Errol Flynn: From Theft to Fame and Fortune

By Australian true crime researcher and author Stephen Karadjis

In late 1932, Errol Flynn, a local of Australia, resides in a small rental flat within the inner-city suburb of King’s Cross in Sydney. He turns into entangled with a married girl of the higher class. One evening, as she lay beside him, jewels on a bedside desk catches his eye. In a second of revelation and desperation, the younger man takes possession of them and flees the nation, by no means to return.

It’s the worst yr of the Nice Despair, and lots of are with out work or technique of help.

Within the autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, printed posthumously, Errol tells the story and leaves readers with a pseudonym for the girl, “Madge Parkes”.

When devotees of the studio period of cinema consider the celebrities who’ve graced the silver display, one title that evokes photos of the swashbuckling hero is Errol Flynn. He was an Australian who made it large in Hollywood. Movies to his credit score embody The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dodge Metropolis, Virginia Metropolis, The Non-public Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and The Sea Hawk. Anthony Quinn, considered one of Flynn’s contemporaries described his buddy as “debonair and fantastic”, and he was. However little is understood about how Flynn got here to go away Australia.

It occurred this fashion:

Errol Flynn is solid to play the a part of Fletcher Christian within the early Australian sound image, In the Wake of the Bounty. His performing debut precipitates the notorious assembly with “Madge Parkes”.

Charles Chauvel, an early Australian film producer and screenwriter is born in Queensland in 1897. He research business artwork and takes drama classes in Sydney with a eager curiosity within the pioneering movie trade.

He travels to Hollywood within the early Nineteen Twenties working in quite a lot of odd jobs on movie units to study the craft. He returns to Australia in 1926 to supply his first function, Moth of Moonbi, and spends the proceeds on filming a second business enterprise.

In August 1932, Chauvel begins taking pictures scenes on a sound-picture, “Talkie” – Within the Wake of the Bounty. John Warwick is casting director at Cinesound Studios in Bondi Junction in Sydney. Chauvel’s Expeditionary Movie Firm is using the studio’s property.

Plainly one weekend, Warwick is lounging on Bondi Seashore with different companions together with Ken Hunter-Kerr. One in all Kerr’s inner-circle catches the agent’s consideration, and he asks concerning the younger man. He’s Errol Flynn, a bronzed athletic male with good-looking options and a captivating presence.

Warwick believes he has discovered the person to play the a part of Fletcher Christian. He blurts particulars of the encounter to Charles Chauvel and his spouse Elsa, and preparations are made to rendezvous on the Long Bar in the Hotel Australia, a famend, society assembly place. Errol is obtainable the function of the Bounty’s mutineer ringleader.

Chauvel remembers seeing a narrative in a Sydney newspaper together with an image of Flynn and three associates on the yacht, Sirocco. Actually, the {photograph} is taken in 1930, when the crew are stranded within the shallow waters of The Narrows close to Rockhampton in Queensland. He considers the fine-looking man on the wheel and thinks he’ll make a great Fletcher Christian.

Errol’s buddy, Ken Hunter-Kerr is relationship Miriam Dibbs, a younger girl he’s to marry. Miriam has a number of sisters, and Errol begins relationship Naomi, and they comply with an engagement in 1931. The appearance of the Dibbs sisters introduces the younger Errol Flynn to a brand new social set, although he isn’t with out prosperous family members.

Elsa Chauvel is an actress in her husband’s silent productions. She remembers Errol as, “a sort of male butterfly” that “breezed into our lives, prompted bother with the women within the studio, and left.”

John Hammond Moore in, The Young Errol: Flynn Before Hollywood, writes, that as filming Within the Wake of the Bounty concludes, the novice thespian who performs a lead function as Fletcher Christian is amongst these theatrical performers to obtain an invite to a society get together.

Moore writes: “By mid-November of 1932 Errol Flynn was residing in a small, rented flat in King’s Cross and catching up on the sort of social life Laloki and Port Moresby couldn’t presumably present.” John Warwick tried to curiosity Ken Corridor, boss of Cinesound, in utilizing the younger actor in The Squatter’s Daughter, a movie he was placing collectively, however Corridor mentioned no. Then, the possibility choice of an area society chief to provide a celebration set the stage for younger Flynn’s second nice journey in Sydney.

Warwick was glad to oblige, and amongst those that loved this lavish hospitality was Fletcher Christian, alias Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn, late of Papua, New Guinea, Tasmania, and so forth.”

A number of days go and Warwick, the messenger, visits Flynn at his small lodgings in King’s Cross, in Sydney, to tell him that Naomi Dibbs, Errol’s fiancée, has telephoned asking whether or not her love might be at residence over the weekend. She is pondering of leaving the household property in Bowral, within the Southern Highlands to be with him.

Warwick knocks and waits. Errol, bare from the waist down, solutions the door. He’s grumpy and irritable, waking to the banging. Warwick sees the type of a lady mendacity within the mattress within the cramped quarters. Warwick passes on the message.

Flynn tells Warwick days later, that the girl in mattress was the hostess on the get together.

In Errol Flynn’s autobiography, My Depraved, Depraved Methods, “Madge Parkes” is the fictional character that looms massive and with whom he spends a torrid couple of weeks. He gives the circumstances of the assembly that he says takes place in entrance of Usher’s Lodge in King Avenue in Sydney. The girl walks as much as him and asks an open query to make simple dialog.

Earl Conrad, the ghost-writer who assists Errol Flynn to recall his memoirs late in life whereas the movie-star resides on the island paradise of Jamaica within the Caribbean captures the essence of the assembly.

“I used to be out of my depth with this girl of the world who had been all over the place, seen every little thing. After all, I believed, as I set eyes on her, there isn’t any hope for me right here – she is unattainable, means past me. However as we chanced to satisfy in entrance of Usher’s and he or she noticed me, someway, she had a distinct view of the chances. She moved towards me, sure-footed, with out embarrassment, and requested some trivial query about road instructions that merely led into animated discuss.

She didn’t make it apparent, as we met there on the street, however there was a simplicity with which she dealt with issues. “Will you dine with me?” after just a few instants of discuss road instructions. Then, with a subtly inviting smile, “Do you want dancing?” These recommendations materialise –

We dined, we danced. She was very intelligent about paying a invoice. She wouldn’t embarrass you by passing cash underneath the desk. It could simply be paid. You by no means knew precisely how she took care of that, however there wasn’t an immediate if you needed to strike the heel of your palm and stammer, “How may I’ve come out with out my cash …” She was properly capable of pay. And she or he did. You walked out of the restaurant or dance place, bewildered however not embarrassed.

We went for a swim, and in her bathing swimsuit she was essentially the most enchanting girl, with a determine comparable to you’d see on a flashy man-appeal journal cowl, and with the air and stroll of sophistication and ease. That was what intrigued me most: her prepared smile and a appeal that solely a well-travelled Australian girl can have…”

The affair lasts a matter of weeks.

Errol evokes an image of their final moments collectively: “One evening we lay in an anguishing tangle of arms and sensation, and I used to be waking. I sat up in mattress and regarded down at Madge, her stunning hair on the coverlet of the pillow: an image, a dream! A portray of a full girl, and he or she had been ineffably thoughtful towards me.

I bought up, weak kneed, and staggered to the toilet. I knew now that what I had accomplished had destroyed Naomi for me perpetually. I wanted greater than Naomi may ever give…

A desperation of objective and a wildness came visiting me.

At that second, my eyes lit on the dressing-room desk. There, glowing at me, have been just a few jewels, large ones. Small ones. Some had gold or silver chains, and there have been a few rings.”

His plot to fleece the jewels emerges: “One fast thrust, Flynn, and you’ll sweep up these items, put it in your pants pocket and beat it. Hock’ em, make some dough -then bail them out and …” “One fast thrust, Flynn, and you’ll sweep up these items, put it in your pants pocket and beat it. Hock’ em, make some dough -then bail them out and …”

With anguish and remorse and but a steely resolve, Errol, in a pensive second, illuminates: “I regarded again on the mattress the place she lay, a beautiful image, arms outspread, pretty full breasts.

