From our friend, Shel:
David,
— David DeWitt
Tom Scalzo and I have been emailing back and forth and he mentioned an old article that he published about Errol that covered the old boy’s life so well that I asked him if I could reproduce it here and happily he has agreed! So enjoy!
Thanks, Tom!
— David DeWitt
Soccer, Football, Tennis (& Motorbiking)
Yesterday while at the Palm Beach History Museum, I had the great fortune and pleasure of meeting a Palm Beach contemporary of Sean’s and of George Hamilton, who funded and hosted the film and exhibit we were viewing. Out of our conversation spun some spontaneous research leading to the following confirmation that Sean played both flag football and soccer for his school, the Palm Beach Private Day School.
From the Palm Beach Post:
Soccer Begins
February 1957
“The Palm Beach Private School varsity teams and Ransom School of Miami played to a 1-1 tie in the local school’s first home soccer game of the season here Thursday. The one goal for Palm Beach was scored by Sean Flynn.”
Football
October, 1956
“Palm Beach Private Day School opens its touch football season today at 2 p.m. against Webster-Tufts School at Lake Worth. Line-up for the Private School: Bob Kolb, RE, Dale McNulty, C, Sean Flynn, LE, Nick Smith, QB, John Logsdon. RH, and ….”
Dad
Summer, 1956
And here’s Sean with Errol only a few months earlier, in the summer of ’56. He looks very happy and proud to be with his Dad, an occasion that surely helped inspire and enhance Sean’s athletic success that ’56/’57 school year.
Gigi Phillips, a schoolmate of Sean’s, recalls:
“I went to school with Sean at Palm Beach Private back in the 50’s. He was older than I was, but was always so kind to me. Once he left Palm Beach, he would return to the school on his vacation. I have fond memories of him helping me with my math homework.
“Sean was a fine teenager when I knew him. Friendly to everyone, even the younger students. Gave anyone who asked rides on his motorcycle. His mother doted on him. I’m sure she was devastated when he disappeared.”
And from the gorgeous Gita Hall, who was dating Errol during this time, in fact she and Errol were out on the town in the Big Apple quite a bit the very week of Sean’s soccer success in early February of ’57:
“I knew Sean through his father who was so proud of him. I watched him play tennis, got to spend some quality time with him on several occasions. What a rare outstanding young man and what a tragedy that he lost his life at such a young age.”
— Tim
From American Cinematographer
The Sea Hawk Meets the Six Pack
Hardesty, Mary, American Cinematographer
Miller spot uses classic footage from Flynn adventure to set up clever pitch for product.
Did you ever notice the monkey in the galley scene from the classic film The Sea Hawk starring Errol Flynn? Maybe not, but Miller Beer has cleverly brought him to the foreground with their new Miller Genuine Draft Beer 30-second takeoff. This time the monkey appears monkey appears at one of the portholes and drops a bottle which rolls to one of the rowing men.
“The knife the forced laborers use to extricate themselves and escape [in the film] is now a bottle of beer,” explains cinematographer Curtis Clark, ASC, who collaborated on the ad with first-time director Angus Wall. “The challenge was to link Errol Flynn and the original actors with our new guy. Instead of the knife, he’s handed the bottle of beer.”
To make it appear as if Flynn was actually handed a brew, Clark used motion control and a bottle on a rig to match the actions needed to composite the bottle into the late actor’s hand.
Light, angles and perspective proved to be the biggest worries during the five-day shoot at Renmar Studios in Los Angeles, on a set constructed to match the 1940s set. “We had the original footage with us during the entire shoot, so we were able to estimate the perspective needed,” Clark recalls. Although he didn’t have access to continuity reports of the original footage, he was able to make use of video assist to help him match footage. “We would feed in the original scene and superimpose our bottle over the point where Flynn’s hand was, which allowed us to quickly see if the bottle was at the correct perspective,” explains Clark, who was given one day to shoot two such scenes.
To capture the original Forties look, Clark chose Kodak Double X black & white stock. “We took the closest source of the film – in this case a D-1 transfer from Turner Broadcasting’s library –
and used it on the Cineon at Pacific Ocean Post to replicate the look of the original film grain, which was coarser than today’s stock,” explains Clark. “Because we didn’t know the exact steps the filmmakers went through to create the original footage, we had to guess the grain sharpness and diffusion levels.”
