— David DeWitt
Archive for the ‘Main Page’ Category
Sailing the South Seas, Lililess
October 22, 1936
Elizabeth Yeaman
Hollywood Citizens News
Errol Flynn, completed four starting pictures in the one year he has been at Warners, is headed for a three-month vacation. His pictures have been Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Green Light, and Another Dawn, the latter now in progress of shooting with Kay Francis. Only his first picture has been released. Errol is headed for New Zealand and the South Seas, his old haunts before he became a movie star. His bride, Lili Damita, will not accompany him on the holiday. Perhaps, a marital holiday will do them both good, judging from rumors floating about.
— Tim
HOLY MORONI! — WHO ON EARTH WAS SHE!?!
Who on Earth was “Chancellor”, aka Mrs. Errol Flynn?
I have recently come across three Mormon “proxy marriage sealings” involving Errol – one to “Lili”, one to “Nora”, and one to “Chancellor”. Yes, that’s correct, “Chancellor”!!!
Who, you may ask, was Chancellor? The answer is simple: I have no idea!
According to official Mormon records of proxy marriage sealings (aka “celestial marriage”):
“Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (Errol Flynn), was born in Hobart, Tasmania. He was sealed to an ex-wife, Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré (Lili Damita) on October 3, 1996 in the Manti Utah Temple. On November 3, 2000 in the Albuquerque New Mexico Temple, Flynn was sealed to an unknown spouse named “Chancellor”. Flynn was sealed to another ex-wife, Nora Eddington, on September 18, 2009 in the Boise Idaho Temple.”
So, it appears, according to official records of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, Errol and Chancellor were sealed in eternal proxy marriage on November 3, 2000, at the Mormon Temple in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
…But why? And to whom?
Perhaps “Chancellor” could be a reference to Pat Wymore? Or, perhaps it could be a woman who had a child with Errol, perhaps the mother of James, or Shirley’s girl (Marilyn/Lynn)? “Following a celestial marriage, not only are the couple sealed as husband and wife, but children born into the marriage are also sealed to that family.”
Here’s a summary of the Mormons’ instructions/guidelines for “proxy marriage sealings”:
“The LDS Church has issued specific instructions to Church members regarding proxy marriage sealings. These guidelines state that only dead couples, who had established relationships while they were living, are to be sealed as spouses in Mormon temples.”
“A deceased man may have sealed to him all deceased women to whom he was legally married during his life. A deceased woman may be sealed to all men to whom she was legally married during her life. However, if she was sealed to a husband during her life, all her husbands must be deceased before she may be sealed to a husband to whom she was not sealed to during life. Deceased couples who were divorced may be sealed. This may provide the only way for their children to be sealed…A deceased couple who lived together as husband and wife may be sealed, even if the marriage cannot be documented.”
A description by a former performer of celestial marriage ceremonies:
“MUCH SECRECY SURROUNDS THE SACRAMENTS THAT take place in the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For Mormons—whose numbers can be difficult to quantify—the temple is the center of family and community life. It is also where ”eternal marriages” take place.”
“Known within the Church as “sealing,” eternal marriages bind a couple together forever. As in, forever—beyond mortality. In fact, sealings can be performed on people who have already died, to ensure they are eligible for entry into the highest echelons of Mormon heaven. Posthumous sealing—in which a deceased person is wedded to either another deceased person or one who is still alive—is performed regularly within the Church, but the details of the ceremony are not usually disclosed to people outside the faith.”
“Mormons believe there’s various degrees of heaven. In order to gain entrance to the highest one, where you get to be a god and create your own worlds, you have to have received certain ordinances. They call them “keys.” And one of those is being married. So people who have died and never had the chance to get sealed—that’s what Mormons call getting married in the temple—can have it posthumously done for them. And that’s the point of going to the temple and doing sealings.”
“Faithful Latter Day Saints believe civil marriages are dissolved at death, but that a couple who has been sealed in a temple will be married beyond physical death and the resurrection if they remain faithful. This means that in the afterlife they and their family will be together forever. An illustrative difference in the marriage ceremony performed in LDS temples is the replacement of the words “until death do us part” with “for time and all eternity”.”
Any ideas or input, Flynnmates!?
