83 Facts About Errol Flynn

Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn was an Australian-American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Errol Flynn was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland, and reputation for his womanising and hedonistic personal life.

Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn was born on 20 June 1909 at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Battery Point, Tasmania.

Errol Flynn's father, Theodore Thomson Flynn, was a lecturer and later professor of biology at the University of Tasmania.

Errol Flynn's mother was born Lily Mary Young, but shortly after marrying Theodore at St John's Church of England, Birchgrove, Sydney, on 23 January 1909, she changed her first name to Marelle.

Errol Flynn attended The Hutchins School, Hobart College, The Friends School and Albura Street Primary School and was expelled from each one.

Errol Flynn made one of his first appearances as a performer in 1918, aged nine, when he served as a page boy to Enid Lyons in a queen carnival.

From 1923 to 1925, Errol Flynn attended the South West London College, a private boarding school in Barnes, London.

Errol Flynn spent the next five years oscillating between New Guinea and Sydney.

In January 1931, Errol Flynn became engaged to Naomi Campbell-Dibbs, the youngest daughter of Robert and Emily Hamlyn Campbell-Dibbs of Temora and Bowral, New South Wales.

The film was not a strong success at the box office, but Errol Flynn's was the lead role, leading him to travel to Britain in late 1933 to pursue a career in acting.

Errol Flynn got work as an extra in a film, I Adore You, produced by Irving Asher for Warner Bros.

Errol Flynn soon secured a job with the Northampton Repertory Company at the town's Royal Theatre, where he worked and received his training as a professional actor for seven months.

Errol Flynn performed at the 1934 Malvern Festival and in Glasgow, and briefly in London's West End.

Errol Flynn's first appearance was a small role in The Case of the Curious Bride.

Errol Flynn had two scenes, one as a corpse and one in flashback.

Flynn asked for a different kind of role and so when ill health made Leslie Howard drop out of the screen adaptation of Lloyd C Douglas' inspirational novel, Flynn got the lead role in Green Light, playing a doctor searching for a cure for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Errol Flynn appeared opposite Kay Francis in Another Dawn, a melodrama set in a mythical British desert colony.

Meanwhile, Errol Flynn published his first book, Beam Ends, an autobiographical account of his experiences sailing around Australia as a youth.

Errol Flynn travelled to Spain, in 1937, as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War, in which he sympathised with the Republicans.

Errol Flynn followed this with his most famous movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood, playing the title role, opposite de Havilland's Marian.

The final duel between Robin and Sir Guy of Gisbourne is a classic, echoing the battle on the beach in Captain Blood where Errol Flynn kills Rathbone's character after a long demonstration of fine swordplay, in that case choreographed by Ralph Faulkner.

Under Faulkner's choreography Rathbone and Errol Flynn made the swordplay look good.

The success of The Adventures of Robin Hood did little to convince the studio that their prize swashbuckler should be allowed to do other things, but Warners allowed Errol Flynn to try a screwball comedy, Four's a Crowd.

Errol Flynn played alcoholic sports reporter Frank Medlin, who sweeps Louise Elliott off her feet on a visit to Silver Bow, Montana.

Apparently audiences wanted Errol Flynn to get the girl, or vice versa.

Errol Flynn had a powerful dramatic role in The Dawn Patrol, a remake of a pre-code 1930 drama of the same name about Royal Flying Corps fighter pilots in World War I and the devastating burden carried by officers who must send men out to die every morning.

Errol Flynn was worried that audiences would not accept him in Westerns but the film was Warner's most popular film of 1939 and he went on to make a number of movies in that genre.

Errol Flynn was reunited with Davis, Curtiz and de Havilland in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, playing Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

Errol Flynn attributed her anger to unrequited romantic interest, but according to others, Davis resented sharing equal billing with a man she considered incapable of playing any role beyond a dashing adventurer.

Errol Flynn disliked the temperamental Curtiz and tried to have him removed from the film.

Errol Flynn detested rain and was physically unwell for quite some time because of it.

At the zenith of his career, Errol Flynn was voted the fourteenth most popular star in the US and the seventh most popular in Britain, according to Motion Picture Daily.

Errol Flynn really had a ball in Footsteps in the Dark.

Errol Flynn became a naturalised American citizen on 14 August 1942.

Errol Flynn was mocked by reporters and critics as a "draft dodger" but the studio refused to admit that their star, promoted for his physical beauty and athleticism, had been disqualified due to health problems.

Errol Flynn started a new long-term relationship with a director when he teamed with Raoul Walsh in They Died with Their Boots On, a biopic of George Armstrong Custer.

Errol Flynn eagerly undertook extensive boxing training for this film, working with Buster Wiles and Mushy Callahan.

Errol Flynn took the role seriously, and was rarely doubled during the boxing sequences.

In September 1942, Warners announced that Errol Flynn had signed a new contract with the studio for four films a year, one of which he would produce.

In Edge of Darkness, set in Nazi-occupied Norway, Flynn played a Norwegian resistance fighter, a role originally intended for Edward G Robinson.

Many of Errol Flynn's fans founded organisations to publicly protest the accusation.

Errol Flynn noted that the two girls, who said they did not know each other, filed their complaints within days of each other, although the episodes allegedly took place more than a year apart.

Errol Flynn implied that the girls had cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of avoiding prosecution themselves.