That is prison. Not the best way to deal with anyone. She has been so fantastic, how the hell are you able to consider this?”

Vice wins over advantage: “However this wrestling with the conscience took no quite a lot of seconds. I knew it was essentially the most, dastardly factor I had ever accomplished. However I need to.

Stealthily, I dressed. I scooped up the loot, tiptoed to the door, raced down the staircase just like the joint was on fireplace.

I hurried via the streets. It was night-time, however I didn’t run as a result of I knew {that a} working man excites suspicion. I beat it again to the Sailor’s Relaxation, questioning how one can conceal the loot.”

Errol chronicles hiding the jewels within the deal with of his shaving brush. He procures passage on a steamer inside days of the theft and is on board in a cabin when two plain clothed policemen come onto the vessel and search his belongings. They discover nothing and depart.

The ship steams out of Sydney Harbour and wallows northward alongside the east coast to the port of Brisbane. On shore, Errol labours slowly and haphazardly upwards via the hinterland of Queensland and takes passage on tramp steamer to New Guinea.

He boards a service provider dealer in April 1933, in Salamaua, in New Guinea, on a sea voyage that may ultimately take him to England.

His journey begins on Friday, April 14, 1933. S.S. Friderun leaves Salamaua on New Guinea’s east-coast. It takes a north-easterly course anchoring within the Witu Islands on the best way to the port of Rabaul, in New Britain, within the tropical waters of the Bismarck Archipelago earlier than crusing on to Hong Kong.

Errol kinds a detailed bond with one of many passengers, Dr Hermann F. Erben, a doctor specialising in ailments of the tropics and dealing on the frontier in utilized medical analysis, a calling that may see him certain to at least one unique vacation spot after one other, over the subsequent fifty years.

In Hong Kong, the buddies take a cargo ship, S.S. D’ Artagnan to Saigon, Singapore, Penang in Malaya, and Colombo in Ceylon.

As a aspect journey, they journey overland by trains and ferry to Madras in India and board a freighter, S.S Compiegne which returns to Colombo earlier than taking a westerly course and crossing the Arabian Sea to Djibouti in French Somaliland on Africa’s east coast, crusing via the Purple Sea and alongside the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea and to Marseilles in France the place the adventurers half firm. It’s Errol’s birthday, June 20.

He sails on to England with a steely resolve to pursue a profession in performing, whereas his comrade is homeward certain, taking the prepare via continental Europe to Vienna, in Austria, with ideas of enrolling in additional submit graduate medical research.

In, Errol Flynn: A Bio-Bibliography, Peter Valenti means that Errol, “…seized a possibility to advance his fortunes by stealing some jewels from a married girl with whom he had a tempestuous affair.”

He feedback concerning the girl: “although no subsequent biographer has been capable of establish her, she in all probability did exist.”

Actually, in later years, their hostess will come to be well-regarded in society circles and acquire a preferred standing with the general public. “Madge Parkes” is a cultured particular person with an inclination in direction of what’s truthful and simply and given to a benevolent disposition and on whom officialdom will confer the best honours. She additionally attracts on her personal interior assets when mediation and simple communication are needed.

She has wed a business magnate, a scion of the well-to-do and stays in wed-lock the remainder of her life. Her husband is in no small measure considered one of her greatest supporters. Her mother and father and siblings are of the higher, center class, and as a woman and younger woman she receives the perfect personal education the place she excels in French and sport.

The one particular person aware about the id of the girl – considered one of Sydney’s high-society, is Errol’s fellow actor, buddy and casting director, John Warwick.

Within the documentary movie: Errol Flynn – Portrait of a Swashbuckler, John Warwick is among the interviewees and talks concerning the occasions in late 1932. He clearly states the girl is:

“The spouse of a division retailer government.”

