The mail bag brings us a photo purchased on eBay from our friend Tony Mostrom! The available image isn’t perfect but is rare …
Thanks, Tony!
— David DeWitt
Archive for the ‘Mail Bag’ Category
Mail Bag! Shirley Evans Hassau 1943 Press Photo!
02
Jul
Mail Bag! Errol Flynn & Rory Flynn Son Composite Photo!
18
May
Rory Flynn who is a professional photographer and Author decided to have some fun and created a new composite photo of her father Errol Flynn and her son Sean (Rio) Flynn when he was a boy. Result is so sweet she shares it with all of us …
Thanks, Rory!
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag! Regarding Miss Olivia de Havilland!
29
Apr
Our own Jan van der Vliet in Spain shares with us a letter he received regarding miss Olivia de Havilland … Jan says: I received this letter 12 years ago, after writing to Olivia asking if my wife and I might stop by to say hello while in Pars … not much chance of a positive reply from complete strangers but you never know in life unless you ask! It was a lark and I didn’t really expect any reply … Olivia died on July 25, 2020 at the age of 104. Officially, she was born Olivia Mary de Havilland.
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag! New Errol Flynn Book Coming Soon!
11
Feb
We got a great recommendation in the Mail Bag from Greg Maradei for a new book about Errol Flynn …
“I received my new book today, Errol Flynn The Illustrated Life Chronology by Robert Florczak, and I love it. Like most fanatics of our dear boy, I own and have read all the books on Errol Flynn, the majority of which have told the same story and danced around the same facts. New information and new facts are what I crave, and Robert’s book completely delivers to include a volume of rare photos that I have never seen. For instance, if you want to see the chapel then and now where Errol and Lili were married, or Niven and Flynn’s house nicknamed “cirrhosis by the sea” you’re in for a treat. By the way, that house is neither on Linden Drive nor at Marion Davies’ “humble” beach abode.
“This is an illustrated chronological book of Errol Flynn’s life, and it provides a tremendous amount of accurate and detailed information never before published including rare events and anecdotes. Additionally, the mass of production notes provides the reader with what it was like for producers and directors to work with Flynn on a film.
“Robert worked tirelessly, researching Flynn for many years down every avenue and from all resources possible and successfully created a detailed and extremely well–documented chronology of one of recent history’s most enigmatic lives. So, for those of us who want to know more about Errol Flynn and his life – here it is …
“Thank you, Robert, for your excellent work and a great and extremely unique book on Errol Flynn.”
– Greg Maradei
This book is available on Pre-Order at Amazon.
We’ll publish some reviews when the long awaited book is published after February 28, 2022.
Thanks, Greg!
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag, A Question of Errol Flynn! The Play!
28
Jan
Our Flynn-mate Jan van der Vliet sends us some news of the play written about dear old Errol at the time he was preparing his life story for the eventual book MY WICKED. WICKED WAYS … Author Karen Lynne presents a script that shows her expertise of Errol’s life in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s in this well received work starring Brendan Hughes (himself an award winning playwright and novelist). The play was staged to many great reviews at the Aldwych Theatre – 71 Lacey Street Ipswich Suffolk UK (Missing Pieces Theatre Production) directed by Graham Howes. Due to Coronavirus concerns the play was suspended in early 2020. Future plans include a national tour in 2022 …
Thanks, Jan!
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag! Rare Photo of John Decker with Errol Flynn & Flynn Portrait!
16
Nov
Our chum, Norman, sends this great photo of artist John Decker posing with his subject Errol Flynn …
Tanks, Norman!
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag! Marvelous Kirt Doke Errol Flynn Paintings!
31
Jul
Rory Flynn received an email from Kirk Doke and he has kindly allowed us to publish it here on the blog:
Dear Rory,
Congratulations on the publication your new book. I purchased a copy of The Baron a couple of years ago and I enjoyed reading it very, very much. Thank you for all of the hard work that you have conducted on your father’s behalf. All Flynn fans are deeply indebted to you for your remarkable passion.
I read on the EF blog today that the Decker portrait of Errol Flynn was recently restored. That is great news and I hope you enjoy the work very much. Your father’s interest in art has always fascinated me.
Please find attached images of Errol Flynn that I have painted. I am contacting you via a secure educational email system and this is not a solicitation.
For the last 35 years I have taught and exhibited art. Before academia called, I was fortunate to work for a year in a movie memorabilia store in Greenwich Village. It was there that I started collecting Errol Flynn items.
