The Errol Flynn Blog

Hi David

We’ve been very busy opening the Filmhouse, and I thought you might like an update. Evidence of one of Mr Flynn’s unpaid clothing bills has come to light in a Northampton shop’s archives, and really captures the imagination of the national press – the Daily Express has even declared that he is making a comeback!

More info here – feel free to repost:

www.errolflynnfilmhouse.com…

Best wishes

Rowland

Rowland Thomas

Press Assistant

On behalf of Royal & Derngate, Northampton and The Core at Corby Cube

Royal & Derngate

Guildhall Road

Northampton

NN1 1DP

t: 01604 655738

f: 01604 250901

e: ro************@na******.uk

www.royalandderngate.co.uk

www.thecorecorby.com…

Royal & Derngate’s Summer 2013 season is on sale. Click to view the brochure online.

Box Office 01604 624811 Website www.royalandderngate.co.uk

Coming soon to The Core at Corby Cube:

Adrian Edmondson And The Bad Shepherds Fri 29 November
Foster & Allen Thu 31 October
We’re Going On A Bear Hunt Wed 4  Sun 8 December
Motionhouse Dance – Broken Fri 28 February

Ticket Office 01536 470 470. Website www.thecorecorby.com…

— David DeWitt

We received the following email from Anne Ronkko, and was happy to learn of her connection to dear old Errol! She kindly allows us to reprint her email here on the EFB:

Hi David,

Thank you for your quick reply.  Errol Flynn was my 2^nd cousin.  Of course, I never met him.

I can tell you that Lily Mary Young, his mother, was born Monday 4^th June 1888 at ½ past 6pm.  That is from the family bible of which I am the keeper.  I can only assume that she was born at ‘home’ as there is no place listed.  My grandmother was Lily’s younger sister.  My grandmother on the other hand was born at ‘National Park’.  Yes, I know which one.  That family was fascinating.  I have some knowledge but not a lot.

Cheers!

Anne

UPDATE:

Mireya Ranger sends us this additional information:

I’m also a relative of Errol Flynn – descended from Lily Mary Young’s elder brother Frederick Young. I think from Anne’s information that she and I would be cousins of sorts. I’ve been working on the family history for a while now and published an article in Australian Family Tree Connections a few years ago on the Young’s.

My great-grandfather was Frederick Robert Philip Young – Lily’s elder brother. Apparently Errol lived for a while with Fred and his wife Laura (my great-grandmother) when he was attending SHORE at North Sydney.

 It would be great to be in touch [with Anne] – I have a lot of family information I can share.

Mireya Ranger

I have passed along Mireya’s contact information to Anne Ronkko!

Also, I refer readers to Mark Young who posted on the blog in 2011 about his relationship to Errol Flynn’s family, too!

— David DeWitt

Received some exciting news today in the Errol Flynn Mailbag!

I was thrilled to come across your wonderful blog in the course of some online research. I thought you might like to know that here in Northampton we are honouring the Royal Theatre’s most notorious alumnus by naming a new cinema after him, due to open next month.

I’ve attached the most recent press release on the cinema for your information, and an earlier one that explains why we chose the name. We’re a long way from Snohomish but do look us up if you’re ever in town!

Best wishes

Rowland

Rowland Thomas

Press Assistant

On behalf of Royal & Derngate, Northampton and The Core at Corby Cube

Royal & Derngate

Guildhall Road

Northampton

NN1 1DP

Royal & Derngate announces name of new cinema PR

Errol Flynn Filmhouse takes shape alongside Royal & Derngate PR

— David DeWitt

In the mailbag, also, today:

However, within the stack I did find this photo of a beautiful couple:

Martha O’Driscoll & Errol Flynn (circa 1943?) entertain in Alaska during a USO Tour

Thanks, Russell!

— David DeWitt

As you know, we get some very interesting mail at the EFB: today, I am sharing with you emails from Belinda Holloway in Tasmania (I have combined two emails into one and reproduce them here with her kind permission):

Hi David!

I have an original framed poster of Errol Flynn and Alexis Smith in “Gentleman Jim” which was printed in Sydney. It measures 36 cm x 76 cm and is in good original condition. I am intending to sell it soon on eBay for starting price of $2,800 but would like to offer it first to Errol Flynn lovers in Tasmania – would like it to stay here! If anyone is interested I can email photos.

belindah2011 (at) hotmail.com….au

I attach some photos of the poster.  It came from a collection of about 30 movie posters which I bought in 1997 at auction in Hobart. It is glued to a backboard, and framed in glass.  I re-sold most of them (I still have three others – other Hollywood stars)) at Christie’s in Melbourne and apparantly Fox Studios bought them for the opening of their new studios. I am happy to post worldwide.   By the way my best friend Anne’s father Don Norman was a friend of Errol Flynn and I believe wrote a small book about him!

