Errol Flynn: Satan's GAY angel!
linco...@my-deja.com
morning. I have just finished reading it.
Hmmmmmm.
There are, in my view, MAJOR problems with this book. Derek is
right that Bret is very appreciative of Errol and says some glowing
things about him. For that we may be thankful. Also,
refreshingly,Bret rejects Higham’s Nazi charges entirely (although
he seems, like most people, to think that Bill Donati’s research
supports Tony Thomas’ book ("William Donati . . . came to the
same conclusion as Tony Thomas) - rather than vice versa.
However, I think that in the future, among Flynn’s biographers,
while Higham’s bio will be know as "the Nazi Flynn book," David
Bret’s Errol Flynn: Satan’s Angel will be known as "the Gay Flynn
book."
Flynn, we are now told, had passionate sexual relationships with,
among many others, Ross Alexander (who played Jeremy Pitt in
"Captain Blood"), and Bill Meade, the young millionaire heir who
died when he fell on his sword during the filming of the charge in
"They Died With Their Boots on." Others who are routinely
mentioned as having had gay relationships include Robert Taylor,
no less. ( I think I just heard a loud guffaw from Barbara
Stanwyck!)
I am not homophobic. I am just happen to be one of those
pains-in-the-ass who likes to see claims backed up with evidence.
I’m a stickler in that regard. Bret provides virtually no
documentation throughout his book. One continually looks for it,
and wonders where he gets all these quotes, including many
verbatim and highly salacious comments by Errol (such as
regarding his ardent lust for Ross Alexander’s hairy armpits –
Errol is supposed to have said that "they turned him on like hot
twin fannies" - I doubt that many people who read this book will
look at "Captain Blood" again in quite the same way!)
I frankly am getting pretty tired of this kind of Biography. I am
especially suspicious of all these gay trysts Errol is supposed to
have had – the information on many of them has been somehow
been kept silent for 65 years. But thanks to David Bret, we are all
now IN THE KNOW! At least Higham cites many of his sources
(they all just happen to be conveniently DEAD!).
Bret is a workmanlike but not very good writer. His use of English
leaves much to be desired. The book is also studded with factual
errors. Bill Donati did not interview Erben for ABC’s 20/20
Program. He went to Vienna and interviewed Erben
independently.
Also, I am certain that Nora and Patrice will be greatly surprised to
learn that Errol is survived by one wife and four daughters!!! ("The
retainers, stooges, spongers, hangers-on and lovers far too
numerous to mention are most of them gone. One wife and his
four daughters remain, hopelessly attempting to whiten his name,
something he would not have wished for." – page 225).
And , although the book is published in July of 2000, the author is
unaware that Arnella has been dead for two years now.
This is the tip of the iceberg. I’ll be posting a full review of this
curious book at www.amazon.co.uk some time later this week.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
free...@my-deja.com
and be prepared to produce documentation, and this guy leaves out -
who? Lily? (God forbid - with her temper, she could get him from the
grave...) Nora? a rational moment in his life, or Patrice, who owns the
trademark to his image??? So Sean was secretly a girl? Wow! Lincoln, I
need to find you. I think I have something on Flynn for you that is
original and worthwhile, but what do I know? I still use Turabian's
style manual. Ross Alexander's armpits???
In article <8l30la$n9u$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
linco...@my-deja.com
Yes, believe it or not. As I said, this is the tip of the iceberg. Flynn
is supposed to have had sex with William Lundigan during "Dodge
City," his director Edmund Goulding during "The Dawn Patrol,"
Bruce Cabot (at a brothel!), Ty Power (of course), and on and on
and on. To list all the men Errol is supposed to have had sex with
in this book would be quite exhausting. (Strangely, he misses out
mentioning Truman Capote.)
However, I took all this in stride. But when he claims on page 69
(yep, that's the page!) that Basil Rathbone's "sexual preference"
was men, and that Rathbone and Flynn became friends only after
Flynn taunted him about Rathbone's penchant for sucking the
male organ, well, he's has gone too far! What's next? Rathbone
and Nigel Bruce "getting it on" during "The Hound of the
Baskervilles?
As John Stossel would say on ABC's 20/20, "Give me a break!"
migh...@my-deja.com
for this information? Are there recorded interviews that are
referenced? Did Bret correspond with the persons cited in the book? Did
he interview people that worked at the various movie locales? In sum,
how does Bret support his research?
