— David DeWitt
Archive for the ‘Ships & the Sea’ Category
Labor Day in Mexico, 1937
02
Sep
Reine Davies
Hollywood Parade
Los Angeles Times
The film colony’s activities over the Labor Day weekend were as varied as are the talents of the film players who create your screen entertainment.
The holiday found Dolores Del Rio, Cedric Gibbons, Errol Flynn and Lili Damita cruising down to Ensenada, and other Hollywoodites at the Mexican Resort were Gene Reynolds, Jeanette MacDonald and George Mason.
…….
Baja was the place to be, especially if sailing, Ensenada, on the “Baja Riviera”. Though this article doesn’t mention it, Errol, Lili, Dolores and Cedric, would have certainly stayed at the magnificent La Playa Ensenada, built by Jack Dempsey (possibly in partnership with Al Capone),a haven for Hollywood celebrities for much of the Thirties, until Mexico outlawed gambling in 1938. Margarita Carmen Cansino used to dance there, before she blossomed into Rita Hayworth. Most all the heavyweights were there – Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Johnny Weissmuller, Myrna Loy, Lana Turner, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Bing Crosby, among many others. Errol sailed there frequently, on Cheerio II, Sirocco, and Zaca. Flynn was fined once for wearing shorts in town… but that’s a story for another day.
Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard at the Hotel La Playa Ensenada, 1937
Dolores Del Rio and admiring friends at the Hotel La Playa Ensenada, 1930s
— Tim
Nora the Adorable
20
Aug
Charleroi Mail
3rd Week of August, 1943
FLYNN YACHTING WITH APPRENTICE MACHINIST
Errol Flynn was yachting off the coast of Mexico Saturday with his newest girlfriend, a 19-year-old apprentice machinist from a Los Angeles airplane factory, Nora Eddington.
A nice girl she is, too, reported Flynn by phone from Acapulco, Mexico, and a fine companion for a fishing trip.
— Tim
Shelter from the Storms
08
Aug
[The storm at sea, and the storm on Lookout Mountain.]
August 10, 1938
Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express
Errol Flynn flew into town yesterday from his jaunt to the Cal-Neva Lodge and Reno. His yacht, the Sirocco, docked a few hours earlier at San Pedro. It ran into a storm after leaving Cape San Lucas, losing its mainsail and had to seek shelter until the wind blew itself out. Then, 100 miles south of Ensenada, it ran out of fuel and had to make a long tack out to sea to make the Mexican port. The overhaul will cost the actor a pretty penny.
— Tim
Change of Mind?
07
Aug
August 8, 1938
Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express
Players change their minds so rapidly. Errol Flynn said he was sailing down the Mexican coast and that night he decided to go to Reno instead.
_____
Was the honeymoon over for Mr & Mrs Fleen?
— Tim
Summer of ’41
06
Aug
August 3, Off Catalina
“In August 1941 Peter Stackpole of LIFE Magazine joined Errol Flynn (1909–1959)—the swashbuckling leading man of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)—aboard Flynn’s yacht, the Sirocco, to photograph him for a story about his spearfishing skills. Also present were stuntman Buster Wiles, crew members, and three young women. One of them, fifteen-year-old actress Peggy Satterlee, later accused Flynn of raping her. The case, unsurprisingly, created a media storm.”
— Tim
The Captain Blood Armada
24
Jul
July 24, 1935
Los Angeles Examiner
Warners Rush Ships for Scenes in Captain Blood
Construction of five pirate boats to be used in the filming of Captain Blood was being rushed on the Warner Brothers lot today, anticipating the picture’s going into production the first week of August.
The ships are being made under the supervision of Anton Grot, art director, who designed the lavish sets for A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Warner Brothers special directed by Max Reinhardt.
Although Captain Blood’s boat, the Arabella, is the smallest craft under construction, the combined efforts of Grot, his sixteen assistants and the studio department are so focused on the ship that it may be best of its kind ever turned out.
A group of professional boat builders have been recruited from local seaport towns, and professional ship painters also have been called in to work on the project.
Work on the “Captain Blood Armada” started early this year shortly after announcement by Warner Brothers that the filming of Sabatini’s pirate yarn actually would get under way this summer. The first steps taken were the collection of books on pirate craft and the tabulating of data to be used by Grot’s assistants in making working drawings. One of the research books used was “Souvenirs de Marine,” which went out of print in 1886. Another book studied was “Histoire de la Marine.”
Featuring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Captain Blood is the first of twelve super productions to be made by Warner Brothers-First National. They are Anthony Adverse, Frisco Kid, Charge of the Light Brigade, Lafitte the Pirate Legionnaire, Ceiling Zero, Green Pastures, Petrified Forest, Radio Jamboree of 1935, and The Fighter.
— Tim
The Gentleman from New Guinea
13
Jul
His name is Errol Flynn and into his twenty-six years he has crowded enough experience to satisfy a dozen men. While other actors played at life in stock company repertoire, he has been living it, with dauntless gaiety. Prospecting for gold in New Guinea,being ambushed by natives,negotiating peace between savage tribes, captaining a pearl-diving crew and a copra-trading ship, receiving plaudits as an Olympic athlete – all these activities have just been preparation for the greatest adventure of all, Hollywood.
Adventurer by instinct, he is now actor by accident, he says. However, having “happened into the movies” because of their call to his dramatic sense, and because he “hadn’t yet done them,” he finds them such a challenge that he feels he must make good, in order to prove himself to himself.
Lean and brown, gay and glamorous, no more engaging personality could be found to portray the reckless Captain Peter Blood in the Sabatini tale which records the exploits of a young Irish doctor, who is sold into slavery and turns pirate.
Flynn inherited his craving for excitement from his active ancestors. He is fighting his duels in “Captain Blood” with his historic family sword, which was presented to Lord Terrence Flynn by a loyal follower of the Duke of Monmouth in 1686, the period in which the film is set.
As a boy, Errol made sporadic attempts, invariably failures, to live up to the dignity of his scholarly surroundings. His father was a professor of biology at Cambridge. When Errol wasn’t reading adventure stories, or playing games, he cast fleeting glances at his books, in English and French schools.
Fame as a boxer, which he won at nineteen at the Amsterdam Olympics, failed to satisfy his budding, restless vitality. Probably swaggering a bit in his strong, young manhood, he went to New Guinea where, as British Agent, he was sent out to make peace between native tribes. Learning their dialiects was not difficult, because they have few words and no tenses.
“I would point to objects and try to copy their grunts or shrill exclamations. After a time we would get together, more or less. Maybe,” his smile flashed, “that was where I got my training as an actor. I should be in pantomime, what?”
Silver Screen Magazine, January 1936
— Tim
“The Bachelor”
02
Jul
July 2, 1937
Harrison Carroll
LA Evening Herald Express
“Never one to abide by Hollywood custom, Errol Flynn bought a small sailing yacht yesterday and announced that no women will be allowed on board.
In keeping with the policy, the star revealed he has decided to re-christen the yacht “The Bachelor.”
Which, of course, led someone to remind Flynn that he himself is no bachelor–still being married to the exotic French actress Lili Damita.
“She can’t come aboard the yacht either,” declared the Irish actor. “I never saw a woman yet who stand rough sailing without getting either sick or frightened. And I intend to have some real fun in this boat.”
The yacht, of modest size compared to most owned by Hollywood celebrities, was purchased by the star from George Arthur, the producer. It carries an auxiliary motor as well as sails.”
*******
Errol sails The Bachelor, aka Cheerio II
— Tim
