Errol Flynn

Errol Flynn (1909-1959), Australian-born motion-picture actor, who won fame during the 1930s playing handsome, swashbuckling heroes in numerous Hollywood action and adventure films. Born in Hobart in the state of Tasmania, the son of an eminent naturalist, he attended several Australian preparatory schools before dropping out at age 15. He spent the next several years searching for gold, making arduous sea voyages, and managing a tobacco plantation in New Guinea.

After his film debut, playing Fletcher Christian in the Australian feature In the Wake of the Bounty (1933), Flynn traveled to England, where he acted in repertory theater and starred in a British mystery film, Murder at Monte Carlo (1934). On the strength of this performance he signed a Hollywood contract with the Warner Bros. studio. Soon after, he achieved instant popularity when he replaced British actor Robert Donat in the title role of the epic pirate movie Captain Blood (1935).

Flynn’s accent, which sounded English to most Americans, made him a natural choice to star in a number of Hollywood tributes to British imperialism produced in the late 1930s. He brought athletic exuberance, dashing good looks, and a sense of boyish fun to such movies as The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), and The Sea Hawk (1940). He was equally adept playing American heroes, notably Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On (1942).

As Flynn’s fame soared, his reckless personal life achieved notoriety, especially in the wake of a well-publicized 1942 trial in which he was found not guilty of raping two underage women aboard his yacht. A heavy drinker and smoker who also used illicit drugs, he had seriously damaged his looks, health, and career by the early 1950s. He died of a heart attack at age 50. Flynn’s autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was published posthumously in 1959.