1. Introduction: Who was Errol Flynn?
The death of Errol Flynn on October 14, 1959 not only meant the passing
of the third of six "golden age" male film icons over a ten-year period;
it also heralded the breakup of the Hollywood studio system. Humphrey Bogart had
succumbed to cancer in 1957, while Tyrone Power was felled by a heart attack in 1958.
After Flynn's death Clark Gable (1960), Gary Cooper (1961) and Spencer Tracy(1967)
left us for good. Since then, just about all the major figures of Hollywood's formative
period have passed from the scene, most of them descending from fame into oblivion.
They died, and are forgotten, along with their films.
Not so with Errol Flynn. After sixty years, his name rests securely
on the list of the greatest performers, writers, producers and directors who made
the classic period of Hollywood what it was. But within that company exists a much
smaller group of men and women. During their lifetimes, at the mere mention of their
names, crowds surged, fans screamed, and journalists took note. Errol was one of
these gods.
As with most fallen gods, the lustre has faded a bit. For many, on the other
hand, the name Errol Flynn still conjures up the devilishly handsome rogue who starred
in more than a half-dozen of Hollywood's finest adventure films. His immortality
- if that is the word - is also guaranteed by his inextricable linking with a unique,
playful-sounding term: "swashbuckler." For many today it is impossible
to hear the name "Errol Flynn," without also thinking, "Ah yes - the
Swashbuckler!"
The image is set, as surely as if it were set in concrete outside
Mann's Chinese Theater: "Errol Flynn, Swashbuckler." Another playful phrase
- "in like Flynn" - has for nearly sixty years kept its place as one of
the great "in jokes" (in more ways than one) of the twentieth century.
Such terms are fitting of the man. One reason Errol was so hugely
popular during his lifetime was that he gave the impression to the public - as did
no other actor - that he was having as much fun playing the romping roles he excelled
at on-screen as he was living his wild and exciting life off-screen. Dressed in the
costume of a bygone age - whether as a Caribbean pirate, a charging cavalryman, a
six-gun toting lawman, a heavyweight boxer, or a European Duke - Errol appeared to
be relishing his roles as the archetypal adventurer and lover par excellence. And
today, somehow, it all seems to flow together - it is impossible to separate those
roles from the man Errol Flynn really was.
In any responsible chronicle of Hollywood history, of course, Errol's
contribution will occupy a major place in the chapters that describe its classic
period. He was the cavalier dripping with 
insouciant charm, the hero who dispatched
his enemies simultaneously with a rapier, a flashing smile, a taunting quip. The
only real successor in the swashbuckler genre to Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the sound
era, Errol has never been equaled as the ultimate cinema hero. Only a few - Tyrone
Power, Cornel Wilde, Stewart Granger, Burt Lancaster, to name just a few - came close,
fleetingly, to evoking the Flynn flair for romance, swordplay and adventure. But
they were able to approximate only part of the picture - a picture which, at first
blush, has often appeared extremely simple, but which on more careful examination
has revealed itself to be remarkably complex.
No actor in film history so electrified audiences by climbing a
balcony, brandishing a sword, or flinging his defiance in the face of kings, scoundrels,
and armies. In the words of film historian David Shipman, "As a personality
- in those stereotyped roles - he was unique. More recent actors in tights just aren't
in the running; and, in the Talkie period, no actor swashed so blithe a buckle. When
Flynn stopped fighting and fencing, costume films became much less fun." This
opinion is shared even by one of Flynn's swashbuckling "competitors," British
actor Stewart Granger. Granger believed "the greatest star the film industry
ever produced was without a doubt Errol Flynn. A 'film star' in the true meaning
of the word . . . I was a pretty famous swashbuckler myself in my time. They put
me on the cover of Life in 1952 as 'Stewart Granger, Swashbuckler.' But I
couldn't hold a candle to Errol Flynn."
Thus goes the legend of Flynn, and the fascination with it only
grows. But what lay behind the screen image? Those who ask this question may find
it necessary to add something not widely known by more recent students of the golden
age of cinema: there was more than one Errol Flynn. Behind the elegant hero who conquered
ladies and kingdoms lay a private and
complex man who longed to be a successful writer.
And behind the private and complex man lay a tormented and gradually disintegrating
figure - one who, for whatever reasons, may have subconsciously longed for his own
destruction.