— Tim
“Real Cute”
Jimmy Starr
LA Evening Herald Express
2nd Week of October, 1937
Fiery Lili Damita, noted for doing the unusual, surprised her hubby Errol Flynn and the entire Robin Hood company, now living at Chico, Calif, where exterior scenes are being filmed for the lavish Warner color production.
Lili brought along eight massive wardrobe trunks! But instead of containing clothes, the trunks were filled with bedsheets, comforters, silverware and window drapes. Lili was assuming the role of housewife and was going to fix up Errol’s hotel room “real cute,” as she expressed it.
Anyway, the gossips can’t say that Errol and Lili aren’t getting along in the best of marital fashion.
Here was Lili’s target:
— Tim
We Welcome New Author Selene Hutchison-Zuffi to The Errol Flynn Blog!
Selene, we are so happy to have you with us at The Errol Flynn Blog – a True Friend of Flynn!
— David DeWitt
Cuban Trouble Girls
Dear fellow Flynn fans,
once before the baron met the Baron in Cuba: www.theerrolflynnblog.com…
Now Allen “Abbie” Baron makes three.
The writer- director started out as set designer and gives a hilarious account about the makeshift shooting of “Cuban rebel Girls” in his biography “Blast of Silence”.
Six weeks after Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista, flyer and flynntimo Barry Mahon had gathered a crew of five barflies from Jim Downey`s Bar and Restaurant and a bunch of Playboy bunnies at the Hotel Capri in Havana.
Sandbagging there at the time also was actor Ernie Kovac with cast members of the Carol Reed classic “Our man in Havana”.
Abbie Baron came into play, because he drew storyboards for Barry, who then pitched them as potential moneymakers to studio bosses.
He remembers our man Flynn as every bit the movie star that he was at the roulette tables and on location at the Sugar finca of Quarto Caminos, which was lent to them by a Cuban friend of Errol.
Leading teenie Beverly Aadland had Ol`Errol laughing with that lewd lingo of hers and sweating in fits of jelousy.
When his then time secretary Hillary, a stunning young American with a Southern drawl, who was married to a Cuban officer, made a pass at Abbie, their production tumbled from topsy-turvy into full turmoil.
Mr. Officer held everybody at gunpoint in the hotel`s lobby and demanded to know where his wife was.
Unpaid bills at local groceries did the rest, and the whole cast & crew left Castro´s Island in a hurry.
But not before Mahon, who had aspired to become another DeMille, was able to hide cameras, 35mm raw stock and a Lincoln convertible in a palm tree shaded shag.
Abbie got them out at a later date and started his movie career mostly on his experiences during those turbulent days filming CRG.
“Barry never uttered a word about his WWII extraordinary exploits in all the time I spent with him. I regretted judging him for his terrible skills as a filmmaker, but was happy to learn he was a real-life hero. I learned from him that bullshit had great currency and I put the knowledge to good use.”
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
Errol the Terror versus The Creature from the Hollywood Gossip Lagoon
October 1, 1941
Frederick C. Othman
Oakland Tribune
Having called Jimmy Fidler a “contemptible liar” and “a creature who lives on the film industry’s garbage,” Errol Flynn, the night club terror, gave his word to the judge today that he’d never again slap the movies’ leading radio oracle..
Fidler promised through his lawyer thst he’d not make any dirty cracks about Flynn, so help him, and Judge Cecil D. Holland of Beverly Hills Municipal Court wearily marked the case closed.
Judge Holland, who must render judgment on most of Hollywood’s extra-curricular hi-jinks and who sometimes gets a little tired of it, called Flynn in for a conference, after Fidler demanded his adversary be arrested.
SAYS THEY WORK HARD
“Members of the motion picture industry work hard,” began Flynn, who still had yellow grease paint from the studio on his brow. “The Hollywood press also works hard and with a great deal of integrity. But Fidler dies not print the truth. I have found him to be a contemptible liar. He—–.”
Judge Holland suggested that Movie Hero Flynn stick to what happened in the Mocambo Night Club two Saturday nights ago.
Flynn said he took one look at Fidler. “And everything kind of went black,” he continued. “I think I grabbed him, but I was pulled away. Then I told him I couldn’t hit him. I’d give him the palm of my hand. I did slap him.”
