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 …
Dixie Kiefer’s reputation for durability began at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he broke an ankle and shattered a kneecap while playing football. After anti-submarine duty in World War I, he became a pioneer of naval aviation and had an elbow shattered by a plane that buzzed him as a joke. Kiefer’s first World War II assignment was executive officer of the carrier Yorktown. He earned the Distinguished Service Medal at the Coral Sea and the Navy Cross at Midway, where—as his ship was sinking—he suffered severe burns to his hands and a compound fracture of his foot. After recuperating, Kiefer took command of the Ticonderoga. In January 1945, Japanese kamikazes struck the carrier, killing and wounding hundreds. Kiefer broke his arm and was struck by more than sixty pieces of shrapnel—but remained on the bridge for twelve hours, earning the Silver Star. Victim of ten wounds in two wars, veteran of some of the U.S. Navy’s most celebrated carriers and battles, a naval aviation pioneer, Dixie Kiefer died in a stateside plane crash two months after the war ended.
The Authors
Don Keith is a journalist with decades of experience across various media. As a broadcast journalist, he won awards from the Associated Press and UPI for news writing and reporting, received the first Hector Award from Troy University for innovation in broadcast journalism, and was twice named Billboard’s radio personality of the year for his work in Birmingham and Nashville. As a print journalist, his writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, and American Legion. He is author or co-author of thirty books, both fiction and nonfiction, including Hunter Killer, the basis of a 2018 movie starring Gary Oldman and Gerard Butler. He lives outside Birmingham, Alabama.
Photography has been a passion for David Rocco for the past twenty years. A number of his photos have been displayed at regional galleries, historical societies, schools, libraries and street festivals. His work has also been published in a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, trade journals, annual and quarterly reports, promotional packages, calendars and websites. In 2013, three of David Rocco’s images were selected for a photo exhibition at the Arts Westchester Gallery in White Plains, NY showcasing the Damage and Destruction of Hurricane Sandy. Shortly thereafter, The Museum of the City of New York selected a number of these images as well for their Hurricane Sandy Exhibition. These images were also entered into the New York City permanent records. Several of David Rocco’s photos were also selected for Arts Westchester’s 50th Years Through the Decades Anniversary celebration in 2015. In 2019, he was awarded the second annual Lawrence (Larry) Salley Photography Award by Arts Westchester for my body of work documenting the construction and demolition of the Tappan Zee Bridge/ Gov. Cuomo Bridge. Several of his images were selected and installed at kiosk stands on the multi-use pathway rest areas on the new bridge. A number of his photos that were published in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 were considered for a Pulitzer Prize in Photography. The 2020 photo that is under consideration for a Pulitzer was nominated for the New York Press Association Photography Award. Rowman.com…
Join Rory Flynn, daughter of Errol Flynn, with film historian Leonard Maltin at the Coronado Island Film Festival November 13. 2021! Join Rory and Leonard Maltin for a 75th Anniversary showing of CRUISE OF THE ZACA in which Errol takes a group of scientists and guests including his father Professor Theodore Thomson Flynn to the South Seas on an epic expedition that features Carl Hubbs of the Scripps institution of Oceanography. Stories and little known history of Errol’s connection to Coronado will be moderated by Leonard Maltin after the film …
Eva is thirteen (going on fourteen) and intensely curious. And she wonders why Mr. Owens is talking about Spain, and those “fighting their leader, General Franco, and his fascist ideology.” He adds, “big-time Hollywood actors, like Errol Flynn, the same fellow who will be here soon to play Robin Hood, have already gone to Spain to see what they could do to help the Loyalists.”
As we like to do when Friends of Flynn are involved in some venture and have been particularly good to the memory of dear ol’d Errol we like to do a promo to reward them for their efforts and good hearts and today, we give you David Rocco & Don Keith’s collaboration on a fine book called The Indestructible Man …
From time to time we like to promo the works of members who support The Errol Flynn Blog over the years and today photographer Philip Gostelow reaches out to us about his new website gallery:
“As a photographer I had the great opportunity to photograph a number of celebrities while based in Tokyo in the 90s.
“I’ve just launched a new web gallery on my web site offering for the first time limited edition prints. The first of these are portraits of Quentin Tarantino … please refer Facebook posting as following:
As we sometimes do, when one our own here on the blog does something worth promoting we happily do it! And this time, Louis Kraft, writer and historian has penned a wonderful book called SAND CREEEK AND THE TRAGIC END OF A LIFEWAY and his book has just won the prestigious Wrangler Award for best book of 2020 from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. There will be two days of festivities and a banquet. The Western Heritage Awards will be held in September. Congrats to our pal Louis Kraft … Louis is hard at work on a new book called Errol & Olvia as we note his new award!
We like to promote some of the off topic things our contributors are involved in from time to time. This might be a book, like a novel or a play, a documentary or film, and our own Gentleman (Tim Reid) supports an issue that is very important to all of us. He provides the lyrics, melody and audio co-production work for the following excellent video with a lovely song sung by Rosalind Beall and musical accompaniment by Jesse Finch …
#StopProbateFraudianships commissioned this song to draw attention to the issue of seniors who are isolated and dying in long term care facilities against their wills.