There have been shops aplenty in Sydney within the Thirties. Nonetheless, there are additionally different clues, all of which, agency up help as to the id of the thriller girl.

For twenty-five years, Errol Flynn plays lead roles in sixty films. A substantial variety of these are massively profitable on the box-office. His appeal and wit and superb options draw filmgoers. His recognition is unsurpassed, and it’s throughout these years that he manages to jot down three books.

In two of those, My Depraved, Depraved Methods, and Showdown, a novel, Errol describes an episode through which a cohort of Papuan natives accompany him by cargo ship to Australia, in relation to a enterprise enterprise involving inventory flotation in tobacco and as a public relations train. As soon as in Sydney, the sightseers go to Anthony Hordern’s, town’s largest division retailer. It’s the setting for a most hilarious scene:

“Twice throughout this someday in Sydney Anitok had encounters with the white race which lit inextinguishable fires of resentment and need for revenge burning in his soul. The primary occurred throughout the emporium of Anthony Hordern’s, Sydney’s largest basic merchandise retailer…”

The Papuan fancies a roll of calico. The store assistant, a younger girl, retrieves the fabric.”

“Superb sir eighteen and sixpence please, will that be all?”

“…Cautiously, for he was too good a dealer to pay earlier than receiving the products, he unclutched his hand and thoroughly laid the pound word on the counter. However earlier than he may snatch it again the girl all of a sudden pounced upon the cash and seizing the bolt of calico on the similar time, flung it behind her and out of Anitok’s sight.”

“Thanks, sir. I’ll have it wrapped for you and your change might be proper again.”

“…Nervously, Anitok watched her attain overhead, take down a small metallic container and stuff his pound word into it. Giving the container a twist, she changed it overhead once more the place it hung suspended for a break up second on some wires. Then she seized a twine, gave it a tough jerk, and to Anitok’s horror and amazement the container along with his pound word in it went whizzing away throughout the ceiling!“

“The swiftness of all of it shocked him for a second. Aghast, he set free a shout of rage. Tricked! And robbed on the similar time! Now he had neither calico nor cash! However wait-he may nonetheless see the metallic container flying overhead within the distance.

Spluttering a curse on the bewildered woman, he leaped off in pursuit throughout the crowded room, dodging out and in amongst legs, potted palms, and tables. Individuals stumbled and clutched at counters because the small black and white bullet hurtled between their legs.

It was no use. Fleet of foot although he was, the container outdistanced him, all of a sudden shot round a pointy nook, and was misplaced to sight. By the point he had fought his method to the nook it had disappeared. Out of breath, trembling, he stood by a cigar counter and thought the entire thing over. The bitter realisation got here to him that he had been outwitted by the crafty white woman- his personal fault for letting the cash out of 1 hand with out getting the opposite on the calico.”

Errol retells the episode in Anthony Hordern’s Division Retailer in two of his three books. In accordance with John Warwick, the one one who learns of the affair with “Madge Parkes”, and sees her mendacity in mattress, states nonchalantly, that she is:

“The spouse of a division retailer government.” 

After all with so a few years passed by, discovering who in life ‘Madge Parkes’ was is just not straight-forward. Though one robust chance, primarily based on the data we do have, is one Ursula Mary Hordern (nee, Bullmore), generally known as Mary, born in Woollahra in Sydney on April 1, 1911.

On March 3, 1932, Mary, twenty, marries Anthony Hordern, “Tony” (1889-1970), a person twenty-two years her senior. He’s a widower and grazier, and the third son of Samuel Hordern and Jane Sales space of the business dynasty, Anthony Hordern’s & Sons Ltd, Division Shops. The Flagship retailer is “The Palace Emporium.” It sits on fifty-two acres, employs 4 thousand individuals and at one time is the biggest division retailer on this planet.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday, March 4, 1932, pronounces:

“The wedding was quietly celebrated yesterday afternoon at All Saints Church, Woollahra, of Miss Mary Bullmore, youngest daughter of Dr and Mrs H.H. Bullmore of Ocean Avenue, Woollahra to Mr. Anthony Hordern of Retford Corridor, Darling Level.