In your scholarly opinion, where does this work fall on the scale of
biographical reporting? Is it a well-documented piece of work or
something more toward inuendo?
Once again in a short period of time, Flynn's family will be subjected
to yet another pounding.
As an aside, during all future viewings of "Captain Blood", I will
attempt to refrain from allowing the phrase Jeremy "Hairy Arm" Pitts to
run through my head....but it will anyway! Thank you, Mr. Bret!
In article <8l3cld$vj0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
free...@my-deja.com
> Whoa! Flynn must have really been something! He's having sex with
everyone in Hollywood, doing narcotics, drinking the liquor store dry,
writing, spying for the Nazis, aiding the Japanese, preying on little
boys and teenaged girls, and making, what, 3 or 4 movies a year? On top
of a heart condition, recurrent malaria and TB? Oh sure. You know,
when people write, they don't usually stray too far from their center,
and when I read "Beam Ends" or "Showdown" or even "...Wicked Ways", I
don't find much to suggest Errol was what his pseudo-biographers try to
claim. Find a book called: "Dibs: In Search of Self" by Virgina
Axline, PhD, then re-read "Wicked Ways". Read between the lines. See
if you don't find some interesting parallels. Then find some articles
on Gifted/Talented kids and kids with Attention Deficit Disorder/Hyper
Activity. I see this stuff at work all the time. When you grow up
thinking your're a disappointment to your folks, not much else matters.
linco...@my-deja.com
migh...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Lincoln, how does Bret substantiate the claims? Does he offer
sources
> for this information? Are there recorded interviews that are
> referenced? Did Bret correspond with the persons cited in the
book? Did
> he interview people that worked at the various movie locales? In
sum,
> how does Bret support his research?
>
> In your scholarly opinion, where does this work fall on the scale
of
> biographical reporting? Is it a well-documented piece of work or
> something more toward inuendo?
I think my review pretty well answers that (see the separate
thread). I think Bret and Higham are in some ways cut from the
same piece of cloth – not regarding the Nazi nonsense, of course.
But both men have about the same level of historical sense.
In terms of his sources, Bret’s "acknowledgements" page lists
about 25 names of people to whom he is indebted. The only two I
recognized were Marlene Dietrich and Eric Lilley. The latter should
tell you something. My own nickname for Lilley is "Captain
Moonbeam." As far as I'm concerned, he's recently just arrived
from the planet Zongo.
Again, about Flynn's offering to cut Mike Curtiz’s throat on the set of
"Captain Blood" - by all accounts Flynn was nervous as hell during
the shoot until he gained confidence after a few weeks of filming.
The only time he seems to have got himself into any trouble was
when he drank a bottle of cognac before the morning’s takes, and
as a result got called into Warner’s office for one class A
blowing-over. He was very contrite and apologetic, as he needed
to be.
Sure, Flynn and Curtiz had bust-ups, but that was later, when (to
quote Niven), Errol "had really got the star bit between his teeth"
during "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
Bret also states that during "Captain Blood", Flynn told Curtiz, "Shut
your mouth, you Hungarian motherfucker, or I’ll shut it for you."
Absurd. That sounds more like the Flynn of the later Flynn-Curtiz
epics, when (as on "Dive Bomber") the tensions between the two
men had reached a breaking point.
Bret does not trouble himself to give us his sources for this, or for
anything else for that matter. It looks suspiciously as though he
made it up. Or perhaps he got it from Eric Lilley?
If any of this sounds familiar, Bill Donati wrote me last September,
and along the way he said that "it seems Highamesque writing is
everywhere."
Q.E.D.
Michael Cummins
scholar won't even believe 5% of what he said himself, let alone basing a
book on what Jerry Wald was suspicious about shortly after passing away.
--
M. Cummins
------------------------
"Ni raibh d'oidhreacht aige ach and geal- ghaire do bhronn Dia air, agus gur
chreid se na chroibhe go raibh an saghal mor ar mire"
--Scaramuis le Rafael Sabatini
Derek Dubery
read the book. What you reveal doesn't surprise me too much. You only
have to look at the list of Brett's previous biographical projects to
see where his own sexual interest lies.... On the (slight) plus side I'd
rather people thought that Errol was gay than a gay-Nazi! Of course the
truth would be preferable but we can't expect too much!
