but those who drank it were on the streets and not in the theater.
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Errol the Auctioneer, on the same stage used by Gentleman Jim Corbett, Mark Twain, Lillie Langtry, John Philip Souza, and Edwin Booth, among many other legendary greats
“Piper’s Opera House is a historic performing arts venue in Virginia City. It served as a training facility in 1897 for heavyweight boxing champion Gentleman Jim Corbett, in preparation for his title bout with Bob Fitzsimmons. The current structure was built by entrepreneur John Piper in 1885 to replace his 1878 opera house that had burned down. The 1878 venue, in turn, had been to replace Piper’s 1863 venue which was destroyed by the 1875 Great Fire in Virginia City. Mark Twain spoke from the original Piper’s stage in 1866, and again a century later in the third venue, as portrayed by Hal Holbrook in his one-man play Mark Twain Tonight! A lynch mob hung a victim from the first venue’s rafters in 1871. American theatrical producer David Belasco was stage manager at the second opera house before moving to New York City. Piper’s opera houses played host to Shakespearean thespians such as Edwin Booth. Musical performers Lilly Langtry, Al Jolson and John Philip Sousa once performed here. In 1940, Errol Flynn auctioned off historic Piper memorabilia from the opera house stage, during a live NBC broadcast that coincided with the premiere of Flynn’s new movie Virginia City.”
The Warner Bros. are not going to wait a year before setting to work on another epochal western picture. Success of Dodge City (it’s breaking records at the Strand in New York) hs encouraged the studio to start preparing at once Diary of the Santa Fe, film story of the railroad.
In addition to Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Bruce Cabot, who were seen in Dodge City, the new picture will feature Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson, foremost western stars from away back. The saddle heroes almost overshadowed the other stars in attention from the public during the recent trek to Dodge City.
Hollywood was all adither again today over its time-honored pastime of name-coupling.
The names being coupled are Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan. And what brings the dither to a boil is the fact that Flynn just got his divorce decree last week. Ann still has three months to wait for her final release from George Brent.
Ann has denied a matrimonial measure of interest in the film swashbuckler and he has repeatedly sought refuge from the gossip in the traditional “we’re just good friends” line.
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Annie Got Her Gun – Did she have Errol in her sights?
True amour? Or, more just an edgy Ann and Flynn fling/affair?