Those faced with the task of "deconstructing" a twentieth-century
personality have seldom been challenged with such a difficult "peeling-off"
process. Off-screen, Errol was known as a brawler, inebriate, and a despoiler of
women - some decidedly underage. On-screen his perennial fame rested securely in
his roles as the consummate devil-may-care hero - the man who could thrill and inspire
audiences by his humour, romantic escapades and exciting feats of athleticism.
In terms of his acting ability, it was in part the off-screen escapades
that kept Errol's talent from being fully realized, and in part a studio decision.
Brought along differently - with or without the scandals - he might have emerged
as highly effective in either straight drama or as an accomplished light comedian
in the mold of David Niven or Cary Grant. Unfortunately his studio head, Jack Warner
- partly in response to what the public was clamoring for - chose not to develop
these sides of his talent, and to the end Errol resented what he saw as a betrayal
in this regard. As he remarked with bitterness in his posthumously published autobiography
My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959), once he became labeled as a "swashbuckler"
it became impossible to grow as an actor: "I just wanted to act, to have a chance
to play a character, to say good-by to the swashbuckler roles, to get swords and
horses to hell out of my life. I itched to turn in a prize-winning job - but they
held to making money: box office! box office!" Years earlier, he had confided
to his friend, the artist and writer Stephen Longstreet: "You once liked the
blissful mobility, but then you wonder, who's the you? And who's the chap on the
screen? . . .. You know, I catch myself acting out my life like a goddamn script."
For better or worse, it was his early stereotyping as the ultimate
action-romantic hero that determined Errol's cinematic fate - thereafter he would
seldom be given the subtle, modern"dramatic" roles that carried within
them the possibility of drawing raves from the critics. And later in life - his perpetually
flippant remarks to the contrary - his failure to achieve recognition as a serious
actor ate at him, and eventually contributed to his death at the age of 50.
2. The Incredible Journey
Errol Leslie Flynn made his inauspicious debut onto the world's stage in
a small private hospital on Davey Street in Hobart, Tasmania, on June 20, 1909. Allegedly
a descendent on his mother's side of Midshipman Young - of "Mutiny on the Bounty"
fame - his ancestry hinted of extraordinary things to come, and the young Flynn would
not disappoint. Living an early life of rebellion and zesty thrills (punctuated by
stretches of boredom), the young, handsome and athletic"Tasmanian devil"
was expelled from every school he attended, never passing one examination, to the
great chagrin of his father, the esteemed biology Professor Theodore Thomson Flynn.
But Errol was also lucky, and that luck would one day bring him to Hollywood - the
town where vistas would open before him which he could never have foreseen in his
wildest youthful daydreams.
Even
in his youth, Errol was a flamboyant figure, so much so that his later Hollywood
publicists werepresented with a bizarre and unique challenge: how to tone down his
past so as to make it believable! During his years of "roughing it" in
Australia and New Guinea, Errol had been (among other things) the captain of his
own schooner, a prospector, a reporter, a recruiter of native labor for the gold
fiends, a diamond smuggler (and thief?), and a copra plantation overseer. At one
point - or so he later claimed - he was tried on a charge of murder. Contrast this,
for instance, with other male movie icons of the day, such as Clark Gable, whose
only claim to adventure had been that he had once briefly wildcatted in the oil fields,
or James Stewart, who came to Hollywood straight from Princeton University!
Possessed of an extraordinary male beauty, the young swashbuckler (or perhaps
just "swasher"? - he hadn't earned his "buckle" yet) inevitably
ended up before motion picture cameras. He had his first brush with "acting"
- if that's the word - in an Australian semi-documentary, "In the Wake of the
Bounty" (1933) - a reworking of the old Nordhoff and Hall tale. It can be said
with assurance that this strange, fascinating and primitive film, directed by the
legendary Australian documentary filmmaker Charles Chauvel, displays no trace of
a future Hollywood superstar. In the words of one recent writer, "The best that
can be said of the untrained Flynn's 'performance' is that while the others in the
cast are truly awful, he is merely unprofessional."
A year later Errol permanently left "down under" for
Northern England,
where
he spent a time of "indentured thespian servitude" to the Northampton Repertory
Company. There, among other things, he quickly became a legend with the young ladies
of the town. By a stroke of luck he was alsodiscovered by the American head of the
Warner Brothers' Teddington Studios in Britain, Irving Asher, and his studio manager
Doc Solomon. Asher, who quickly cast him in the lead of a low budget suspenser ("Murder
at Monte Carlo," 1934), was so enthusiastic about the devilishly handsome young
rogue he immediately wired Jack Warner, head of Warner Brothers in Burbank, and put
Errol on a ship headed for Hollywood with a six-month contract at $150 a week.
