When I was a kid, I borrowed my parents' copy of David Niven's autobiography "The Moon's a Balloon", which was racy for the 70's. DN used to hang with Errol and noted that Errol was on the LAPD's hit list for hanging around high schools offering free rides and other goodies to underaged girls. IIRC, Flynn had a private chat down at the station and was told to stay away from teenaged girls or face a bust.
Posthumous controversies
In a 1982 interview with
Penthouse magazine,
Ronald DeWolf, son of the author
L. Ron Hubbard, said that his father's friendship with Flynn was so strong that Hubbard's family considered Flynn an adoptive father to DeWolf. He said that Flynn and his father engaged in illegal activities together, including drug smuggling and sexual acts with underage girls; but that Flynn never joined
Scientology, Hubbard's religious group.
[111]
Relationship with Beverly Aadland
In 1961, Beverly Aadland's mother, Florence, co-wrote
The Big Love with Tedd Thomey, alleging that Flynn had been involved in a sexual relationship with her daughter, who was 15 when it began.
[113][114] The memoir was adapted in 1991 by
Jay Presson Allen and her daughter Brooke Allen into a one-woman play,
The Big Love, which starred
Tracey Ullman as Florence Aadland in its New York premiere.
[115][116]
In 1996, Beverly Aadland gave an interview to Britain's Channel 4 documentary series
Secret Lives corroborating the sexual relationship, and claiming that the first time she and Flynn had sex, he "forced himself" on her. She also said she loved him and wished they had more time together.
[117] "I was very lucky. He could have had any woman he wanted. Why it was me, I have no idea. Never will."
Charles Higham biography
In 1980, author
Charles Higham wrote a highly controversial biography,
Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, alleging that Flynn was a fascist sympathiser who spied for the
Nazis before and during the Second World War, and that he was
bisexual and had multiple same-sex affairs.
[118] He claimed Flynn had arranged to have
Dive Bomber filmed on location at the
San Diego Naval Base for the benefit of Japanese military planners, who needed information on American warships and defence installations.
[119] Higham admitted that he had no evidence that Flynn was a German agent, but said he had "pieced together a mosaic that proves that he is."
[120] Flynn's friend
David Niven criticised Higham for his unfounded accusations.
[121] In his autobiography,
Iron Eyes Cody: My Life As A Hollywood Indian,
Iron Eyes Cody also trashed Higham's book and described Flynn as "super straight".
Flynn developed a reputation for
womanising, hard drinking,
chain smoking and, for a time in the 1940s,
narcotics abuse.
[85] He was linked romantically with
Lupe Vélez,
[86] Marlene Dietrich and
Dolores del Río, among many others.[
citation needed]
Carole Lombard is said to have resisted his advances, but invited him to her extravagant parties.
[87] He was a regular attendee of
William Randolph Hearst's equally lavish affairs at
Hearst Castle, though he was once asked to leave after becoming excessively intoxicated.
[88]
The expression "
in like Flynn" is said to have been coined to refer to the supreme ease with which he reputedly seduced women, but its origin is disputed.
[89] Flynn was reportedly fond of the expression and later claimed that he wanted to call his memoir
In Like Me. (The publisher insisted on a more tasteful title,
My Wicked, Wicked Ways.
[90][91])
Flynn had various mirrors and hiding places constructed inside his mansion, including an overhead trapdoor above a guest bedroom for surreptitious viewing.
Rolling Stones guitarist
Ronnie Wood toured the house as a prospective buyer in the 1970s, and reported, "Errol had two-way mirrors... speaker systems in the ladies' room. Not for security. Just that he was an A-1 voyeur."
[92] In March 1955, the popular Hollywood gossip magazine
Confidential ran a salacious article titled "The Greatest Show in Town... Errol Flynn and His Two-Way Mirror!"
[93] In her 1966 biography, actress
Hedy Lamarr wrote, "Many of the bathrooms have peepholes or ceilings with squares of opaque glass through which you can't see out but someone can see in."
[94]
www.ranker.com
