From 1923 to 1925 Errol studied at South West London College in Barnes, Kent, United Kingdom.
Career
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1934
Errol Flynn on the set of 'Captain Blood', directed by Michael Curtiz.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1935
Errol in the movie Captain Blood.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1935
Errol Flynn as physician-turned-pirate Dr. Peter Blood and actress Olivia de Havilland as Arabella Bishop in the swashbuckler 'Captain Blood'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1936
Errol Flynn as Major Geoffrey Vickers in 'The Charge Of The Light Brigade'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1938
Errol Flynn as Robin Hood in the film 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1938
Errol Flynn (right) with his longtime stand-in Don Turner on the set of the new Warner Bros production 'The Adventures Of Robin Hood'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1938
Errol Flynn in the movie Aventures de Robin des Bois
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1938
Errol Flynn and Bette Davis in the movie The Sisters
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1939
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1939
Errol Flynn, as Wade Hatton, and Olivia de Havilland as Abbie Irving, in a promotional still for 'Dodge City'.
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1940
Errol as Geoffrey Thorpe in a publicity still for 'The Sea Hawk'.
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1941
Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer in the film 'They Died with Their Boots On'.
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1950
Errol Flynn wearing a brown leather jacket and smoking a pipe while holding a pair of binoculars.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1952
Errol Flynn at the wheel of his schooner, 'The Zaca', in a publicity still issued for the film, 'Cruise of the Zaca'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1952
Actor Errol Flynn and actress Paulette Goddard performs on the "Toast of the Town" show hosted by Ed Sullivan at the Maxine Elliott Theater in New York, New York.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1958
Errol Flynn sitting on an ornate chair in a publicity portrait issued for the film, 'The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
1958
Errol Flynn poses in costume, taking aim with a bow-and-arrow in a publicity portrait issued for the film, 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Errol and Olivia de Havilland
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in the movie Captain Blood
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland embrace in a still from 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Errol poses in costume as Sir Robin of Locksley, from the film, 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Director William Keighley talks with actor Errol Flynn, as the film crew films the movie "Rocky Mountain" on location in Gallop, New Mexico.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Actress Patrice Wymore (L) talks with actor Errol Flynn on set, as a film crew films the movie "Rocky Mountain" on location in Gallop, New Mexico.
Gallery of Errol Flynn
Achievements
Membership
Awards
Walk of Fame
Lanewood Ave &, N La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028, USA
Errol Flynn sits at a table as actor Basil Rathbone pours champagne for him with Veronica Cooper (L) and actress Dolores Del Rio (R) during an event in Los Angeles, California.
Actor Errol Flynn and actress Paulette Goddard performs on the "Toast of the Town" show hosted by Ed Sullivan at the Maxine Elliott Theater in New York, New York.
Errol Flynn, in full Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn, was an Australian-born American actor who achieved fame in Hollywood after 1935. He was celebrated as the screen’s foremost swashbuckler.
Background
Ethnicity:
Both of his parents were of Irish, English, and Scottish descent.
Errol Leslie Flynn was born on June 20, 1909, in Battery Point, Tasmania, Australia; the son of Theodore Thomson Flynn, a lecturer and later professor of biology at the University of Tasmania, and Lily Mary Young (later changed her name to Marelle Young).
Education
Flynn was expelled from Hobart High School (on three accounts). His father used his influence to get him into Sydney Grammar and SCEGS (Sydney Church of England Grammar School) but he was expelled after five months for being a 'disturbing influence'.
From 1923 to 1925, Flynn was educated at the South West London College, a private boarding school in Barnes, London. In 1926, he returned to Australia to attend Sydney Church of England Grammar School (known as "Shore"), where he was the classmate of a future Australian prime minister, John Gorton. His formal education ended with his expulsion from Shore for theft, although he later claimed it was for a sexual encounter with the school's laundress.
Errol Flynn worked briefly as a clerk in a Sydney shipping company but, bored by the prospect of a business career, accepted a position in New Guinea in 1927 as a cadet in government service. From 1927 to 1929 Flynn was an overseer on a copra plantation and then tried his luck as a prospector in the goldfields of New Guinea. After returning briefly to Sydney, he sailed back to New Guinea on a cutter, a voyage he described in Beam Ends (1937). Following an unsuccessful attempt to manage a tobacco plantation, he again returned to Sydney.