After a long journey by water, rail, and air, the twenty-five-year
old Flynn arrived in Hollywood in early 1935, where initially his prospects were
less than encouraging. Warner had no idea where he might fit in. During his first
months in America he had just two bit parts in "B" pictures. His main claim
to fame was that he had married the French actress Lili Damita ("Tiger Lil,"
as he called her), a major film star of the day, and a friend of Anne Warner, Jack's
Wife. Since he could also beat just about any tennis player in Hollywood, he had
managed to make at least a few inroads into the local social scene.
3. A Swashbuckler is Born
Then, of course, a strange thing happened - an instance of what would later
be called "the Flynn luck," or, as Jack Warner would say, something akin
to "a bomb exploding" or "a fire sweeping across the dry hillside."
When British Actor Robert Donat dropped out at the last minute due to a dispute with
Warner, the unknown Flynn, in one of the studio's most daring moves, was tested and
given the lead in the lavish new production of Rafael Sabatini's pirate epic "Captain
Blood" (1935). It - and Errol - were an overnight sensation, and to his astonishment
the young Tasmanian adventurer found himself instantly catapulted to the top of the
Hollywood heap (or, as George Sanders would put it years later, in words with which
Errol would have undoubtedly agreed, the centre of the "sweet cesspool").
It was the beginning of a unique chapter of popular and cinematic legend. It was
also the beginning of the end of Errol's marriage to Lili Damita.
The next six years (1936-42) of Errol's life were punctuated by
a dizzying string of high quality adventure epics (mostly directed by the odious
but brilliant Michael Curtiz), climaxing with the magnificent Technicolor feature
"The Adventures of Robin Hood"
(1938). Now, for the first time in his life, Errol's future
seemed assured. Between 1938 and 1942, in particular, he reveled in such fare as
"The Dawn Patrol," "Dodge City," "The Sea Hawk," "They
Died With Their Boots On," and "Gentleman Jim" - certainly among the
finest films of their kind ever made. Anyone who saw these instant classics came
away with an indelible impression stamped on their minds by the cinema presence of
Errol Flynn. In Jack Warner's now famous words, "When you see a meteor stab
the sky, or a bomb explode, or a fire sweep across a dry hillside, the picture is
vivid and remains in your mind. So it was with Errol. .. To the Walter Mitty's of
the world he was all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package . . . Actor
or no actor, he showered an audience with sparks when he laughed, when he fought,
or when he loved." The late British author Lionel Godfrey wrote in similar terms
when he recalled "that light, clear voice . . . the impeccable bearing that
speaks of gallantry, of world-weary casualness, of vanished dreams, of heroic deeds
that have no room for brutality, and romance without hint of lust, embellished with
wit and style, given substance by noble emotions and honourable intentions . . .
that is the vision of Errol that lingers in the memory, beyond exorcism."
While
he had no way of knowing it, however, these would be Errol's best years. For now
at least his professional and private worlds went from strength to strength, and
it all seemed so easy. He had the power and financial resources to indulge almost
his every whim, and, as his film career blossomed, so did his other two loves, adventure
and writing. In 1937 he briefly visited Spain during the civil war there, leaving
a profusely detailed account of his experiences in that heartbreakingly divided land.
He even published - to moderate critical praise - a semi-autobiographical novel,
Beam Ends (1937; to be followed by a second, less successful effort,
Showdown, in 1946). In 1942 he was divorced from the tempestuous Lili Damita
shortly after she bore him a son, Sean (who twenty-nine years later would be tragically
captured and killed in Cambodia). Errol quickly built himself his dream mansion,
Mulholland House, tailored strictly for the bachelor life, on a spectacular mountaintop
overlooking the Los Angeles basin on one side and the San Fernando Valley on the
other. Wealth, security and lasting fame were now within his grasp. By all appearances,
and against all odds, the young adventurer from Tasmania had now landed in a place
where he was literally sitting on top of the world. From now on, it seemed, nothing
could possibly go wrong.
4. The Three Crises
But then several things did, and soon Errol's world would never
again be the same. In particular there were three crises, three upheavals, three
blows, which were soon to rock his nicely ordered bachelor life.