Five years ago, I retired from full time teaching and transitioned to part time, which now allows me more time to paint. My goal is to produce a couple EF paintings per year, with ten now being close to exhibition form. I enjoy touching them up now and then.
The main focus has been the swashbuckling movies and I am moving into the war and westerns next. The works are painted in acrylic on canvas and all paintings are 30″ x 48.”
I wish to keep the series intact, and they will not be offered commercially.
In a few years I will be contacting regional art centers and museums to exhibit a retrospective of my career and I plan to exhibit them at that time.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoy my work.
Very Best,
Kirt G. Doke
M.A., M.A., M.F.A.
Adjunct Professor Art
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College
Mt. Pleasant, MI
— David DeWitt
Rory Flynn Restores John Decker Portrait!
28
Jul
Rory Flynn, daughter of Errol Flynn announces on the blog today that she has fully restored the famous John Decker portrait of her father:
During my childhood this portrait always hung at Mulholland Farm in my father’s den … the artist was John Decker most famous for his portraits and characterizations of Hollywood celebrities Katherine Hepburn, Buster Keaton, John Barrymore, Jimmy Durante and others as historical figures.
He was quite well-known, and a friend of my father who invested in an art gallery with him in Hollywood, and I think he painted this in 1947… many years later, another wife later, the portrait was taken to Jamaica where it remained for about 25 years when it was almost completely destroyed in a hurricane.
The water damage was horrible.
My stepmother relocated it to the basement where it sat all these years until I was able to retrieve it after her death. I handed it over to the art curator John Short and John Hamm who run the North Carolina Gallery of Fine Art where it was beautifully and miraculously restored to its former condition with almost exactly the same frame that my father had made for it.
I am thrilled and excited to have this hanging in my home and I can’t thank these gentlemen enough for the year that it took for them to restore it …
Rory Flynn with Curator John Short
Click image to enlarge
… thanks, Rory!
“North Carolina Gallery of Fine Art specializes in 19th, 20th and 21st century museum quality art. Our special exhibit is the “Face of Lincoln” bronze sculpture by Robert Merrell Gage (American 1892-1981). The gallery also provides art restoration services for paintings and frames, art appraisals and the professional curation of small private and business art collections”
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag! Flowers for Flynn’s Birthday! June 20, 1909 … in 2021!
20
Jun
Thanks Selene …
— David DeWitt
Mail Bag! Reagan, Flynn and Wayne?
15
May
Our Portugal based friend Audie spotted this and send it along …
Here’s the nearest that John Wayne and Ronald Reagan came to acting in the same feature film. (Sadly, not all that close):
Olivia, Flynn and a future President (as George Custer).
In April, 1940, Warner Bros. set up the semi-Western Santa Fe Trail as a vehicle for Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The plot followed the exploits of army officers J.E.B. Stuart and George Armstrong Custer after their graduation from West Point.
As per usual, the brothers Warner were free and easy with facts, given that Stuart graduated from the academy in 1854 and Custer matriculated in 1861, and the two men didn’t know one another. The Hollywood rationale? “Come on, already! This is a movie! At least both of them graduated from the Point!”
Duke Wayne, now in the A-list category thanks to Stagecoach and Dark Command, was approached by Warners to play the George Custer role. Wayne, however, turned up his nose at the part, having no desire to play second banana to Flynn (then Warner Bros.’s biggest star), even though the flick was a big-budget epic.
Undaunted, Warners cast contract player Dennis Morgan as Custer, but Denny fell out due to a scheduling conflict. At which point, up-and-comer Ronald Reagan, fresh from his triumph as George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American, was hurriedly awarded the role.
Mr. Reagan, aware he was a last-minute replacement, later recalled how a frazzled studio tailor rushed into his dressing room to refit a Santa Fe Trail cavalry costume:
It occurred to me then that it would be just as easy someday to throw my clothes in a corner and hang some other actor’s in their place. …
If John Wayne had been less finicky about the parts he accepted, the “other actor” in Santa Fe Trail would have been the Big Cowboy and not Ronald Reagan portraying George A. Custer.
This is as close as the two ever got to acting in the same film: they were both offered the same part.
Postscript: “SFT” was a highly profitable film that boosted Reagan’s career. It fell into the Public Domain when United Artists Television neglected to renew the copyright.
— David DeWitt
