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Archive for the ‘Wives’ Category

Dodging Dodge City? — OR Dreading Bette D?

22 Mar

March 20, 1939

Louella O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner

If Errol Flynn fails to show up for his preview, Bob Taplinger is going to lose some money. Errol’s trusting P.A. is betting that he will be there, but knowing the Flynn temperament I wouldn’t want to do any wagering myself. Errol doesn’t have to be back in Hollywood until May, when he plays Essex to Bette Davis’ Elizabeth.
Another change in the schedule has put The Knight and the LadyThe Miracle. You’ll see Claude Rains as Bacon, poet laureate of the Elizabethan era. It will all be in Technicolor. Bette’s first. This Queen Elizabeth is based on Robert Sherwood’s “Elizabeth the Queen”.

— Tim

 

Lili Leaves for PB

12 Mar

March 12, 1938

Louella O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner

Lili Damita leaves for Palm Beach shortly to meet Errol Flynn and come back through the Canal with him.

And here’s a photo of Tiger Lil’ taking a “Palm Beach Cab” on what appears what might be the town’s world famous Worth Avenue. Probably taken after she divorced Fleen.

picclick.com…

“The bicycle chair- sometimes called the “Afrimobile” or “Palm Beach Cab” was the only wheeled conveyance (other than a railroad or trolley car) allowed on Palm Beach at the turn of the century. The hotels employed drivers by the hundreds during the season.”

— Tim

 

In a State of Chaos

02 Mar

As quoted in My Wicked, Wicked Ways

March 1, 1949

Sheila Graham
New York Journal-American

Errol Flynn is far from being the happiest man in the world at this point. Not only is his domestic life in a state of chaos, but he has to make a western as his next movie. Errol is tired of shooting it up in the saddle. He doesn’t want to be a rich man’s Roy Rogers.

1949 – In the State of Chaos

1950 – In the State of Montana

— Tim

 

The Life Story of Errol Flynn – According to Flynn: 1936

26 Feb

February 26, 1936

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Express

The Errol Flynns (Lili Damita) are back from Palm Springs, where he completed the final version of his life story.

— Tim

 

Suppering with a Socialist, a Socialite, and a Spouse

08 Feb

February 8, 1939

“Hopkins and Stars see club opening.”
“Washington, D.C., Feb. 8.”

“Washington’s newest supper club opened last night with celebrities and stars in attendance. Here, Harry Hopkins, Secretary of Commerce, movie star Errol Flynn and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, wealthy socialite, found their way to fun. Note the ‘pop’ bottle on the table.”

[Note, also, how Lili was cut out of the story, quite literally in Life Magazine’s coverage, which did not include her in this same photo. That had to infuriate Miss Dynamita!]

Harry Hopkins was FDR’s main man for both the New Deal, and for international diplomacy. (Many believe he was also either a Soviet agent or Soviet dupe.)

Liz Whitney was a premier equestrian and horse owner, along with her legendary husband,Jock Whitney, “master of one of the great American fortunes and a pace-setting leader in a kaleidoscope of fields.”

— Tim

 

Feliz Año Nuevo, 1938

31 Dec

New Year’s Day, 1938

Louella O. Parsons
Los Angeles Examiner

Happy New Year!

Very little whoopie in Hollywood this year to herald in the New Year. Many of the stars went to the desert for a quiet New Year’s Eve and those who didn’t went to bed early to attend the races at Santa Anita or the football game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Our sport-loving stars had a difficult time choosing between the game and the races, but a poll taken disclosed that the races won by a large majority.

Socially the most important events were a dinner given by Grace Moore and Gladys Swarthout, a small gathering of Marion Davies’ close friends at her beach house to celebrate her birthday, and a celebration at the Charlie Chaplin mansion.

The Bing Crosbys partied with a few congenial friends, including Andy Devine. But Bing had big business at Santa Anita, so he didn’t stay up late.

Marlene Dietrich, Myrna Loy and Arthur Hornblow Jr., Bette Davis and Harmon Nelson,  George Brent, the Robert Youngs, Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond saw the New Year in at Palm Springs, while the Charles Boyers, the Errol Flynns, and Brian Aherne chose the restful La Quinta for their holiday.

amp-desertsun-com.cdn.ampproject.org…

— Tim

 

Nay Paree

14 Dec

Errol gets a 20K pre-Christmas bonus for cancelling his “reconciliation trip” to Paris with Lili.

December 14, 1936

Sheila Graham
Dallas Morning News

Errol Flynn demanded – and received – a $20,000 bonus for cutting off his reconciliation trip with wife Lili Damita, returning to Hollywood in the kiddie story, Prince and the Pauper.