I am also a fan of another famous Hollywood Tasmanian silent movie star Louise Lovely, and owned her travelling trunk, which she used  for all her costumes and makeup when she was on location.  I donated it to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 2008 and it is now displayed in the new re-vamped Museum along with photos and a short piece of the movie “Jewelled Nights” as a part of the display!

I am happy for you to post this email on your blog if you like.

Thanking you!

Regards,

Belinda Holloway

— David DeWitt

I am based at Queen’s University Marine Laboratory Portaferry County Down. I noted a couple of times on the pages about TT Flynn that Queen’s University Dublin was given as his place of work – this should be Belfast. He had a holiday home on the west shore of Strangford Lough (still standing). The present QML buildings have expanded greatly since his time in Portaferry. There were some elderly people in Portaferry who told me that Errol used to visit the area while his father was Prof. of Biology in Belfast. Have you any evidence of the son’s visits to Kilklief (holiday house), Portaferry (marine laboratory / classes), Strangford Lough?

Many thanks,

Dr. Daryl Anne Birkett
QML (Queen’s University Marine Laboratory)
Portaferry
County Down
BT22 1PF
d.*******@qu*.uk

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Daryl adds in another email to me: “The optimum outcome would be a father/son photograph taken somewhere around Strangford Lough.”

If anyone can help locate such a photo it would, I a sure, be greatly appreciated. An idea they have is to fund-raise for the Errol Flynn Memorial Laboratory… However, “As it stands, we are contemplating renaming some of the present laboratory rooms in the buildings – and as
he [TT Flynn] was our founder, one of them would be the Flynn Lab…”

— David DeWitt

I got a nice email from my good friend Dennis Mullen over at In Search of Errol Flynn.com… – and he received the following message from Robert Flemming:

I have been checking the internet for information on Errol Flynn. My fathers half brother Jim Fleming was Errol Flynn’s double and friend. Jim gave my father a Robin Hood book in 1937 that was signed by the entire cast, producers, stage etc as a gift. It is a 1936 Edith Neal addition with autographs of Olivia, Basil, Errol etc etc.

We have been trying to see a value on this book.

We also have a book written by Errol-Showdown – that he gave to my grandmother Stella Fleming. It is signed, Hello Stella! Thanks for asking – you don’t have to read it. Errol Flynn.

Original Sheridan House copyright 1946 by Errol Flynn.

Robert Fleming

Reproduced with Robert Fleming’s Permission

Anyone who can shed more light on the value of these books please comment!

— David DeWitt

Kyra Pahlen writes:

My father, Victor Pahlen, making Cuban Story with Errol Flynn, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara – etc. Read the article!PS: this film needs further restoring – just in case any of you have a thought!

FILM STAR WITH A CAUSE

by John Paul Rathbone

A brief quote from the article:

“I am resigned to the fact that the primitive life of the simple South Sea islanders is the best,” Flynn wrote towards the end of his autobiography, although, as he added, “it is not for me. I have become too much a cosmopolitan.” Nonetheless, he seems to have found something of this island idyll in Cuba, which was the subject of his last two films. As well as Cuban Story, Flynn also made Cuban Rebel Girls, a pitiful movie starring his 17-year old girlfriend, Beverly Aadland, whom he called his “wood nymph”.

Flynn suffered a fatal heart attack on October 14 1959, on a trip to Vancouver, Canada, two and a half months before the dreadful Cuban Rebel Girls had its New York premiere. By the time of his death, though, Flynn had changed his mind about the revolution: “It is one thing to start a revolution, another to win it, and still another to make it stick, and as far as this writer is concerned it ain’t sticking … the police state in Cuba is not very different from that of its predecessors.”

– Errol Flynn

on.ft.com…!

Thanks for letting us know about this interesting article, Kyra!

You can download the movie !

— David DeWitt

I got a nice email from Steve Hayes today, wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving and bringing me up to date with things in LA. Steve and his sometime English collaborator writer David Whitehead are busy with new books and David updated Steve's website at SteveHayes.org… recently. Steve and his lovely wife Robbin were literally headed out the door to spend some time in Palm Springs. Steve is writing westerns and two new mysteries, he says – working out on the treadmill and enjoying life!

When I grow up, I want to be just like Steve Hayes!

— David DeWitt

Here are two photos that our pal Chris Driscoll says may be a bit grainy but show the outside and a room inside of a house that Errol lived in with his parents in Hobart. Chris writes:

David, I found these photos of one of Errol's childhood homes in Hobart. Don Norman originally showed me the house from the street and on another occasion I returned and asked permission to photograph the house from the street and the current owners asked me in and showed me up to Errol's bedroom. His bedroom was upstairs and facing the street.
 
Apologies for the grainy quality of the bedroom shot, but at least you'll get ( I hope ) a feeling or some resonance of Errol's journey.

The street shot is better quality though. It was really exciting to be in his home. It's not the home
where he set fire to the garage though. I cant exactly remember which Hobart suburb it's in but suffice to say it's walking distance to the city centre. I think it's in the vicinity of Sth Hobart. It was definitely south of the central business district.

— David DeWitt