David Bret - Errol Flynn: Gentleman Hellraiser

GENTLEMAN HELLRAISER

DAVID BRET

Also by the same author:

The Piaf Legend

The Mistinguett Legend

Maurice Chevalier

Marlene Dietrich, My Friend

Morrissey: Landscapes of the Mind

Maria Callas: The Tigress & The Lamb

George Formby

Piaf: A Passionate Life

Gracie Fields: The Authorised Biography

Valentino: A Dream of Desire

Living On The Edge: The Freddie Mercury Story

Tallulah Bankhead

Elvis: The Hollywood Years

Rock Hudson

Morrissey: Scandal & Passion

Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr

Clark Gable: Tormented Star

Doris Day: Reluctant Star

Jean Harlow: Tarnished Angel

Trailblazers: Gram Parsons, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley

First published in 2004

by Aurum Press Ltd

74-77 White Lion Street

London N1 9PF

www.aurumpress.co.uk

This eBook edition first published in 2014

Copyright 2004, 2014 David Bret

David Bret has asserted his moral right to be identified as the Author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

eBook conversion by Quayside Publishing Group

Digital edition: 978-1-78101-170-6
Softcover edition: 978-1-90677-953-5

This book is dedicated to
Eden (198599)
Amlia Rodrigues (192099)
and Les Enfants de Novembre

Noublie pas
La vie sans amis cest comme
un jardin sans fleurs

Writing this book would not have been possible had it not been for the inspiration, criticisms and love of that select group of individuals whom I still regard as my true family and autre coeur: Barbara, Irene Bevan, Marlene Dietrich, Dorothy Squires que vous dormez en paix; Montserrat Caball, Ren and Lucette Chevalier, Jacqueline Danno, Hlne Delavault, Tony Griffin, Roger Normand, Betty Paillard, Annick Roux, Monica Solash, Terry Sanderson, John and Anne Taylor, Francois and Madeleine Vals, Caroline Clerc and Charley Marouani.

Very special thanks to Eric Lilley and Ken MacDonald, all at Robson Books, and the British Film Institute.

Especial thanks to my agent, David Bolt and to my wife, Jeanne, still the keeper of my soul!

In The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People, perhaps the definitive study of the topic, Errol Flynn is listed in no fewer than thirteen categories:

Men Who Enjoyed Girls 16 Years or Younger; Polygamists; Open Marriages; Sex Trials; Great Lovers & Satyrs; Caught In The Act; Busy Entertainers; Macho Chauvinists; They Paid For What They Got: Clients; Endurance & Staying Power; Voyeurs; Peeping Toms; Practitioners Of Oriental Techniques; Aphrodisiac Users.

To this may be added Brawler, Narcotics Expert, Mother Hater, War Correspondent, Yachtsman, Raconteur, Drunkard but above all, Star. For who could possibly forget those Saturday morning matinees when we all flocked to see The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, The Charge Of The Light Brigade, Don Juan epics which have never been surpassed?

Errol, quite frankly, did not care what the world thought of his carousing, long before dictating his tell-all autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Yet there was considerably more to this complex man than even he let on. Errol packed more into his 50 years than most of his hard-living contemporaries could have fitted into a dozen lifetimes, yet confessed to having just the one regret an inability to play the piano!

The quintessential hedonist, Errol nurtured a quite staggering appetite for young men and under-aged girls, the latter referred to by him as San Quentin Quail. To help him in his quest for these he gathered about him a group of loyal fuck-buddies David Niven, Bruce Cabot, William Lundigan and others who, when they were not sharing the easy pickings, were partaking of the star himself or watching the sex-shows at his Hollywood mansion through the two-way mirror which he had incorporated into the floor of his jerk-off room.

Errol loved to brawl, a taste he acquired as a young man working as a gold prospector and slave-trader in the uncharted regions of New Guinea a country he was forced to flee from when accused of murdering one of the natives. He would always go out of his way to start a fight initially because he enjoyed the experience of winning, and latterly because his box-office power was on the wane and money was in short supply, and he saw fighting as a way to sue people. He never drank and experimented with drugs because he was trying to blot out his problems but for the sheer hell of it and he was convinced that as such he would never become addicted to either, which he of course did, managing to survive their ravages long after doctors had given him up for dead transforming his once beautiful face and body into that of a washed-out wreck, though still possessed of that innate charisma which had made him the idol of millions.

Errol loathed his mother because this domineering, high-principled woman had drilled into him whilst a child that sex and genitalia were dirty As a result of which he often went out of his way to publicly humiliate her, almost always referring to her and introducing her as The Cunt. And above all, he hated his particular brand of stardom the fact that he was regarded the world over as a swashbuckler, a type-casting which he claimed had prevented him from exhibiting his true colours as a dramatic actor, something he was only allowed to do in his latter films.

Marlene Dietrich called him Satans Angel. Rebel, pervert, lecher and charmer, Errol Flynn was, contrary to his own biased opinion, a star without equal and one of the genuinely great icons of the twentieth century.

This is his story.

The Good Lord gave you a fist so that you could keep it clenched.

Errol Flynns father, Theodore, was an eminent marine biologist, the son of Irish emigrants who had settled in Australia in 1883, the year before his birth. His mother was Lily Marelle Young, a 21-year-old descendant of Midshipman Richmond Young, one of the mutineers on the Bounty, and for many years she kept a sword in her home said to have belonged to Captain Bligh himself, which Young had brought back from that fateful voyage.

For several months after their marriage, the Flynns lived in Sydney, until Theodore was invited to join a scientific expedition to the South Pole. His wife sailed with him on the Aurora, a cramped, uncomfortable steam-powered boat, and it was as the vessel reached the Tasmanian coast that Lily Marelle discovered she was pregnant. A few days later, while Theodore continued his journey, she was put ashore at Hobart, and it was here on 20 June 1909 that she gave birth to a son.

Upon his return to Tasmania, several months later, Theodore decided to settle there, and accepted a position of some importance at Hobart University. By this time his wife had dropped the name Lily, declaring it to be common: henceforth she would only ever answer to Marelle, the French word for hopscotch. However, the son whom Marelle so despised, on account of the fact that his conception had shattered her dream of seeing the Antarctic, had not even been given a name. Theodore saw to this at once: the child was baptised Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn.