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
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
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
Errol Shows in Hollywood – Featuring Errol, Lili, Ed & Louella
***
May 30, 1938
Ed Sullivan
Hollywood Citizens News
Errol Flynn gets in June 4.
***
June 2, 1938
Louela O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner
Lili and Errol Flynn, no longer “among the missing,” planed on yesterday morning from Chicago.
— Tim
May 26, 1938
Louella Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner
Errol Flynn is lost again between Havana and Hollywood.
May 28, 1938
Erskine Johnson
Los Angeles Examiner
Fox turned down Warners’ offer of $150,000 for film rights to Douglas Fairbanks’ old picture,
The Mark of Zorro. They wanted it for Errol Flynn.
— Tim
The most highly coveted of ornamental plants, the delicate, exotic and graceful orchid represents love, luxury, beauty and strength. In ancient Greece, orchids were associated with virility. There are numerous kinds of orchids but the black orchid is regarded the most intriguing and powerful of all. The Greek word “orchis” means “testicle” and is a symbol of virility. Ancient Greeks believed that they could control a baby’s gender by eating orchid roots. If they wished a son, the father would eat a large and new orchid tuber. If they wished a daughter, the mother would eat a small tuber. This belief, and other perceived magical sexual and spiritual powers of orchids, helped them remain popular into modern times.
Perfect for Virile Errol’s Hollywood Hot House, described below!
May 10, 1938
Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express
When Errol Flynn gets back from his Bahamas trip in about three weeks, Hollywood will get a floral novelty. He is bringing several hundred cuttings of a black orchid, found when he and Lili Damita were exploring the southern tip of Cat Cay Island.
His agent got an enthusiastic wire today ordering the ‘for sale’ sign off real estate the star owns on the tip of Laurel Canyon and instructing him to start building a modernistic hot house in which to grow the exotic blooms. Flynn plans to raise them for the Hollywood market.
***
Fascinating footage of Cat Cay Island circa when Errol first sailed there, shortly after he purchased Sirocco:
— Tim
April 27, 1938
Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express
As this is written Flynn is still a holdout on returning to the studio. Warners wanted him badly for Sister Act, but Errol was delayed two and a half weeks in getting away from Miami and, so far, he is refusing to give up his vacation. Quite a turn of fortume for the Irish actor who, two short years ago, was glad to play a corpse in the Case of the Curious Bride.
***
— Tim
April 26, 1938
Elizabeth Yeaman
Hollywood Citizen News
Warners are remaining absolutely mum on the subject of Errol Flynn, whose picture, Robin Hood, was enthusiastically greeted at a preview last night. Flynn, so far as known, is still aboard his yacht in waters off the Bahama Islands. Frank Heacock, a member of the publicity department who is with Flynn, has communicated several times with the studio, but apparently Heacock cannot get Flynn to say yes or no about returning for Sister Act.
It may be that Flynn thinks his absence speaks for itself. However, with the picture ready to start and the rest of the cast all lined up, a delay in production will be an expensive matter. If Flynn should return promptly, he probably would be forgiven and put right into the picture. But in view of the silence and his absence, naturally the studio is moving to protect itself against delay.
As a result, Jeffrey Lynn has been given extensive tests for the past few days, for the role that Flynn was set to play in Sister Act. Lynn is 27, and those who saw him on the local road show of “Brother Rat” will remember him as a member of that company. Warners were immediately interested in him and sought his release from George Abbott. He was brought into the studio last January, and has been going through a grooming process. His first movie role of any size was When Were You Born?, which has not been released. And he had the role of romantic interest opposite Kay Francis in In Every Woman’s Life.
If Lynn suddenly steps into the lead opposite the Lane sisters in Sister Act, it will be a very sudden leap up the ladder of opportunity.
***
The Jeffrey Lynn story:
www.outofthepastblog.com…
In Lynn, each girl sees the attainment of her desires… See, beginning at 1:01 in the official trailer below:
Haven’t seen it anywhere, but methinketh the name “Jeffrey Lynn” was likely created to sound like “Errol Flynn”. His real name was Ragnar Godfrey Lind.
— Tim
April 12, 1938
Jimmy Starr
Evening Herald Express
In the year of 1692 the quiet little village of Port Royal, Jamaica, was startled by a loud rumble, followed by a violent earthquake that slid the entire town into the ocean. On days when the water is clear, sightseerers hire a small boat to visit the site of the tragedy and to view the remains of a city underwater.
There are superstitious natives in that region who claim they can still hear the bells ringing in the sunken church. Intriqued by the fame of the bells, adventure-some Errol Flynn, Warner star, who is cruising with his new yacht in that section, informs me that he is going to make a deep-sea dive in an effort to recover the bells. If successful, the ancient chimes will be brought to Hollywood for exhibition.
***
Captain Blood’s Port Royal, Warner Bros. Publicity Still 1935
— Tim
April 23, 1938
Louella O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner
Dozens of dizzy rumors floating about Warners efforts to get Errol back in town in a hurry for Because of a Man. One yarn is that Errol is quite ill and unable to return and another is that Warners are unable to contact him because his boat has no wireless. However, the studio says he is expected to put in at Bahamas tomorrow where Warners will have a telephone line held open to tell him to fly home. The studio has shot around him just as long as they can and there’s still another rumor that if he isn’t reached, they’ll start casting about for another hero.
***
Would it be Warners’ own Dick Powell?
Or perhaps MGM’s Melvyn Douglas?
Or would they pick someone whose name sounded more like Errol Flynn’s?
— Tim