In article <8l30la$n9u$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, linco...@my-deja.com writes
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
--
Derek Dubery
Derek's Errol Flynn site http://www.intensecure.demon.co.uk/flynn.html
Derek's Ducati Monster site http://fly.to/monster
fax: 0870 056 8741
Snausages
>Flynn, we are now told, had passionate sexual relationships with,
>among many others, Ross Alexander
AHAHAHAHAHAA!!!! *gaassssp HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA*
>(who played Jeremy Pitt in
>"Captain Blood"), and Bill Meade, the young millionaire heir who
>died when he fell on his sword during the filming of the charge in
>"They Died With Their Boots on."
AAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! AAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAA!!!
>Others who are routinely
>mentioned as having had gay relationships include Robert Taylor,
>no less. ( I think I just heard a loud guffaw from Barbara
>Stanwyck!)
*slaps Barbara Stanwyck on the back and chokes from laughter.
>snip<
>...including many
>verbatim and highly salacious comments by Errol (such as
>regarding his ardent lust for Ross Alexander’s hairy armpits –
>Errol is supposed to have said that "they turned him on like hot
>twin fannies" - I doubt that many people who read this book will
>look at "Captain Blood" again in quite the same way!)
AAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Oh man I've got tears here. Aheh
HEY DAVE? GOT ANYMORE GOOD ONES?
Thanks, lincoln6402. I needed that. Oh man that was hysTErical!
The problem is, just like the Higham crap, the public is going to eat
this up and there's no Tony Thomas this time.
Oh man that was so funny. I hope I win one of those in a raffle,
because I ain't PAYING for the shit. I can get funnier books, and the
joke isn't at the cost of someone.
Snausages
____ __
/ __/__________ / / Hollywood's Greatest Swashbuckler
/ _// __/ __/ _ \/ / & Greatest Enigma!
/___/_/_/_/ \___/_/ ·
/ __/ /_ _____ ___ http://www.errolflynn.net
/ _// / // / _ \/ _ \ ·
/_/ /_/\_, /_//_/_//_/ To reply, try username Snausages.
/___/
Snausages
>Here I am trying to be careful with my sources, cite things accurately
>and be prepared to produce documentation, and this guy leaves out -
>who? Lily? (God forbid - with her temper, she could get him from the
>grave...) Nora? a rational moment in his life, or Patrice, who owns the
>trademark to his image??? So Sean was secretly a girl? Wow! Lincoln, I
>need to find you. I think I have something on Flynn for you that is
>original and worthwhile, but what do I know? I still use Turabian's
>style manual. Ross Alexander's armpits???
>
*pulls aside post-er...
Look - dood - when the time comes, don't be so stingy with sources in
the bibliography. You might be our only hope.
I'm not CSW, but when people write like this boob does, it usually
means that either they OR their main source has fantasies which can
come to psuedo-fruition by the general public sharing them too.
I suppose Alexander blew his brains out because Errol was married and
he had no chance enduring a lifelong relationship with him as he
desired? GIMME A FUCKING BREAK!
Guilt-by-association put them in a movie together and now Flynn is bi
(not "gay", folks. "Gay" means ONLY with the same sex). Nothing new
there. Someone just wanted quick bucks.
You kick ass in that Amazon review, and visit Barnes & Noble with it
too while you're at it.
(when is that bio of yours coming out again?)
Snausages
Slander is slander is slander. There's no least of evils about it.
And again: it's "bi" not "gay"
Jim Beaver
<linco...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8l30la$n9u$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> I found David Bret's Errol Flynn: Satan's Angel in my mail this
> morning. I have just finished reading it.
(snip)
Others who are routinely
> mentioned as having had gay relationships include Robert Taylor,
> no less. ( I think I just heard a loud guffaw from Barbara
> Stanwyck!)
>
Well, the notion that Taylor and Stanwyck were in a gay
marriage-of-convenience have been feeding rumor mills for fifty years, so
that's nothing new. But although I too could care less whether Flynn or
Taylor or Randolph Scott were gay or straight, I do get so tired of people
making such an agenda out of exposing the "truth," whatever it may be, about
them. It's as if people are trying to justify gayness by showing how many
apparently straight famous people are "really" on the other side. As if
there ought to be "sides." As if it matters to anyone but the person
himself. As if these guys haven't all been dead for forty years.
Why is it so important to "out" people? Is one's selfhood not enough? Do
we really have to collect famous examples of the kind of people we are in
order to feel like we belong? It's pathetic.
Jim Beaver
Michael Cummins
>
> Why is it so important to "out" people? Is one's selfhood not enough? Do
> we really have to collect famous examples of the kind of people we are in
> order to feel like we belong? It's pathetic.
>
It all smacks of "Gee let's find loads of famous gay people to prove to
myself that being gay is perfectly normal." Or Bi- sexual, but that gets
very complicated.
That would be in the case of Bret, wouldn't it? as he defends Flynn from
accusations of being a Nazi, Bret creates a harmless rogue who is bi/gay
what a nice little icon for Bret and the community, is Bret a member of this
community?
Higham, I bet he is married, creates a nasty, evil, Nazi bi/ homo, does he
just create what he supposes is most offensive? reprehensible? the
homosexual villain, let's face it allot of people look upon calling him
bi/homo as a slur, regardless of there being evidence to support it, they
see it as a bad thing, I probably do too, though I shouldn't and I know that
if somebody handed me 100% proof, I wouldn't stop being a fan.
What I always find interesting is that silent stars never get out-ed. These
so called biographers, are so very much so- called, that they probably
consider anything pre- 1931 to be grainy, unmatchable and Charlie Chaplin.
Snausages
<mlcu...@eircom.net> wrote:
>What I always find interesting is that silent stars never get out-ed. These
>so called biographers, are so very much so- called, that they probably
>consider anything pre- 1931 to be grainy, unmatchable and Charlie Chaplin.
They've been picking on Valentino for years.
And Charles Farrel who costarred with Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven
and subsequent movies was allegedly gay.
And lest we forget FW Murnau? In Hollywood Babylon, it's rumoured that
his death at the wheel was the cause of certain acts done on him UNDER
the wheel by a male minor. HEH!!!
Oh and what about Roman Novarro?
You just haven't been looking in the right places, me boyo.
linco...@my-deja.com
> Well, the notion that Taylor and Stanwyck were in a gay
> marriage-of-convenience have been feeding rumor mills for fifty
years, so
> that's nothing new.
That 's easily accounted for. As anyone who knew her will tell you,
Barbara Stanwick was life-long,100% hetero. However, in the
early 30's her particular look appealed for some reason to
lesbians all over the country. They went crazy for her. To them she
was catnip, just as gay men still go crazy over Flynn - to this very
day.
To keep the appeal going for both sexes, her studios made it a
policy never to affirm or deny her sexual preference. For them, it
was purely a money decision; hey, why not keep them guessing?
And as a result, jeez, poor Robert Talor got dragged into the mess!
A marriage-of-convenience? Hell no, Chum!
Really, in fact, it's not a question of "Whose business is it?" or
"Who cares?" - of "homophobia" or "homophilia." In the end it is
simply a question of, "What's the truth?" What really happened?"
Those are the simple questions that makes up history. None of
my business? Hey, I'm a historian. History is my business.
And to those innocent, sad, withered little souls who are still
asking the poor shade of Robert Taylor, "Quo Vadis, Bob?", I have
just one thing to say: "Dream on, brats. Keep reading your own
sexual preferences into all kinds of famous people you've never
met."
Yeah, keep it up - you sorry, pathetic, lost souls.
That includes David Bret. The scholarly Mr. Bret tells us much
more about David Bret in his book than he does about Mr. Flynn.
I speak only for myself, but frankly, I am sick and tired of
autobiography masquerading as history. ENOUGH!
After all, the name of John William's cd is "Hollywood Dreams" -
not "Hollywood Wet Dreams."
Michael Cummins
> They've been picking on Valentino for years.
They have been picking on Valentino since 1920. That's different. J. Warren
Kerrigan too. :)
One Captain Blood down, three to go.
linco...@my-deja.com
>
> They have been picking on Valentino since 1920. That's different.
J. Warren
> Kerrigan too. :)
> One Captain Blood down, three to go.
J.Warren Kerrigan was supposed to be gay? Didn't know.
By the way, does anybody know if the character actor J. M.
Kerrigan - the chain-gang taskmaster in "Gone with the Wind,"
who also played Eli Matson, the idiot who went over the side of
"The Albatross" before the others at the beginnig of "The Sea
Hawk" - was he J. W. Kerrigan's son?
J. M Kerrigan wrote me once, trying to sell a piece of memorabilia
from "Gone With the Wind." I declined.
Michael Cummins
I guy called J. M. Kerrigan was the most important silent film producer in
Ireland in the TEENS, I often wonder if he is the same J. M.
J. W. was gay and never married, so J.M. is not a son.