Meanwhile, played the most varied and unusual occupations, among them the treasure hunter, sheep castrating, sailor, fisherman, soldier, dishwasher or even pearl diver. In 1930 he returned to Sydney for a while and bought a small boat which he called Sirocco, and sailed, with three friends, to New Guinea. There he found work as foreman of a plantation of snuff, besides being a columnist in the Sydney Bulletin. All these experiences were narrated by him in three memoirs, more or less fictionalized: Beam Ends (1937), Showdown (1946) and My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959).

Back in Australia, accepted the role of Fletcher Christian in a semi-documentary film entitled In the Wake of the Bounty (1932). Thus, almost by chance, came into contact with the interpretation, and was slowly gaining experience in intervening in works produced by the Northampton Repertory Company. London had the opportunity to participate in a low-budget film, Murder at Monte Carlo (1934), which managed to be hired, and for Hollywood, the company Warner Brothers.

He came to Hollywood in 1935, where he appeared in several small productions as actor (sometimes, almost extra). His real opportunity came very soon, as Robert Donat, actor of great physical resemblance to Flynn (even wearing that little mustache that made him famous), fell from the cast of the film being prepared by Michael Curtiz, Captain Blood (1935), and the director called Flynn, who by then had only 26, so that embody Dr. Peter Blood, a character who ended up becoming a pirate.

The film is a vivid combination of sea battles, sword duels (against the great Basil Rathbone) and tempestuous romance with actress Olivia de Havilland near the Caribbean beaches, ingredients all of which launched the young Flynn directly to stardom. After this success, Warner made available a generous budget The charge of the Light Brigade (1936), directed by Michael Curtiz, where the director and two actors starred in an adventure with a capital that had its genesis in the famous poem by Tennyson.

The following year participated in The Prince and the Pauper (1937), William Keighley, lavish adaptation of the novel by Mark Twain who got a huge box office hit and was the subject of a remake some years later. Immediately after he was summoned again by Curtiz to embody a Robin Hood (1938), Curtiz and Keighley itself, with Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone well and Claude Rains. Keighley, retired shortly after shooting began, he left the direction of Michael Curtiz, the director, perhaps along with Raoul Walsh, best understood to Flynn, whose partnership has been one of the most brilliant and legendary adventure film.

As success followed one another movie after movie, the Warner decided that the trio should stay together. Thus, born movies like Dodge City, Gunfighter (1939), or Holy Road Fe (1940), accompanied by Ronald Reagan, or The Sea Hawk (1940), all of Curtiz. The latter did not have the Havilland, although it did intervene Brenda Marshall and Flora Robson in the role of Queen Elizabeth I of England, which accuses Flynn (a character inspired by the pirate Drake) in public (although welcomed in private) to address the Spanish galleons in the Caribbean. The character of Elizabeth I repeated in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), also Curtiz, this time played by Bette Davis, who falls in love with Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, character played by Flynn.

In the prime of his career reunited with Olivia de Havilland in one of the legendary films in cinema history, They died with their boots on (1941), by Raoul Walsh. The importance of this production lies probably in the awesome force that Walsh gave to the staging and the excellent script and the excellence of Flynn, which offers even his character, beyond his obvious heroism, a certain instability enriches him.

Maybe next year when they reached greater popularity (for different reasons) was 1942. On the one hand, starred Gentleman Jim (1942), Raoul Walsh, adapted from an autobiographical novel by James J. CorbettThe Roar of the Crowd”, Which achieved great success in it he played a brash character that fitted perfectly with the type of roles that used to play Flynn. However, his career suffered a setback when he was accused of raping two teenage girls on his yacht. Although it was eventually acquitted of the crime, his public image suffered so that he could not recover. To this must be added that, in recent months, his wife, actress Lili Damita, filed for divorce.

From the second half of the forties, career and Errol Flynn’s star began to wane. The reasons for this are to be found in their problems with drinking, snuff and, above all, drugs, besides having to earn a reputation as a womanizer who never left him. However, their participation (at the height of war propaganda films of Hollywood) in Objective: Burma (1945), Raoul Walsh, was unanimously acclaimed as well as the excellent cinematography by James Wong Howe. As a curiosity, the film was shot in black and white, and the sets, which emulated the Burmese jungle and had been built on a ranch in California, were certainly surprising.

In the fifties he left Hollywood to try to relaunch his career in Europe, but failed so miserably. To make matters worse, he lost every dollar he had in one, from the beginning, damn project William Tell (1954), which was not even finished. In 1956 he returned to Hollywood and, ironically, receive rave reviews for his performance, completely drunk, in Fiesta (1957), Henry King, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. Absolutely drunk returned to play his next two films, Too Much, Too Soon (1958), Art Napoleon (where he plays John Barrymore), and The Roots of Heaven (1958), John Huston. Finally, part (in addition to co-produce) a disastrous semi-documentary film, to the glory of Fidel Castro and his war against Batista, entitled Cuban Rebel Girls (1959), Barry Mahon.

A heart attack would kill him when he was only fifty years, although in recent years her body and her face appeared a much older age. Errol Flynn, despite the impairment that figure accounted for the scandals in which he was immersed and drug problems has gone down in film history as the greatest actor of adventures.

Watch Errol Flynn movies on FMO:

In the Wake of the Bounty

Cuban Rebel Girls

Santa Fe Trail

Additional details in: Errol Flynn in IMDB

Errol Flynn in Wikipedia