NO UNDIGNIFIED ACTS
“I am not the kind of man who goes in for undignified behavior, but this business in Washington particularly provoked me, when Fidler started telling those senators how the movie should be run. It was a smear on the industry. He is a creature who is allowed to live on the film industry’s garbage and that testimony of his drive me out of my mind.”
The judge wanted to know whether Fidler’s wife, Bobbe, the dress shol operator, had stabbed Flynn in the ear with her meat fork. “I remember,” the judge said, “that Mrs. Fidler reported after the fracas that she had broken three finger nails.”
“Well, I didn’t find any finger nails in my ear,” Flynn retorted. “All I found was a hole.”
Flynn assured Judge Holland that he’d never slap Fidler again.
HAD NO CHANCE
“You had no right to slap him,” the judge emphasized.” And you’re a lot bigger man. And you’ve had boxing experience.” Fidler’d have no chance in a fight with you.”
“Yes, broke in Flynn, “but many others, mostly women, have been at the mercy of Fidler’s innuendo. They have no defense . I—-”
“You have no right to be a champion for these women.” The judge said. “To find you in a barroom brawl takes the heart out of a lot of people. The children who made you a hero have been let down. You have been in other brawls. You owe it to the picture industry and the pulic to live in a glass house. Will you do it?”
Flynn said he would. Thornwell Rogers, Fidler’s attorney, promised for his part that Fidler would never mention Flynn on the air. The chief of the Warner Brothers’ Studio, three press agents, a studio photographer, and Flynn returned to the studio, to resume the fight – make-believe – that the hearing had interrupted.
…
— Tim
The Collector
In 1961, Morris Everett Jr. wandered into a New York store filled with vintage movie stock. As Everett flipped through the glossy stills and painted lithographs, his mind reverted back to the excitement of watching Errol Flynn on the big screen, and he thought, Ahhh, this is for me.
That day, he bought a lobby card from Flynn’s 1936 movie Charge of the Light Brigade.
He put it in a desk drawer in his fraternity house, unable to shake the feeling of his first purchase and the impact movies had on him.
For Everett, movie photos and posters are portals to the past, able to transport a viewer to the exact place and state of mind they were in when they first saw a film. Whenever he walks past a poster of Charge of the Light Brigade, he still “feels an inner glow,” he says.
Morris has collected more than 3 million movie photos and 200,000 posters capturing the splashy and storied history of American filmmaking. He is widely regarded the most significant collector of movie stills and posters in the world.
And after decades spent working with films both famous and those quickly forgotten, which does Everett claim to be his favorite?
“Robin Hood, the one with Errol Flynn.”
It is unclear which Charge of the Light Brigade lobby card first gave Morris such a charge, however, the following are likely candidates. Below the Charge lobby cards is a collage of a few dozen items from Everett’s actual collection.
— Tim
Cary In For Flynn
September 27, 1938
Evening Herald Express
ERROL FLYNN TAKEN TO HOSPITAL IN SERIOUS ILLNESS
Still seriously ill, Errol Flynn, motion picture actor, rallied sufficiently today to permit his being transferred from his Beverly Hills home to the Good Samaritan Hospital.
The change was made under the direction of his physician, Dr. T. M. Hearn. Dr. Hearn said the actor needed care and attention more readily available at the hospital.
Flynn is suffering from influenza, complicated by an infection of the throat and respiratory organs and a recurrence of malarial fever, which he contracted five years ago in New Guinea.
Studio reports attributed Flynn’s illness to the fact that he refused to use a double in flying scenes in the picture Dawn Patrol on which he was working.
…
September 28, 1938
Evening Herald Express
CRISIS IN ILLNESS OF ERROL FLYNN NEAR
An uncomfortable night, and a crisis expected within 24 hours.
This was the report today on Errol Flynn, film actor, who was confined to Good Samaritan Hospital with influenza and a streptococci infection of the throat.
Flynn was removed to the hospital on the orders of Dr. T. M. Hearn.
Dr. Doyle James, throat specialist, was called in consultation by Dr. Hearn, in an attempt to solve the mystery of the streptococci and the continued high fever which is now 102 degrees.
…
September 29, 1938
Hollywood Citizen News
Cary Grant is reading the script for the leading role of Dodge City now that Ronald Colman and Errol Flynn have been eliminated.
Sets for the film will be built on the Warners lot and shipped to a location near Brownsville, Tex.
— Tim