First, and probably saddest, his friend and companion of five years, his
beloved dog Arno, was suddenly taken from him. Errol had been given the Schnauzer
puppy in 1936 by Warners' producer Robert Lord, and soon he loved the dog as he loved
no human being. The unfortunate animal was swept off the deck of Errol's ketch Sirocco
during an August night in 1941 - a loss which cut into Errol deeply, and from which,
in the opinion of some, he never really fully recovered.
Second, with virtually no warning, in late 1942 Errol was indicted
by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office on three charges of "statutory
rape" - sex with girls under the age of eighteen. Errol was known for being
on both ends of a practical joke, but this was no joke. Two underage girls, Betty
Hansen and Peggy LaRue Satterlee, claimed they had been seduced by him - one at the
home of his friends Bruce Cabot and Freddie McEvoy, the other on the Sirocco.
If convicted, he could have spent the next twenty-five years in prison. While eventually
acquitted of the trumped-up charges, he was seared by the experience, and those who
knew him said he never fully recovered from the embarrassment and sniggering jokes
that went with being tried for "rape." 
Eventually he decided to take the way of least
resistance, joining in the fun - to put it mildly - and living his life in a way
which seemed to encourage more such tabloid headlines. "In like Flynn"
was now not only an international joke - it was his personal motto. Any other celebrity
would have worked hard to dispel the escalating scandals and rumors. But the complex
Flynn, for whatever reasons, chose to join in the fun and "go with the flow."
This strange choice remains a critical piece of the puzzle that was Errol.
The Third crisis was significantly larger in scope than the other
two. On December 7, 1941, the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor was bombed by
the Japanese, plunging America headlong into World War 2. Now much of the western
world found itself in a death-struggle against incarnate evil and totalitarian oppression
on a global scale. Unlike his previous films, when he had so heroically embodied
figures of the distant past, Errol now found himself cast in contemporary war films
such as "Edge of Darkness," Desperate Journey," and "Objective
Burma." Audiences were as always thrilled with his bravery, but they were also
a bit amazed by the ease with which he dispatched his German and Japanese adversaries.
And while he appeared triumphant on screen, Errol's heroics were now beginning to
be a source of embarrassment to him. For the first time in his career he was beginning
to be laughed at, and in some cases even reviled, especially by those in the military.
Unlike fellow 
Hollywood
actors Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and Tyrone Power, Errol never wore a real uniform,
flew a combat mission, or fired a shot in battle. Few, of course, knew that this
was no fault of his own. He had recently become an American citizen and had tried
to enlist, despite the fact that he was a life-long and convinced pacifist. But a
number of physical defects, including a bad heart, tuberculosis, and recurring malaria,
mandated his classification as 4-F: "unfit for military duty."
Errol's lack of active service during this worldwide conflagration,
when real blood was being spilled by men and women injured and dying by the thousands
every day, tended to contribute to the public's perception of him as merely a happy-go-lucky
diversion from "the really important things" then going on - he was a colorful
bit of fluff very much needed at the time.
Errol did his best by traveling to army bases with the USO, where
he would often parody his heroic Hollywood image. But this meant that while others
were off doing the fighting for real, he was forced to sit by with friends like Martha
O'Driscoll, reading about the war in publications such as "Stars and Stripes"
and "Yank." For the serious man lying beneath the public mirth, this could
only mean silent heartbreak. Errol's response, on the other hand, was to portray
himself, publicly and privately, all the more relentlessly as the riotous playboy
without a care in the world or a serious bone in his body, someone just hanging around
to enjoy whatever "good times" were still to be found. After all, the public
enjoyed this particular Flynn, so hey, where's the harm?
5. The Slow, Downward Spiral
As
time progressed, of course, the dichotomy between the sensitive man lying beneath
the surface and the rollicking public image produced an unbearable tension, and Errol's
increasingly strained attempts to hold things together were becoming progressively
more apparent. The indulgent lifestyle, which seemed to take up more and more of
his energies, now became less and less fun, and took its toll on his looks, career,
and psyche - so much so that during his last five years he became a "ripped-out-at-the-seems
caricature" of himself in his prime - a sort of Dorian Gray in reverse. As televised
re-runs of "Captain Blood, "Robin Hood," and "The Sea Hawk"
showed him perpetually as the picture of youth and vitality, his more recent true-life
visage revealed something very different. The early good looks slowly but steadily
disappeared. His features hardened. The neck, face, and waistline thickened. The
formerly flawless complexion was now mottled, and there were lines and creases around
the often puffy eyes, which over time took on a "vacant" or "dead"
look. It was this "vacant" aspect of Errol's eyes which his frequent co-star,
Olivia de Havilland (who had appeared with him in eight films) noticed at their last
meeting in 1957, and which for other friends and admirers was his most sad and troubling
feature during his latter years. The eyes are often said to be "the mirror of
the soul"; if so, Errol's soul seemed to be in deep trouble. The old sparkle
and flash, so characteristic of his early films like "Robin Hood" and "The
Sea Hawk," were now utterly gone. A moment in one of his last films, Universal's
"Istanbul" (1957), was in this respect especially poignant. 
