On This Day In Video

Errol Flynn King of Swahbucklers Born - 1902

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Errol Flynn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia on 20th June 1902. He moved to England to gain acting experience, joined the Northampton Repertory Company, and after a part in a film was offered a Hollywood contract. His first US film, Captain Blood (1935), established him as a hero of historical adventure films, and his good looks and athleticism confirmed him as the greatest Hollywood swashbuckler, in such films as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and The Sea Hawk (1940). During the 1940s his off-screen reputation for drinking, drug-taking, and womanizing became legendary, and eventually affected his career, which was briefly revived by his acclaimed performance as a drunken wastrel in The Sun Also Rises (1957). His autobiography was called My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959).

Still Photographic Collage of Errol Flynn

"Just Like Errol Flynn"
(music by Dogs D'amour)

Errol Flynn in "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

In January 1959, Fidel Castro led his Cuban revolutionaries into Havana. It's a huge story, and the Canadian TV show Front Page Challenge has found an unlikely mystery guest: Errol Flynn, a Hollywood actor in the twilight of his career.

Famed for playing dashing swashbucklers, Flynn put on a reporter's hat while in Cuba for the revolution. Despite rumours he fought alongside the rebels, Flynn tells the panel he "didn't pick up anything more dangerous than a ballpoint pen."