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Errol Flynn (1909-1959)
Name: Errol Flynn Birth Name: Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn; also known as Leslie Flynn and "The Baron" Birth date: 20 June, 1909 - Hobart, Tasmania, Australia Date of Death: 14 October, 1959 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (heart attack) Notable as: One of the great stars of the classic era of film, best known for his roles as Captain Blood, Robin Hood, the Earl of Essex, and other swashbuckling adventure roles. Perhaps even better known for his enormous sexual appetites, which have long been rumored to include men as well as women. Factoids: Descended through his mother from the midshipman of the H.M.S. Bounty. (Other accounts also cite Fletcher Christian, organizer of the mutiny, as an ancestor.) His father, Theodore Thomas Flynn, was a noted and respected biologist. He was expelled from every school his parents enrolled him in, and worked odd jobs ranging from police constable to sheep gelder before he became an actor. First film role was as Fletcher Christian in an Australian production of In the Wake of the Bounty in 1933. Won the title role in Captain Blood in 1935 after original star Robert Donat withdrew from the project. Was perhaps second only to Joan Crawford on Bette Davis' hit list. Davis was rumored to have turned down the role of Scarlett O'Hara after she heard reports that Flynn was being considered to replace Clark Gable in the role of Rhett Butler. She was also said to have enjoyed slapping Flynn in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. The phrase "In Like Flynn" was originally coined in reference to Flynn's reputation and skill as a seducer. Specifically, the phrase was coined after Flynn was tried and acquitted of the statutory rape of two underage girls in 1942. His lawyer credited Flynn's gentlemanly and persuasive manner with the mostly female jury for his acquittal. Once described himself as "a male Mae West," a lament of the fact that he was better known as a caricature based on his off screen lifestyle and nonconformity than for his film performances. Among his rumored male lovers were Truman Capote, Howard Hughes, and Tyrone Power, with whom he had trysts at the home of gay director Edmund Golding. A popular story is that after being banned from drinking on the set of one of his films, Flynn took to injecting oranges with vodka and eating them on the set. Different versions of this story have also been told about W.C. Fields and Lionel Barrymore. The Gay Book of Lists mentions Flynn in a list of allegedly well endowed celebrities, claiming that he would drunkenly play the piano with his penis at parties. Flynn's wild partying and heavy drinking took its toll on his health, his good looks, and his career. Many of his last film roles were as alcoholics. A 1984 biography, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story by Charles Higham, claimed that Flynn was a Nazi sympathizer, a charge vehemently denied by his children and largely disproved by follow-up investigations. Still, the 1991 fantasy adventure movie The Rocketeer cast Timothy Dalton as a film actor based on Errol Flynn, who is working for the Nazis. Ironically, the movie also included a fictionalized version of Howard Hughes, one of Flynn's alleged lovers, who helps the hero defeat Dalton's character. Had an estate in Jamaica which his family still owns. Flynn's son, Sean, entered movies shortly after his father's death, but was woefully typecast in B-grade swashbuckler flicks, including Son of Captain Blood. Sean Flynn left acting for photojournalism, and while on assignment in Cambodia in 1970, was captured and presumably executed by guerillas. His remains have never been recovered. His grandson, model and actor Luke Flynn, was voted one of the "25 Hottest Bachelors" by People magazine in 2003. Quotes: "I enter a whorehouse with
the same interest as I do the British Museum or the Metropolitan."
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