In 1933 an Australian film producer saw photographs of Flynn and offered the ruggedly handsome 24-year-old the role of the mutineer Fletcher Christian in the semidocumentary feature In the Wake of the Bounty. Encouraged by this experience to pursue acting as a career, Flynn joined England’s Northampton Repertory Company, which led to a few roles in British films and ultimately to a contract with Warner Bros. in Hollywood. When Robert Donat dropped out of the title role in the expensive adventure film Captain Blood (1935), Warner took a chance on Flynn, thereby assuring stardom for him. The film also featured newcomer Olivia de Havilland, and the two actors subsequently made a number of popular films together.
Flynn went on to star in such colorful costume dramas as The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Prince and the Pauper (1937), and The Sea Hawk (1940). The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) was arguably his most successful film and the one for which he is best known. Flynn also appeared in such big-budget westerns as Dodge City (1939) and They Died with Their Boots On (1941). Unable to serve in World War II because of various physical ailments, he instead acted the part of a soldier in several films, including Desperate Journey (1942) and Objective, Burma! (1945).
In 1942 he was charged with the statutory rape of two teenaged girls, but he was acquitted as a result of the flamboyant legal maneuvers of his attorneys. Nevertheless, his image was severely tarnished. Inevitably, his self-indulgence caught up with him. He also lost a great deal of money in a variety of ill-advised business ventures and headed to Europe in hopes of revitalizing his career. Films from this period include The Master of Ballantrae (1953) and The Warriors (1955).
Returning to America in 1956, he enjoyed a brief resurgence of movie popularity with his brilliant performances in The Sun Also Rises (1957), The Roots of Heaven (1958), and Too Much, Too Soon (1958). In these films he played a wasted self-destructive drunkard, and some critics suggested that he was not acting. He also hosted an Anglo-American television anthology, The Errol Flynn Theater (1956–57), the nature of which allowed him to display a hitherto untapped versatility. He wrote a remarkably candid (if often wildly inaccurate) autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959), and made a cheaply filmed paean to Fidel Castro, Cuban Rebel Girls (1959), which was his last movie. In poor health after years of hard living, Flynn died at the age of 50.
Quotations:
"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income."
"It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper."
"Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure."
"My father was never anti-anything in our house."
Personality
Flynn’s restless, rebellious nature carried over into his early adulthood. He was dashing fearless adventurer.
Almost as soon as he arrived in Hollywood, Flynn established a reputation as an irrepressible drinker, carouser, and womanizer, and, for a time in the 1940s, narcotics abuse. He was linked romantically with Lupe Vélez, Marlene Dietrich, and Dolores del Río, among many others. Carole Lombard is said to have resisted his advances, but invited him to her extravagant parties. He 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 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.
Flynn had various mirrors and hiding places constructed inside his mansion, including an overhead trapdoor above a guest bedroom for surreptitious viewing. The Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood toured the house as a prospective buyer in the 1970s, and reported, "Errol had two-way mirrors... speaker systems in the ladies room. Not for security. Just that he was an A-1 voyeur." In March 1955, the popular Hollywood gossip magazine Confidential ran a salacious article titled "The Greatest Show in Town... Errol Flynn and His Two-Way Mirror!" In her 1966 biography, actress Hedy Lamarr wrote, "Many of the bathrooms have peepholes or ceilings with squares of opaque glass through which you can’t see out but someone can see in."
Interests
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 popularised trips down rivers on bamboo rafts.
Connections
Flynn was married three times: to actress Lili Damita from 1935 until 1942 (one son, Sean Flynn, 1941 – c. June 1971); to Nora Eddington from 1943 – 49 (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).
His only son, Sean (born 31 May 1941), was an actor and war correspondent. He and his colleague Dana Stone disappeared in Cambodia in April 1970 during the Vietnam War, while both were working as freelance photojournalists for Time magazine. Neither man's remains have ever been found; it is generally assumed that they were killed by Khmer Rouge guerrillas in 1970 or 1971.
Flynn's daughter Rory became a fashion model and photographer. She named her son, actor Sean Rio Flynn, in memory of her half-brother, and wrote a book, The Baron of Mulholland, about her father.