Those who saw Errol Flynn knock out polo player Alden Roar should have seen him yesterday — talking for six minutes in stumbling French to a sick youngster in a Zurich sanitarium. It gave quite a different slant on the Irish star ….. Easy to picture, too, the thrill of the 12-year old girl at the other end of the line. Her name is Xenia Thorn and she has been in the Swiss sanitarium for two years, victim of a lingering illness.
About a month ago, Kelly Anthony, head of the hospital, wrote Flynn about the girl….saying Flynn was her idol and asking the star to arrange some time after the holidays to make the call. Enclosed was a check to pay for three minutes. Flynn doubled the time, paid the rest himself.
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I don’t know the name of the sanitarium, only that it was in Zurich, in 1938. Perhaps Trolley No. 55 passes by it during its zipping around Zurich is this film clip from 1938:
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Errol Flynn came ashore from his yacht at the Myrtle Bank Hotel at noon yesterday – and nearly created a riot. As the handsome, dashing screen star entered the lobby., a waiting army of female hotel fans, who had impatiently been waiting his coming ashore, mobbed him in traditional style.
Since news of his arrival spread through Kingston and St. Andrew yesterday, local cinemaddicts have been concentrating on the Myrtle Bank in an effort to secure autographs, snapshots, or just look at the daring he-man lover of the screen in the flesh.
Gathering yesterday morning a battery of woman fans filled the lobby and verandahs of the hotel. “Bobby-soxers” were in the majority, but there were lots of grownups, too. Impatiently they looked out across the hotel lawn to the pier, and beyond it, where the Zaca rode at anchor on the quiet Caribbean.
Came 12 o’clock and still no sign of the tall hero of Captain Blood, Elizabeth and Essex and other screen successes which have thrilled local audiences. The now-retired movie actor, who arrived here on Wednesday, stayed aboard his yacht this afternoon, along with members of his party.
THE WORD GOES UP
Suddenly there was a sensation. The word went up that he was coming. Large as life, and as handsome as he appears on screen, Errol Flynn walked into the lobby. Something like a cross between a scream and a sigh issued from a hundred lips. The actor smiled at the demonstration.
When they crowded around him, however, he decided it was too much of a good thing. Quickly getting into a waiting motorcar, he left the hotel and did not return until during the evening. The fans, torn between partial satisfaction and partial disappointment, went away.
Presence of the popular actor, whose exploits, on and off the screen, have won him wide mention, has made Myrtle Bank the focus of local attention. Busiest switchboard in town is the PBX at Myrtle Bank, where the telephone operator spent half a day yesterday saying, “Yes, he is here. No, he hasn’t come ashore yet.”
CLERKS KEEP BUSY
No less busy has been the desk, where the clerks have been equally engaged in answering queries as to the whereabouts of Mr. Flynn. Autograph books and baby cameras have been greatly in evidence, while the staff have been kept on their toes coping with the extra demand on their time as a result of the increased number of visitors to the hotel.
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A look at Jamaica circa shortly before Errol first arrived:
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Errol was in LIFE and on the radio………
Helping Cecil De Mille and Joan Blondell to beautify America, one face at a time………
Above is a copy of the full page ad in Life Magazine, January 2, 1939, framed by “The Past on a Plate”. There was a story about Dawn Patrol in tge same edition.
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Miss(chievous) Olivia was the Picture of Innocence…..
December 29, 1938
Erskine Johnson
Los Angeles Examiner
SOME MOVIES ARE MADE
Olivia De Havilland is sitting off stage watching a rehearsal between Errol Flynn and Alan Hale for a scene in Dodge City. When no one is looking she opens her hand to reveal a rubber band and a wadded piece of tinfoil. She wraps the rubber band around her fingers, folds the tin foil over it and draws a bead on the unsuspecting Flynn. She Lets go and Flynn jumps a foot as the folded tinfoil smacks in on the back of his lap. By the time he has turns around, the rubber band has disappeared and Olivia de Havilland is the picture of innocence.
And a visit to Sydney from a very famous singer….!
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December 28, 1963
Sydney Morning Herald
American Singer Arrives
The American singer Dick Haymes, for years a close friend of Australian-born actor Errol Flynn, arrived in Sydney to see his friend’s birthplace. Haymes said he and Flynn had often talked about Australia, and they had planned to make a visit together before Flynn’s death. Haymes, now 45, arrived at Kingsford Smith Airport by T.A.A. from Perth. He expects to find time to see Sydney beaches during his 28-day appearance at Chequers night club.*
* Chequers was one of the hottest night clubs in the world, the Copacabana of Down Under.
From Bonnie Paraschos on the Facebook Errol Flynn Blog, the FB-EFB, here’s Errol and Lili with Ross Alexander and his wife, Aleta Freel Alexander, at the world premiere of “Captain Blood”, at the Mark Strand Theater in Manhattan, on December 26, 1935. Original in B&W, edited green here in the seasonal spirit. Thank you, and Merry (second day of) Christmas, Bonnie!
Basil Rathbone today seemed destined to play another of the “heavy” roles that have made im one of the screen’s most famed menaces. Hal Wallis i negotiating a deal with Rathbone, wherein he would play the part of Lord Wolfington in The Sea Hawk.
Errol Flynn already has been announced for the star role in the picture, which will be Seton I. Miller’s revision of the Raphael Sabatini thriller. Rathbone, as Queen Elizabeth’s advisor, was in mind when Miller wrote the script.
If the deal goes through, this will be the fourth picture in which Flynn and Rathbone have played together. The other three are Captain Blood, Robin Hood, and The Dawn Patrol. Michael Curtiz probably will direct The Sea Hawk. He piloted Captain Blood.
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Has any fencing menace ever fought better, or died better, than Basil Rathbone? I think not.
(Certainly not Henry Daniell!)
