Robert Matzen - Errol & Olivia: Ego & Obsession in Golden Era Hollywood

Also by Robert Matzen

Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe

Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3

Errol Flynn Slept Here (with Michael Mazzone)

GoodKnight Books

2010 and 2017 by Robert Matzen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by GoodKnight Books, an imprint of Paladin Communications
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010907549

ISBN 978-0-9711685-8-9

ISBN 978-0-9983763-6-3

ISBN 978-0-9983763-7-0

ISBN 978-0-9983763-8-7

All photographs not otherwise credited are from the authors collection.

frontispiece: Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn in They Died with Their Boots On.

A s with Errol Flynn Slept Here, this new adventure in biography wasnt written in the past year or two but has been percolating in my head for a generation and a half. So, in thanking those instrumental in its creation, I have to start with some fascinating people who have passed on, people who gave of their time, talent, and memories to help me better understand Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Golden Era Hollywood. They are Errols second wife, Nora Eddington Flynn Black; Earl Conrad, the ghostwriter of My Wicked, Wicked Ways; actors Victor Jory, Patric Knowles, and Robert Stack; and the prolific Hollywood writer Tony Thomas, who set the standard for scholarship on Flynn and cinema in general. In some cases I was a college student when I sought these people out, and all were patient and supportive of my various projects.

The following individuals and groups were instrumental in helping to shape the story of Errol & Olivia: Rudy Behlmer; Stacey Behlmer, Barbara Hall, Faye Thompson, and the staff of the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Jason Brantley; J. Robert Cullen; James DArc; Olivia de Havilland; Dave DeWitt; Scott Eyman; Josef Fegerl; Bill and Karen Figilis; Robert Florczak; Joan Fontaine; Steve Hayes; Sheila and Warren Heid; Bruce Hershenson, the staff at emovieposter.com, and the Hershenson/Allen Archive; Louis Kraft; Sandra Joy Lee, Jonathon Auxier, Ned Comstock, and the staff of the USC Warner Bros. Archives; Joan Leslie; Jack Marino; Mike Mazzone; J. McCrary; John McElwee; Tom McNulty; Trudy McVicker; John Hammond Moore; Mike Orlando and the Hollywood Canteen in Toronto; the Tour Department at Warner Bros. Pictures; Mike Pappas; Andrew Parks; and Carole Sampeck, curator of the Carole Lombard Archive and expert on Clark Gable.

Special thanks go to Robert Florczak, Mike Mazzone, and John McElwee, not only for sitting for interviews, but also for investing time in a critical evaluation of the manuscript, suggesting needed improvements, and ensuring that I got the facts right. And thank you, Earl Williams of McComb, Mississippi, for spending 50 years creating a compendium of information pertaining to Olivia de Havilland, including personal letters from the actress.

I would also like to recognize the team that helped to produce this book, including designer Sharon Berk of Cake Creative in Phoenix, Arizona; graphic artist Val Sloan; Tom Maroudas for his fantastic artistry on the dust jacket stills; and editor and production manager Mary Matzen.

A s my co-author Mike Mazzone and I were writing Errol Flynn Slept Here, I knew that the mysterious relationship of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland wasnt a topic to be covered in a book about Flynns home, Mulholland Farm. By the time Errol had built the Farm in the autumn of 1941, he and Olivia were finishing their last picture together, meaning there was little to say about the pair in the context of Errol Flynn Slept Here. But there is a volume to say about their six years and eight pictures together and the way they lived their lives and approached their stardom during those years.

I never knew Errol Flynn, who has been gone more than 50 years, but Ive known many people who knew him, including one of his wives and some of his colleagues and confidants, and they have helped me understand the guy and paint what I hope is a vivid portrait.

I cant say that I know Olivia de Havilland either, although for 30 years we have communicated on occasion via letters from my home in Pittsburgh and hers in Paris. When I approached her with the idea of this book, I heard nothingOlivia does not respond to communications with alacrity, which is part of her makeup. She lets things sit because, to Olivia, there is always time. She keeps her growing collection of fan mail in a metal file cabinet. She intends to answer each and every piecein time. She is truly the mistress of her domain.

About a year after my query to Olivia about the book, by which time I had begun to churn out words in earnest, she wrote back out of the blueand on blue stationery, which is her custom. It was a long and beautifully composed letter, emblazoned with her signature, and I began to have hope that Olivia would soon be helping me tell her story. Mary (my editor and wife) and I dusted off our passports because we figured we were on our way to Paris to interview my favorite actress, a two-time Academy Award winner and participant in the most famous motion picture of all time (Gone With the Wind, for those too young to have lived through the ballyhoo of the production, the initial release, the many re-releases over the years, or the splashy broadcast-television presentations).

To make a long story short, after a while I realized that Olivias timeframe and mine werent going to line up, so I kept researching and writing the manuscript that became Errol & Olivia because I had other books inside me and needed to move on.

At first, the realization that we werent going to Paris disappointed me. Then I reasoned that if I had secured Olivias help with the narrative, making it a work authorized by Olivia de Havilland, then I might not be free to explore all avenues of research. In her day she was involved in some controversial moments, and I realized that she might not want to see these episodes recounted, which might leave me hamstrung by her participation. In some cases she remembers things the way she wants to remember them, the way she wants us to remember them. She is the last surviving star from the Warner Bros. stable that included not only Errol Flynn but also Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Bette Davis. And that is saying something.

So, as I was writing this book, on the one hand it seemed incomprehensible to me that Olivia would still be alive and not participating in the creation of Errol & Olivia, and on the other hand I didnt believe that she could participate in a book that told it like it was.

Ultimately, Olivia would have no direct, collaborative involvement in my work. Luckily for me, however, she is on the record all over the place speaking about Flynn and Warner Bros. over the course of 75 years of interviews. Flynn stopped writing and giving interviews in 1959 when he shed the mortal coil, but Olivia has never stopped, so there is a great volume of material available, much of it recorded in the 1930s and 40s when the memories were fresh and in context and, therefore, more reliable than stories recounted 60 or 70 years after the fact.