Dear fellow Flynn fans,
if Lili Damita had ever been Mrs. Curtiz, was a recurring topic here.
Call me blogheaded, but I wanted to gather some additional preferedly conclusive information. Here is what I came up with.
1. Within the Vienna National Library a standard film encyclopedia (approximately eight bibles thick) can be found called “The great lexicon of film personalities” released in Berlin by Kai Wiesinger drawing from sources dating back to the 1930s. In the Curtiz column it states that he was married to actress Lucy Dorraine, while Damita`s next of kin was Errol Flynn.
2. The Budapest Film Academy had nothing but the internet entries in their archives.
3. An Italian biography called “Un ungarese a Hollywood” lists 1925 as a busy year, but with Damita as the Hu(ngaria)n’s leading lady strictly on a professional level.
4. Another lexicon: HALLIWELL`S Who- is- who- in movies lists Tiger Lil`s lovers such as Maurice Chevalier and King Alfonso III of Spain, but no other groom than Errol. Curtiz` second wife Bess Meredyth is mentioned.
5. Furthermore I reached Mrs. Ilona Ryder, a teacher living in Canada, who is the grandchild of Michael Curtiz and daughter of his son Michael II. She had no personal knowledge of a legal liaison between the two Flynntimates. Let it be noted, that her father was born in the same year as the marriage was said to have taken place.
I admit to have always been sceptical of the Curmita claim, thinking Errol for sure would have mentioned such a relationship in his memoires. He was never beneath a quick quip especially concerning his first ex- wife and the director he loved to hate. Something like “What God has joined together, let no Tasmanian separate” comes to my mind.
Now where did this rumor start in the first place? Look no furtherrol than page 72 of the pocket book edition of Charles Hoaxhams “EF. The Untold Story”
…the actress Lili Damita, who married Errol and Errol`s best known director, Michael Curtiz.
Interestingly on page 96 he writes about our Hollywood hero and Mrs. Dynamita:
Yet they were in many ways incompatible. This was Lily`s first marriage and she wanted possession.
If need be to achieve 100% certainty and infinte clearity, two more sources should be consulted:
- Bermingham, Cedric Osmond (1931). Stars of the screen 1931: A volume of biographies of contemporary actors and actresses engaged in photoplay throughout the world. London: Herbert Joseph.
- “Lily Damita”. Stars of the Photoplay. Chicago: Photoplay magazine. 1930.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