Errol rode in a gondola with his
female co-star, while in the background were heard the strains of the Victor Young
standard "When I Fall in Love." His co-star looked at the boatman and remarked,
"His eyes are sad, aren't they? He seems to be looking out over a great empty
distance, wondering what's ahead for him." Sadly, the words might better have
been said of Errol - except for "sad," read "dead."
Now the constant easing of his pain with alcohol and drugs, the
unceasing string of lovers (which had became more an obsession than the carefree
dalliances they had been in his early years), and the occasional talk of suicide
seemed to proclaim to his friends that here was at heart a frustrated and unhappy
man. (This would, incidentally, appear to contradict when he would later claim in
My Wicked, Wicked Ways that the only real regret he had had in life was that
he never learned to play the piano.) To make matters worse, he lost his beloved estate
Mulholland House to Lili Damita for back alimony payments long overdue, and ended
up spending the better part of the fifties wandering the Mediterranean on his schooner
Zaca, together with his third and last wife, Patrice Wymore (whom he had married
in 1950, and who bore him his third daughter, Arnella).
As
Errol's looks and personal fortunes went downhill, so, unfortunately, did his film
career. Along with the flash in his eyes, the youthful elan of his earlier swashbuckling
days was now forever gone, and his performances were frequently marked by what appeared
to be boredom and listlessness. Also, the type of adventure film of his great Hollywood
successes was now suddenly no longer in vogue, and was fast becoming the stuff of
kiddee matinees. After 1942, the only "swashbuckling" role reminiscent
of his glory days was the 1948 Technicolour feature "Adventures of Don Juan."
But, in spite the film's overall excellence, the lukewarm response of the public
and the occasional cruelty of the critics served to underscore that the old swordsman
image was beginning to be frayed around the edges. 
This in turn appeared to increase his despondency,
his dependence on alcohol and drugs, and his self-doubt. With one or two exceptions,
his films in the fifties were a disappointing lot, including such lacklustre fare
as "The Adventures of Captain Fabian" "Mara Maru," "Against
All Flags," "The Warriors," and "The Big Boodle." But then
in 1957 and 1958 he briefly enjoyed that phenomenon fondly known in Hollywood as
"the comeback" - he surprised everyone by turning in bravura performances
in two major theatrical releases,Darryl F. Zanuck's "The Sun Also Rises"
and Jack Warner's "Too Much, Too Soon." For his performance in the former,
in which he played the bankrupt alcoholic Mike Campbell, there was even brief talk
of nomination for an Academy Award, which never materialized, while in the latter
he ran away with the film by giving a riveting portrayal of his disintegrated friend
and hero, John Barrymore. But the sad truth, as film historian Tony Thomas would
later observe, was that he was so good in these films simply because he was playing
himself. Jack Warner summed things up astutely when he wrote: "The once strong
and handsome face was puffy and gray, the dancing shimmer was gone from his eyes,
and there was no longer a spring in his step. He was playing the part of a drunken
actor, and he didn't need any method system to get him in the mood. He was drunk.
Too Much Too Soon. The words should have been carved on a tombstone at the time,
for he was one of the living dead." His last two roles, as the alcoholic and
disgraced Major Forsythe in "The Roots of Heaven," and as himself in a
cheapjack exploitation film, "Cuban Rebel Girls," made it obvious to everyone
that Errol's film career had, sadly, at last come to a sputtering halt.