The bride wore a protracted, merely reduce robe of ivory satin, and an enveloping veil of ivory tulle, falling from coronet of orange blossoms. She carried a bouquet of begonias, stephanotis, and gladioli. There have been no bridesmaids. Dr Bullmore gave his daughter away. Mr Samuel Hordern, nephew of the bridegroom, was greatest man.

After the ceremony, rapid family members of the bride and bridegroom have been entertained on the residence of the bride’s mother and father. The bride left for the honeymoon carrying a brown crepe romaine frock lined with a pale beige coat, and a small brown hat to tone. She wore sable furs, the present of her mom in-law.”

Anthony Hordern and his younger bride reside in a mansion, Retford Corridor, in Darling Level in Sydney. It’s in-built 1865 to function the household residence. There’s additionally a rustic retreat, Milton Park in Bowral within the Southern Highlands the place Mary designs a backyard, which opens its doorways to the general public in Springtime as a philanthropic and charitable deed with proceeds going to the native hospital.

There’s point out of a celebration at Retford Corridor in Darling Level.

In a tabloid, Reality, a weekly newspaper; within the problem, Sunday, December 11, 1932, within the common society column, The Jottings of a Girl about City: “Though the tickets for the dance at Retford Corridor on December 16 are priced one guinea the promoters are already contemplating a restrict on the sale of them. Despair or no melancholy everybody might be there. Many of the month’s events are of this pay your individual kind.”

John Hammond Moore states it’s, “a mid-week gathering” the place “Madge Parkes” entertains, and though this one is to be held on a Friday, dances and events are commonplace among the many metropolis’s social set.

Mary is later vogue editor of the Australian Ladies’s Weekly from 1946 to 1957. It’s a journal of the best order, owned by her brother in-law, Sir Frank Packer. He’s married to Gretel Bullmore, considered one of Mary’s sisters.

It’s throughout these submit conflict years that Mary galvanises the ladies of Australia, making journeys to Paris in France and bringing residence the most recent “New Look” women’ clothes, together with night robes, organising parades and gala occasions on behalf of Anthony Hordern’s, displaying the most recent fashions.

Caroline Simpson, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, speaking of Mary Hordern:

Mary is appointed to the Legion of Honour in 1957 by the French authorities.

Mary passes away on June 5, 1961, at age fifty.

As a younger woman, Mary Bullmore attends Ascham, a prestigious personal faculty in Edgecliff in Sydney. She excels in French and sport and spends a yr residing with relations in Shanghai in China.

Errol Flynn additionally attains fluency in French and excels in sport. On his method to England in 1933, Errol tells an unlikely story of journey in Shanghai in China.

In My Depraved, Depraved Methods, Errol says “Madge Parks” is statuesque, charming, and complex. He additionally says she is approaching forty. One ought to be mindful it’s doubtless particulars will change to thwart researchers and throw individuals off the scent.

On Sunday, March 12, 1933, the society pages, Jottings of a Girl about City, pronounces: “Mary Hordern is now off to London to have a season underneath the wing of the Countess of Jersey.”

On Wednesday, March 15, 1933, Within the Wake of the Bounty starring Errol Flynn opens to audiences on the Prince Edward Theatre in Sydney.

In April 1933, Errol embarks on the ocean journey to England, leaving New Guinea and Australia for the final time.

As soon as there, the stolen jewels are brokered into money and the proceeds spent on a motor automotive (a Swallow, purple in color), and garments, though it appears the cash is quickly gone as proof paints an image of a battle to pay for the price of residing.

In Northampton, Errol joins a theatre ensemble. He seems in twenty-two productions starting in December 1933 with The Thirteenth Chair. His closing curtain is in early June 1934.

Producer, Irving Asher is Warner Brothers man in England, managing the studios in Teddington in South-West London. Individuals discover Errol hanging across the lot. He’s decided to get into footage. His persistence pays off. Asher agrees to see Flynn in his workplace. