Errol Flynn: The Life and Career

Errol Flynn surprised me. He was very intelligent and very witty. He wrote better than most professionals. The book is entertaining and full of interesting stories. You will learn that Flynn's acting career is far from the most interesting thing about him.Unfortunately, Flynn was a fool and a liar. He led a degenerate, sinful, selfish life that ended prematurely from drug and alcohol abuse. He was a truly bad person, just as his book's title suggests. One of his bad traits was dishonesty. The book is full of lies. Don't rely on this book alone. Buy a real biography in order to find out what's true and what isn't.

At least 28 books have been written about swashbuckler Errol Flynn. Perhaps the most famous is Charles Higham's 1980 biography. It wasn't the best. This is. Thomas Mcnulty's "Errol Flynn: The Life and Career" discards myths and explodes the legends. Using legal documents, court records, newspaper clippings, eyewitness reports, and Errol Flynn's own diary, it concludes with the most accurate(and revisionist) history yet. Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania in 1909. A rebel, he left school at an early age, flaunting his mother's wishes. Literally a South Seas beach-bum at age 24, Flynn was signed as Fletcher Christian in the low budget "Wake of the Bounty". Viewed by an agent, Flynn was contracted by Warner Bros. studios. 2 years later he starred in 1935's "Captain Blood". By 1938, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" had made him a superstar. Handsome and athletic at 6'2", Flynn charmed pretty actresses and teenage fans alike. He enjoyed Hollywood night-life. But alcoholism and drug-use dulled his senses and tarnished his looks. By the late 1940's, a spectacular film career was spiralling downward. 3 failed marriages produced added stress and financial burden. Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver on Oct. 14, 1959. He was 50 years old. For the first time here, author McNulty reviews Flynn's movies and TV appearances in lavish detail. McNulty acknowledges his fine acting in Edmund Goulding's "Dawn Patrol(1938)". Using his own money, Flynn bankrolled a lavish Cinemascope version of "William Tell" in 1954. But 8 weeks into shooting, the film shut down. Finances had run out. Today, a small Tyrolean movie set exists near Lake Como, Italy. This tourist attraction is all that remains of ""William Tell". 2 dozen reels of the aborted movie are locked away in Boston University's Special Collections Dept..And to this day, "William Tell" has never been seen by the public. In 1957, Flynn co-starred in Ernest Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises". Flynn plays middle-aged playboy Mike Campbell; his performance a haunting, resonant self-parody. In one scene, Flynn sits alone in a darkened European hotel room. Nursing a cocktail, he muses on his life, and drinks-in how it all might have been. The critics went wild. McNulty reviews the 1942 rape trial, and includes almost 100 photos; many rare and unseen before. One of the most intriguing pictures is of Flynn with his idol, John Barrymore, at a Hollywood party. Flynn and Barrymore were both one-time matinee idols. But they shared something else. Errol Flynn and John Barrymore had failed relationships with their mothers. Barrymore's mother died young, and he was raised by his grandmother, Mrs. John Drew(Louisa Lane). On his deathbed in 1942, Barrymore kept mumbling her name: Mummum. In Flynn's autobiography, he wrote "All my life I have tried to find my mother and I have never found her. My father has not been Theodore Flynn, exactly, but a will-o-the-wisp just beyond, whom I have chased and hunted to see him smile upon me, and I shall never find my true father, for the father I wanted to find was what I might become, but this shall never be..."This new biography explores the complex, sensitive Flynn as well. His fictional book, "Beams End", is a robust, tender tale of sailor/world travellers; searching, searching for the mysteries just around the next lagoon. McNulty's book may almost go to far in defending Flynn's self-destructive life-style, but it doesn't. In the end, it finds compassion, not sentimentality. Sadly, film director Irving Rapper said it best: "He was a very lucky boy. He had the whole world in the palm of his hand and threw it all away".

