Errol Flynn - Rogue Hero ||| Quotes

Ann Sheridan, co-star in three Flynn films:

"He was one of the wild characters of the world, but he also had a strange, quiet side. He camouflaged himself completely. In all the years I knew him,
I never knew what really lay underneath, and I
doubt if many people did."

Jack Warner, Warner Brothers studio head:
"Errol Flynn was one of the most charming and tragic men I have known."

Olivia deHavilland, co-star in eight Flynn films:
"He was a charming and magnetic man, but so tormented. I had a crush on him, and later I found
he did for me. In fact, he proposed, but he was not divorced from Lili Damita so
it was just as well that I said no."

Bette Davis, Flynn co-star:
"Handsome, arrogant, and utterly enchanting, Errol was something to watch."

"Years later," deHavilland continued, "I had an unhappy experience in Hollywood. A tall man kissed me on the back of the neck at a party and I whirled around in anger and said, 'Do I know you?' Then I realized it was Errol. He had changed so. His eyes were so sad. I had stared into them in enough movies to know his spirit was gone."

Greer Garson, Flynn's co-star in "That Forsyte Woman":
In an introduction to The Films of Errol Flynn by Tony Thomas, Rudy Behlmer, and Clifford McCarty (Citadel Press, 1969), Garson wrote:


	Ann Sheridan, co-star in three Flynn films: "He was one of the wild characters of the world, but he also had a strange, quiet side. He camouflaged himself completely. In all the years I knew him, I never knew what really lay underneath, and I doubt if many people did." Jack Warner, Warner Brothers studio head: "Errol Flynn was one of the most charming and tragic men I have known." Olivia deHavilland, co-star in eight Flynn films: "He was a charming and magnetic man, but so tormented. I had a crush on him, and later I found he did for me. In fact, he proposed, but he was not divorced from Lili Damita so it was just as well that I said no."
Bette Davis, Flynn co-star: "Handsome, arrogant, and utterly enchanting, Errol was something to watch."
"Years later," deHavilland continued, "I had an unhappy experience in Hollywood. A tall man kissed me on the back of the neck at a party and I whirled around in anger and said, 'Do I know you?' Then I realized it was Errol. He had changed so. His eyes were so sad. I had stared into them in enough movies to know his spirit was gone."
While living in Paris twenty years after the filming of "The Adventures of Robin Hood," deHavilland saw a rerun of the movie and wrote Flynn a long letter telling him it had brought back fond memories. "It was an apology, twenty years later," she recalled. "Seeing 'Robin Hood' after all those years made me realize how good all our adventure films were, and I wrote Errol that I was glad I had been in every scene of them. But I tore up the letter. I reconsidered, deciding Errol would think I was silly. I'll always be sorry I didn't mail that letter. A few months later, he was dead."
Greer Garson, Flynn's co-star in "That Forsyte Woman": In an introduction to The Films of Errol Flynn by Tony Thomas, Rudy Behlmer, and Clifford McCarty (Citadel Press, 1969), Garson wrote: "While Errol Flynn will be remembered by movie fans as the handsome, confident cavalier, the romantic conqueror in boudoir and battlefield, his friends and companions also will remember facets totally at variance with the heroic illusion. But they will remember, too, his wit and charm, his lifelong love of ocean and sailing ships, his fascination with sagas of buccaneers and soldiers of fortune, and his desire to live life fully as a daring adventurer - and these were characteristics which reconciled the man and the image. "Surely no actor could impersonate so splendidly Robin Hood, Don Juan, Captain Blood and the rest, unless he had some of their potential within himself. Unfortunately, he had little satisfaction in playing these roles and felt frustrated by continually being typecast. What a pity he couldn't thoroughly enjoy playing the dashing hero, knowing he was nonpareil in this field, and that he was able to make a unique contribution by bringing into our careful, regimented world a bright flash of poetry-in-action and deeds of derring-do. "In our picture ('That Forsyte Woman,' a 1949 Victorian drama based upon A Man of Property from the John Galsworthy trilogy The Forsyte Saga), he tackled a new type of role and revealed an unsuspected and admirable talent for characterization. 'Thank heaven!' he told me. 'At last an escape from cloak and dagger stuff!' If he had lived longer - and more temperately - he would probably have emerged as the serious actor he longed to be, although I think eventually he would have preferred to earn a reputation as a writer. "Another irony: the celebrated Casanova was no doubt a great man with the ladies (although I'm sure he never bothered any woman who didn't want to be bothered), but he probably preferred the company of men and fellow roisterers. I think women baffled him. "His life was one of highs and lows, and he burned himself out much too soon. In thinking of him, let us remember, above all, that to millions of people the world over he brought exhilarating and joyous entertainment, and lifted their imagination and their spirits out of the doldrums and tensions of day-to-day living with a glorious vision of adventure, chivalry, and romance." continue
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