Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian-American actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films.

Biography

Lifestyle
Flynn developed a reputation for womanising, hard drinking, and for a time in the 1940s, narcotics abuse. The expression "in like Flynn" is said to have been coined to refer to the supreme ease with which he reputedly seduced women, though there is dispute about its origin. Flynn was reportedly fond of the expression, and later claimed that he wanted to call his memoir In Like Me. (The publisher insisted on a more tasteful title, My Wicked, Wicked Ways.)

His lifestyle caught up with him in 1942 when two under-age girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, accused him of statutory rape at the Bel Air home of Flynn's friend Frederick McEvoy and on board Flynn's yacht, respectively. The scandal received immense press attention. Many of Flynn's fans, assuming that his screen persona was a reflection of his actual personality, refused to accept that the charges were true. Some founded organisations to publicly protest the accusation. (One such group, the American Boys' Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn—ABCDEF—accumulated a substantial membership that included William F. Buckley, Jr.) The trial took place in late January and early February 1943; Flynn's attorney, Jerry Giesler, impugned the women's character and morals, and accused them of numerous indiscretions, including affairs with married men and abortions. Flynn was acquitted, but the trial's widespread coverage and lurid overtones permanently damaged his carefully cultivated screen image as an idealised romantic lead player.


Marriages and family

Flynn was married three times: to actress Lili Damita from 1935 until 1942 (one son, Sean Flynn, 31 May 1941-disappeared 1971); to Nora Eddington from 1943 until 1949 (two daughters, Deirdre born 1945 and Rory born 1947); and to actress Patrice Wymore from 1950 until his death (one daughter, Arnella Roma, 1953–98). In Hollywood, he tended to refer to himself as Irish rather than Australian (his father Theodore Thomson Flynn had been a biologist and a professor at the Queen's University of Belfast in Northern Ireland during the latter part of his career). After quitting Hollywood, Flynn lived with Wymore in Port Antonio, Jamaica in the early 1950s. He 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. He also popularised trips down rivers on bamboo rafts.

Flynn was a longtime friend of the painter Boris Smirnoff, who painted his portrait several times, as well as those of Lili Damita, Patrice Wymore and celebrity friends such as Edward G. Robinson, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer and Barbara Stanwyck.

The gossips took note of his close friendships with Lupe Vélez, Marlene Dietrich, Dolores del Río and Carole Lombard. Lombard is said to have resisted his advances. She had already met and fallen in love with Clark Gable, but she liked Flynn and invited him to her extravagant soirees.

His only son, Sean (born 31 May 1941), was an actor and war correspondent. He and his colleague Dana Stone disappeared in Cambodia in 1970, during the Vietnam War, while both were working as freelance photojournalists for Time magazine. Neither man's remains has ever been found, and it is generally assumed that they were killed by Khmer Rouge guerillas. After a decade-long search financed by his mother, Sean was officially declared dead in 1984.

In 2010 a British team uncovered the remains of a Western hostage in the Cambodian jungle, but DNA comparisons with samples from the Flynn family were negative. Sean's life is recounted in the book Inherited Risk: Errol and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Vietnam.

Flynn's daughter Rory has one son, Sean Rio Flynn, named after her half-brother. He is an actor.

Best films