This really has to be one of the best Hollywood biographies ever, about a star who attracted rumor and misinformation almost as much as he did ladies. McNulty is thorough, dispassionate, and unbiased, and his research is impeccable. This book, in conjunction with The Young Errol: Flynn Before Hollywood, by John Hammond Moore, will give a complete picture of Flynn's amazingly adventurous life.

It is true that the sticker price on this book is a bit high. But if you are a devoted Flynnatic, this book is simply a 'must read'. There is just no other way of saying it.Carefully researched, readable, and heavily illustrated with many pictures I'd never seen elsewhere (and I own over 20 books about Errol Flynn), this book is a joy to read.McNulty is a scholar, not a sensationalist gossip-monger like a few of the Flynn 'biographers' (and I use that term very tongue-in-cheek) out there. He has done his homework, and has come up with a very fair, balanced, and factual account of the life of one of the most colorful (and controversial) actors ever to grace our movie screens.If you want to read silly rumor and gossip, this is not the book for you. But if you are a serious Errol Flynn fan who is interested in an easy-to-read, yet scholarly account of the facts, then this is the book for you.One of my favorite books about Errol - up there with Conrad and Thomas, in my opinion!

Amazing how much more details of his life was in this book. I loved it and highly recommend it.

I think Mcnultys' book on Errol Flynn is by far , the best of all the many books written on this charismatic man . Ihave at least 17 books on the subject , and several others related to him too . His attention to detail , and the research that has gone into it is very impressive . For example, most previous authors referred to the " rape " trial in general terms , wheras Mr McNulty has dug out documents and FBI memos to fully fit out the overall picture of the events . This is not a highlight of the book , by any means , but an example of his attention to detail . Again, his coverage of Flynns' career in television is fascinating and very detailed . Many of us knew about it, but McNulty has gone to the trouble to dig it out . None of the previous authors , as far as I can remember bothered , concentrating on the more headline worthy items . Whatever his private life was about , the quality of his best films is unsurpassed, to this day . Highley Recommended .

Worth a read, the bio of John Barrymore was better, but the two add up to a powerful look at Hollywood during its heyday.

Rehash of stories already told.

Auch wenn man für diese Biografie etwas mehr Geld hinblättern muß: es lohnt sich. Im Gegensatz zu dem Schund, den Higham oder Bret von sich gegeben haben, ist dies eine ausgezeichnet recherchierte, neutral verfaßte und wunderbar bebilderte Biografie mit einer unglaublichen Fülle von Hintergrundinformationen.Ein Muß für jeden Flynn-Fan!

The narrative flows merrily along, drawing interesting distinctions or comparisons between his properly researched evidence (gleaned from historical sources , interviews with Flynn's acquaintances and various historical documents such as FBI files and newspaper reports as well as Flynn's unpublished diaries )and Flynn's own claims in his autobiography titled " My Wicked Wicked Ways". In a sympathetic ( but also quite objective and critical style) the author paints Errol Flynn as a complex, talented, intelligent,narcissistic, hedonistic deeply flawed enigma who exploited his looks, athleticism and charm to satisfy his lust for sex and adventure with very little regard for his health or the many victims of his reckless, hedonistic approach to life. Such a man who chooses to race through life with such careless abandon, is destined to attract more hangers on, parasites and victims than than many true friends and admirers. Buster Wiles and Argo were the few exceptions. Among those who knew him well , Flynn had more detractors than admirers... if any one truly knew him at all. Mc Nulty does an excellent job of telling an honest account of Flynn's life in a generally positive way when the subject Flynn had so many dislikable aspects to his personality. As we read the book we cannot help but become very aware that the man who so admirably portrayed the hero on the the Silver screen, was anything but a hero in real life. The surprise is not that Flynn died so young , but that he was able to survive as long as he did considering the drugs, alcohol, debauched way he lived the last twenty years of his life.

a very good read, well thought out and researched. it helps to dispel some interpretations of Flynn's interesting life. the book my wicked wicked ways was a good read but this book evens out much of the fictional from the factual.