It’s doubtful Errol attended this Christian Brothers “College”, but, if he did, it would not have been for long!
“St Patrick’s College was built towards the end of the First World War and dedicated in 1918. It opened for boys in 1919. The architect for the building was Mr A Harold Masters and the builders were Hinman, Wright and Manser. The style is typical of the Federation era and is known as ‘blood and bandages’ (note the bands of bricks and ‘plastered’ bands flowing from the windows). The cost was a little over £10,000 pounds.
The Christian Brothers taught boys from Grade 3 through to Leaving and Matriculation class. (Now Grade 12).”
“The coolest ski lodge in the US is a 78 year old building in Utah that resembles a 1940s prep-school dorm with a few added Bauhaus touches. Imagine cement-block walls, mid-century industrial Bertoia chairs, and floor-to-ceiling windows with eye-popping views of the slopes. Then imagine that it’s booked solid for much of the ski season with Park Avenue families and well-heeled West Coasters who’ve been coming for generations.”
“It’s called the Alta Lodge, and it has the catbird seat at Alta Ski Area, famed for the 500 plus inches of champagne powder that falls from the skies above the Wasatch every winter.”
“Errol Flynn and Claudette Colbert used to visit back in the day, and Alfred Hitchcock used the lodge as a location in his film Spellbound.”
A rash of false fatality fears occurred in 1945, according to the New York Times, following the April 12 death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
New York Times, April 14, 1945
“Widespread jitters bordering on mass hysteria seemed to sweep New York yesterday in the wake of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death, as rumors of killings, accidents and deaths involving prominent persons flooded the city,”
Among the rumored victims mentioned in the story were Van Johnson, Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Errol Flynn, Babe Ruth and Jack Benny. There were so many panicked phone calls to newspapers, radio stations, government offices and private businesses, the Times reported, that harried switchboard operators believed it was part of a conspiracy to hinder communications.
“At Warner Bros. from 1929 to 1949, he wrote, not for the masses, but for a film’s producer who wanted a song for a comedy or a western, or a drama or a musical. Take, for example the 1945 film San Antonio, starring Errol Flynn and Alexis Smith. He and his lyricist partner, Ted Koehler, quickly created a lovely ballad called “Some Sunday Morning.”
“The film was an instant hit. So was “Some Sunday Morning.” It was Flynn and Smith’s romantic theme song. Every time the two appeared on screen, the melody played in the background, courtesy of the film’s composer, Max Steiner. Smith sang it in a large production number set in the local saloon.”
“As early as January 5, 1946, the song made Billboard’s “Honor Roll of Hits,” a list denoting America’s top tunes. It charted at Number 9. Sales of sheet music were also excellent: for 14 weeks, the song was in the top five. And early in 1946, the song was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song.”
Some Sunday Morning”
What initially brought Jerome great fame and success, however, was “Just a Baby’s Prayer at Twilight”, a song he wrote during World War I – once contemporaneously called “the greatest constructed song ever published.”
“Moe had high hopes for a particular melody he wrote, a kind of lullaby he often hummed when he put his young son to sleep. But he wanted this song to be a statement about the cost of the war, what it did to those left behind.”
“Just a Baby’s Prayer at Twilight (For My Daddy Over There)”