****

Good-looking Hollywood gossip columnist Sheila Graham had a thing for the very virile Errol, a thing that made her legend of literature lover, F. Scott Fitzgerald, very jealous. At one point, the Mighty Flynn lived in a Garden of Allah bungalow next door to Fitzgerald’s. Sheila resided a block away, but often stayed with Fitzgerald at the Garden of Allah. She wrote the book on Hollywood’s most notorious upscale hotel of hedonism.

— Tim

 

Flynn Acres

06 Dec

December 4, 1937

Jimmy Starr
Evening Herald Examiner

No one knows what Errol Flynn will be giving Lili Damita because Errol doesn’t know yet. “And probably won’t know,” he says, “before December 24. I wanted to give her a ranch, but she doesn’t like ranches. What is there to give a woman if she doesn’t like ranches?”

— Tim

 

TALK OF THE TOWN

21 Nov

November 1936

*******

November 17, 1936

Jimmy Starr
Evening Herald Examiner

ERROL AT THE CLOVER CLUB

Ahem! Bob Taylor was out a-dancing with Ginger Rogers at the Clover Club!

And for someone just separated from his wife, Errol Flynn seemed to be having JULLY times at the same spot….

*******

November 20, 1936

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Examiner

ERROL AT THE CAFE´ LAMAZE

Figure me this. On Wednesday night, Errol Flynn came into the Cafe´ Lamaze alone and ordered dinner. While it was cooking, he put in a long distance call to Palm Springs.  Oddly enough, the call was to Lili Damita.  And even more odd, when the two had finished talking, Flynn canceled his order for dinner and dashed off in a steaming hurry.

Fine goings on for an-about-to-divorced pair! Or are they?

*******

November 25, 1936

Elizabeth Yeaman
Hollywood Citizen News

ERROL & LILI AT THE BROWN DERBY

Even the best friends of Lili Damita and Errol Flynn are smiling at the story that broke today on their marital reconciliation. The story came as the result of the discovery of the pair at the Beverly Hills Brown Derby last night. They looked serene. News hounds bombarded them for a statement. Both know the value of publicity and gave them a statement.  But their close friends, knowing the fiery temperament of both, predict that the reunion will be of brief and stormy duration.

*******

November 27, 1936

Harrison Carroll
Evening Herald Examiner

PUTTIN´ ON THE RITZ

The Lili Damita-Errol Flynn reconciliation takes on the aspect of a second honeymoon, or rather a first, as the two came right back to Hollywood after their elopement to Yuma. Through the studio, Errol has engaged the bridal suite at the Ritz Towers in New York, and is trying to get the same accommodations for his and Lili’s trip to Europe.

— Tim

 

Miss Damita

07 Nov

November 8, 1940
Los Angeles Examiner

Damita Files Suit for Divorce from Flynn

On the reef of “grievous mental and physical anguish” tge tempestuous kiss-and-makeup marriage of Errol Flynn and Lili Damita seemed wrecked without hope of salvage, yesterday.

The piquant Miss Damita, who only a few months ago became a mother, filed suit for divorce from the swashbuckling star.

Throughout their six years of marriage, the handsone Ulsterman and the dainty Lili have separated on numerous occasions, and even after they separated last August 1 friends had believed there might be another reconciliation.

The statement accompanying Ms. Damita’s divorce complaint, that an out-of-court property settlement had been effected, indicated that the last chapter in one of Hollywood’s most turbulent love stories had been reached.

Miss Damita, who sued under her legal name of Liliane Carre Flynn, charged that:

“The defendant gas inflicted a course of great and grievous mental and physical anguish and suffering, and has been guilty of extreme cruelty.”

The actress asked custody of their five month old son, Sean Leslie Flynn.

Flynn, who earns $6000 a week now, is limited to a budget of $12,000 a month pending settlement of a financial battle with Myron Selznick, his former agent.

Miss Damita, before her marriage to Flynn at Yuma on June 19, 1935, was one of the most courted beauties in the world. Her admirers included the Duke of Kent, in his bachelor days, Prince Louis Ferdinand Hohenzollern, Hugo Brassey, British millionaire, Sidney Smith, New York broker, and many other men of wealth, fame, or both.

…….

Here is Lili’s Published List of Casualties:

Duke of Kent

Prince Louis Ferdinand Hohenzollern

Hugo Bassey

Lili’s Alleged Engagement with Hugo Bassey

Sidney Smith

— Tim