6. The Final Curtain
By
September of 1959 it was clear to anyone who saw him that Errol had physically destroyed
himself. Two doctors had just given him a year to live, which, as it turned out,
would be much shorter. His second wife, Nora Eddington Black, whom he had married
shortly after his acquittal for statutory rape in 1943, recalls that she had seen
him in New York in 1958, and that she noticed the change that had occurred in his
appearance. But nothing could have prepared her for the heartbreaking scene at the
Los Angeles airport, when she and her two daughters, Deirdre and Rory, met him just
a few weeks before he died. As Nora puts it, "the transformation in him was
so pronounced I wanted to burst into tears. He looked like a man with one foot in
the cemetery. I just wanted to take him in my arms, to baby him, to take care of
him. He had aged; he was enormously heavy; the weighty hand of dissipation was on
his once beautiful features."
He had come to Los Angeles to do some last television work, an "Alcoa
Presents" 30-minute teleplay, "The Golden Shanty," and a guest stint
on "The Red Skelton Show." Following that, on October 9, he and his young
protégé of the past two years, Beverly Aadland, flew to Vancouver,
British Columbia, hoping to sell his yacht Zaca to the Canadian millionaire George
Caldough. Errol badly needed money; he was also possibly trying to escape another
charge of statutory rape in Los Angeles County - Beverly was barely seventeen). Six
days later,
on
October 14, Mr. and Mrs. Caldough were driving him and Beverly to the Vancouver airport
when Errol suddenly felt ill. On the Caldoughs' advice they stopped at the apartment
of Dr. Grant Gould, an old Flynn admirer. After holding court for several hours and
treating one and all to his usual old Hollywood tales, including humourous imitations
of Bette Davis, Jack Barrymore, and W. C. Fields, Errol said he was tired, and on
Dr. Gould's advice he was taken to a bedroom to lie down. After about thirty minutes
Beverly looked in upon him and found that his face had turned blue and his lips were
trembling. He seemed to be trying to speak; the words, however, could not be formed.
He died in her arms as she tried desperately to revive him. But it was too late.
Years of excessive living had taken their toll. Errol was barely fifty, but the coroner
who later examined him later said that his body was that of a man of seventy-five. 
No death spasms hinted of any final regrets. Having lived his life
large - wildly, and to some extent recklessly and without permanent values, he died
quietly and peacefully. There was no impudent, jaunty final remark - no witty parting
shot. The life just somehow went out of him.
A week later the funeral service was held at the Church of the
Recessional at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale. A replica of Rudyard Kipling's parish
church in England, it fittingly called to mind those vintage films such as "Another
Dawn, "The Charge of the Light Brigade, " The Dawn Patrol," and "The
Sea Hawk," in which Errol had so perfectly embodied the morals and attitudes
of Britain's bygone, glorious past.
The funeral was a strange affair, even by Hollywood standards.
His first wife, Lili Damita, who next to Jack Warner had financially profited most
from him, was nowhere in sight. His estranged third wife, Patrice Wymore, arrived
in a limousine with his only child by Lili, Sean. Outside the church, hundreds of
fans and reporters milled about, putting into stark relief the surprisingly small
group that sat inside. These included old friends Buster Wiles, Mickey Rooney, Mike
Romanoff, Jack Oakie, Otto Reichow, and Vincent Sherman. His studio boss and
frequent adversary,
Jack Warner, stood and spoke warmly and admiringly of Errol.Decked out in a gray
suit and tie, and unfortunately adorned with yellow roses (which in Australia were
the equivalent of the mother country's "white feather of cowardice"), the
Swashbuckler seemed unusually quiet as Dennis Morgan sang "Home is the Sailor."
Errol, who in keeping with his personal paradox had carried and read the Bible for
years, now lay directly beneath words of St. Paul, carved in largewooden letters
above the Church's altar: "Faith, hope, and love abide; and the greatest of
these is love." The great lover was laid to rest in the nearby Garden of Everlasting
Peace, adjacent to the Freedom Monument and the giant statue of George Washington.
Today he may be found there, a few feet from Spencer Tracy, and a stone's throw from
Alan Ladd, Jeanette McDonald, George Burns and Gracie Allen - not bad company, that.
Nevertheless, it was against his wishes. He had wanted to be buried under his favourite
tree in Jamaica, his newly adopted home. A bronze plaque, purchased by his three
daughters Deirdre, Rory and Arnella twenty years after his death, reads simply, "Errol
Flynn, June 20, 1909 - October 14, 1959: In Memory of Our Father from His Loving
Children" - an ironically brief but somehow fitting tribute to mark the final
resting place of filmdom's greatest adventure hero, and one of the most exciting,
complex, and loved men of the twentieth century.
- Copyright 2001 by Lincoln D. Hurst
