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Mail Bag! Thomas McNulty: Remembrance of Heroes Errol Flynn

07 Oct

Hello David,

Here is some off-track trivia and random thoughts. All of these years later and Errol Flynn comes back to me in bits and pieces; rising from the depths of our cultural swamp with startling clarity. All of sudden there he is staring back at me from a stack of old Life magazines in some faraway antique shop; or grinning mischievously from some faded old movie magazine along with Roy Rogers and Trigger. I believe I own at least four copies of the famous Life magazine issue, last purchased at a flea market in June for five dollars and in perfect condition. I think of these images as “Lost America” which I’ve written about celebrating our remembrance of heroes and icons from yesteryear. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, although I am. A thousand years from now this image of Errol Flynn on horseback from Rocky Mountainwill no doubt find itself under scrutiny in some digital time-stream, lost in the nebulas of a galaxy swallowed by a black hole, perused by alien eyes, celebrated in song by the civilizations of our intergalactic future. This image has come to represent the iconic personification of the ideal Western hero. Of these images, my personal favorite is the Norman A. Fox paperback reprint by Dell in 1973, a fine novel that Fox reportedly wrote after meeting Audie Murphy on the set of Night Passage with James Stewart, based on Fox’s novel. Fox dedicated Rope the Wind to Audie Murphy who had encouraged Fox to write a novel that involved horses. Rope the Wind is a pretty damn good Western, too. They Called Him Calhoonis from the catalogue of Cleveland Westerns out of Australia, which strikes me as appropriate. Cleveland Westerns are the last pulp fiction Western digest magazines worldwide. The author, Brett McKinley, is a pseudonym for Paul Wheelahan, a prolific Australian author credited for writing hundreds of westerns for both Cleveland Publishing and Hale’s Black Horse Western imprint. There are more, but the Rocky Mountain image shows up constantly. I recently showed this still from Rocky Mountain to a young lass who shall remain nameless, and I asked her if she knew who this was and what did she think of the image? She squinted and pursed her lips, and finally said, “I don’t know who he is, but I wish there were men like him around today.” Need we say more?

Best wishes,

Tom

— David DeWitt

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Mail Bag! Note from Errol & Fidel actor Jonathan Stewart!

20 Jul

We heard from actor Jonathan Stewart who starred as Errol Flynn in the musical play Errol & Fidel after two of our members Karl Holmber and Gentleman Tim attended the play in NYC.

Hi there,

I qwas given your card by an audience member after one of our performances last week. I’m the actor who played Errol and I hope you enjoyed the show. We all had a wonderful time living in the world of Errol and Fidel and the audiences seemed to love the show. It was a very tall order as an actor to try and inhabit his now almost mythical existence, and I had the time of my life giving it a go. What a fascinating man he was, though I suppose you already know that!

Best,

Jonathan Stewart

I explained I was not at the show myself, but our two chums loved everything about the show, and hoped Rory Flynn would be able to see the show in another venue: Jonathan replied:

Hi David,

Glad to hear your friends got to see the show and enjoyed it. We had a very short run as the show was part of the annual NY Musical Festival which features new works in development selected from hundreds of submissions each year. The creators are all Australian (not surprisingly) and I know their hope is that the show will have a further life somewhere down the road. However at the moment I’m not certain of the status of that. They are all lovely people and huge fans of Errol’s. Please let Rory know what an honor it was for me to play her legendary father, and how much I enjoyed The Baron of Mulholland which I read as part of my preparation for the role. Yes please feel free to use my email as a Mail Bag item on the blog. I’ve attached a few production photos which you may have already seen published on line.

Best,

Jonathan