Errol Flynn was acquitted, but the trial's widespread coverage and lurid overtones permanently damaged his carefully cultivated screen image as an idealised romantic leading player.

Errol Flynn then made a film for his own production company, Thomson Productions, where he had a say in the choice of vehicle, director and cast, plus a portion of the profits.

Errol Flynn tried comedy again with Never Say Goodbye, a comedy of remarriage opposite Eleanor Parker, but it was not a success, grossing $1.77 million in the US In 1946, Errol Flynn published an adventure novel, Showdown, and earned a reported $184,000.

Errol Flynn was in a melodrama, Escape Me Never, filmed in early 1946 but not released until late 1947, which lost money.

Errol Flynn drank so heavily on the set that he was effectively disabled after noon, and a disgusted Walsh terminated their business relationship.

In November 1947 Errol Flynn signed a 15-year contract with Warner Bros.

Errol Flynn's income totalled $214,000 that year, and $200,000 in 1948.

Errol Flynn went on a three-month holiday then made two medium budget Westerns for Warners, Montana, which made $2.1 million and was Warner Bros.

Errol Flynn returned to MGM for Kim, one of Flynn's most popular movies from this period, grossing $5.348 million making it MGM's 5th-biggest movie of the year and 11th biggest overall for Hollywood.

Errol Flynn wrote and co-produced his next film, the low-budget Adventures of Captain Fabian, directed by Marshall and shot in France.

Errol Flynn made a swashbuckler in Italy, Crossed Swords.

Also shot in Britain was The Dark Avenger, for Allied Artists, in which Errol Flynn played Edward, the Black Prince.

Errol Flynn received an offer to make his first Hollywood film in five years: Istanbul, for Universal.

Errol Flynn made a thriller shot in Cuba, The Big Boodle, then had his best role in a long time in the blockbuster The Sun Also Rises for producer Darryl F Zanuck which made $3 million in the US Flynn's performance in the latter was well received and led to a series of roles where he played drunks.

Errol Flynn met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss a role in Lolita, but nothing came of it.

Errol Flynn went to Cuba in late 1958 to film the self-produced B film Cuban Rebel Girls, where he met Fidel Castro and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Cuban Revolution.

Errol Flynn wrote a series of newspaper and magazine articles for the New York Journal American and other publications documenting his time in Cuba with Castro.

Errol Flynn was the only journalist who happened to be with Castro the night Batista fled the country and Castro learned of his victory in the revolution.

Errol Flynn appeared in a short titled Cuban Story: The Truth About Fidel Castro Revolution, his last-known work.

Errol Flynn developed a reputation for womanising, hard drinking, chain smoking and, for a time in the 1940s, narcotics abuse.

Errol Flynn was linked romantically with Lupe Velez, Marlene Dietrich and Dolores del Rio, among many others.

Errol Flynn was a regular attendee of William Randolph Hearst's equally lavish affairs at Hearst Castle, though he was once asked to leave after becoming excessively intoxicated.

The expression "in like Errol Flynn" is said to have been coined to refer to the supreme ease with which he reputedly seduced women, but its origin is disputed.

Errol Flynn was reportedly fond of the expression and later claimed that he wanted to call his memoir In Like Me.

Errol Flynn had various mirrors and hiding places constructed inside his mansion, including an overhead trapdoor above a guest bedroom for surreptitious viewing.

Errol Flynn had a Schnauzer dog named Arno, which was specially trained to protect him.

Errol Flynn was married three times: to actress Lili Damita from 1935 until 1942 ; to Nora Eddington from 1943 to 1949 ; and to actress Patrice Wymore from 1950 until his death.

Errol Flynn was largely responsible for developing tourism to this area and for a while owned the Titchfield Hotel which was decorated by the artist Olga Lehmann.

Caldough transported him to the residence of a doctor, Grant Gould, who noted that Errol Flynn had considerable difficulty navigating the building's stairway.

Errol Flynn was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, a place he once remarked that he hated, with six bottles of his favourite whiskey.

Journalist George Seldes, who disliked Errol Flynn intensely, wrote in his 1987 memoir that Errol Flynn did not travel to Spain in 1937 to report on its civil war as announced, or to deliver cash, medicine, supplies and food for the Republican soldiers, as promised.

Errol Flynn's purpose, according to Seldes, was to perpetrate a hoax that he triggered by sending an "apparently harmless" telegram from Madrid to Paris.

Errol Flynn said she loved him and wished they had more time together.

In 1980, author Charles Higham wrote a highly controversial biography, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, alleging that Flynn was a fascist sympathiser who spied for the Nazis before and during the Second World War, and that he was bisexual and had multiple same-sex affairs.

Errol Flynn claimed Flynn had arranged to have Dive Bomber filmed on location at the San Diego Naval Base for the benefit of Japanese military planners, who needed information on American warships and defence installations.

Subsequent Errol Flynn biographers are critical of Higham's allegations, and have found no evidence to corroborate them.

Lincoln Hurst reported that Errol Flynn attempted to join the OSS in 1942 and was put under surveillance by the FBI, which uncovered no subversive activities.

In 2000, Higham repeated his claim that Errol Flynn had been a German agent, citing corroboration from Anne Lane, secretary to MI5 chief Sir Percy Sillitoe from 1946 to 1951 and the person responsible for maintaining Errol Flynn's British intelligence service file.

Errol Flynn appeared on stage in a number of performances, particularly early in his career:.