To further add to the authentic period feel, Clark and the director decided to recreate the shooting style of the period using the same lighting techniques and lenses.
Fortunately, Clark had found a set of old Cooke lenses that had been rehoused when he was shooting the King Kong Eveready Battery spot [AC March ’94], so he was able to use that gained knowledge to save time and accomplish his lighting tests in only one day.
“From my work on the King Kong spot I knew we needed to use tungsten lighting and traditional studio lamps. The lighting styles used in those days were, in many respects, old-fashioned,” observes Clark, who notes that many older features lack lighting continuity. “They’re not anything like what we would do today. The trick is to always refer back to the reality of the original film and not do what you would normally do to improve the lighting. Making it nicer is not the point: you want to
capture the original Forties look, Clark chose Kodak Double X black & white stock. “We took the closest source of the film – in this case a D-1 transfer from Turner Broadcasting’s library . We had to guess the grain sharpness and diffusion levels [the original filmmakers used.]”
To further add to the authentic period feel, Clark and the director decided to recreate the shooting style of the period using the same lighting techniques and lenses. Fortunately, Clark had found a set of old Cooke lenses that had been rehoused when he was shooting the King Kong Eveready Battery spot.
Publication information: Article title: The Sea Hawk Meets the Six-Pack. Contributors: Hardesty, Mary – Author. Magazine title: American Cinematographer. Volume: 76. Issue: 5 Publication date: May 1995. Page number: 81+. © American Society of Cinematographers.
Is there anyone out there who knows where to find a copy of the Sea Hawk Miller commercial? I’m sure we all would love to see it posted! Thanks.
Here’s the scene stealing Sea Hawk monkey stealing a separate scen from Sea Hawk:
— Tim
The most handsome man ever. Errol Flynn?
… Or was it Brooke’s father, and Errol’s former tennis friend, Frank Shields?
Two opinions found in this definitive article on New York’s premier high society haunt. I vote with the Lebanese doorman’s wife. How about you?
— Tim
from “HOLLYWOOD”, January 1937
“News Scoop for January”
“Why Errol Flynn is Fleeing Hollywood”
In Charge of the Light Brigade Errol Flynn plays another dashing, adventurous role. Finished with this and two other pictures, Flynn is deserting Hollywood. Read why in this article!
To Some Mortal souls on this earth the call of the South Sea islands is greater
than any other thing in the world. To them the Song of the Islands is more than
a beautiful tune, a romantic interlude. It is a call to adventure in unknown places, an urge to move restless feet toward the mystery of antiquity, a willingness to dare uncharted reefs for the beckoning things beyond.
Errol Flynn is one of these souls, forever restless, forever in the pursuit of
adventure. For him there is no glamour in the present, not even in glamorous
Hollywood. The restless, haunting look you see in his eyes is not from clever
acting. The Errol Flynn of the screen is Errol himself, a man of the far horizons
who refuses to linger long in one place. And lately he has heard the call of distant lands.
Errol was just completing work on Another Dawn for Warner Brothers when
we talked with him about the mysteries of Tahiti, and other islands so remote that they remain nameless to this day.
“I guess the South Seas would lure most anyone,” he told us, pacing up and down the sound stage floor as the cameraman worked for new shooting angles. “I don’t think I’m much different from anyone else. We’d all go down there if we could. I guess the only difference is that I am going just as soon as I wind up this picture.”
And there the difference is, as plain a fact as you could ask for. The lure of big
money as a dashing movie star, the adulation of fans all over the world, the peacefulness of serene security — these things mean nothing at all to Errol Flynn.
You doubt that?
Then consider the facts. Errol has been in pictures only a brief year. He was
discovered” while the studio was testing for the lead in Captain Blood. It needed a dashing young man full of the spirit of adventure. Fate gave Errol that particular screen test, and overnight he became one of Warner’s most triumphant personalities.
Years of adventure in the South Seas made Errol Flynn a husky, stalwart adventurer. He’ll stack up nicely with Atlas anytime!
The studio knew its man all too well. It deciphered that faraway look in Flynn’s
eyes and sent out an order that might well have read like this:
“Attention all producers: we have a marvelous hit in Errol Flynn. But he is
a natural born adventurer who is hard to hold in one spot. Maybe we can keep him
inside Hollywood for a year, but not much longer. Do things fast with him.”
Of course they didn’t send out that exact order. But it is a fact that Errol, in that brief year, completed not only his first picture, but leads in the following master-pieces: Charge of the Light Brigade, An- other Dawn and Green Light.
All of these pictures are top notch productions. Most stars would consider it good fortune to do only one of these in a year. With the exception of Green Light, all of the films are costume pictures. And in Green Light Errol plays the role of a doctor who flees misfortune, battles spotted fever amid the backwoods roughness of Montana. So you see he is fundamentally the adventurous type of man in all three films.
Captain Blood made such a hit that they ran it many months longer than usual.
Charge of the Light Brigade’s release was held up for that reason. Last month we previewed the latter picture. It will make your masculine or feminine heart pound. Adventure is here in copious quantities, and romance too. It is another tremendous Errol Flynn hit. Soon you will be raving about the picture, and it seems destined for as long a run as Captain Blood.
That means only one thing: it will be many months before both Another Dawn
and Green Light are released to the theaters, and it is during these months that Errol will venture into the South Seas to get some of that restlessness out of his system.
Something to Think About
Warner Brothers might well worry about this trip. Why? Because, Errol Flynn being what he is, might decide never to return to Hollywood and motion picture fame. Just like that — with a cool snap of his fingers. But he will come
back. Warners are sure of that. They gave him a good reason for returning from the land of beyond.
__________
Several months ago Errol joined Fawcett Writer William Ulman, Jr. in writing
a story on some of the actor’s personal adventures before he became a star. The
title of that picture is The White Rajah. The idea came about during a lazy week- end in Palm Springs when Ulman was visiting Flynn, gathering material for a series of stories for Movie Classic.
Out there in the desert the two reminisced together. Errol talked about a picture he would like to do, a picture full of the nostalgia of the South Seas, of thrilling incidents from his own life.
“Why don’t we get together and turn that story into a scenario?” Ulman asked
Errol after several hours discussion.
It was a deal. They worked it out, and sold the opus to Warners for a princely
sum. And that’s why the studio is sure that Flynn will come back!
Flynn ‘s itinerary is the kind you love to speculate about. He will take the last
scheduled steamer run to Tahiti and em- bark from there. (After this trip all regular ships will dispense with making Tahiti a port of call, there not being enough business to make it worth while.)
What he will do in Tahiti is still as much a mystery to Errol as to anyone else how he will leave Tahiti for other islands is a matter for fate and time to decide.
But by and by a tramp steamer, a fishing schooner, or some wandering ship will drop anchor off the dreamy shores of Tahiti, and Flynn will find his time to move has come.
While restlessness is perhaps a prime factor in luring Errol away, he has a
couple of real objectives in his Odyssey. Among the countless islands of the South Seas mandated to Japan is one particular lump of land that catches his fancy. He calls it The Lost Island, although of course it technically is nothing of the sort.
On this strange Lost Island, Japan is said to have secret fortifications. And
Nippon is usually extremely reluctant to allow visitors within the sacred precincts. Nevertheless, the intrepid Flynn will visit that island shortly, with the official permission of high Japanese dignitaries. And all because Errol, in one of his previous adventures, developed a close friendship
with a son of one of these influential officials.
A Lost World
What Errol wants to see is not any secret military outpost, but to delve into the
mysteries of a lost civilization which once flourished on the isle. Here, under the perpetual shade of dense palm groves, are the ruins of another era, said to rival even the mystical Mayan ruins of Central America.
That spells adventure to Errol. He is taking with him a 16 mm. camera with a
supply of natural color film. When he returns he hopes to have adequate proof
of another Yesterday in human existence.
From the Lost Island the actor will swing down to the East Indies, a familiar
sight to him, for it was here that he had some of his most exciting adventures
before he climbed the heights of Hollywood.
This country is the background of his White Rajah story. So somewhere along
the line he will pick up a professional cameraman likewise afflicted with wanderlust, and film familiar scenes as a basis for the actual production. Didn’t we tell you there was a good reason for Errol to come back to Hollywood?
Yes, Errol will come back, even if it wouldn’t surprise anyone that he didn’t.
He will make White Rajah and perhaps by then he will be willing to settle down for awhile. One cannot make any accurate predictions regarding his future. Errol is forever independent. And he loves the region “down under,” where he had his first mad adventures with life.
____
Here’s Errol Flynn in a scene from Green Light, due for spring release. The
faithful dog is an important character in the film adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas’s
famous book.
— Tim
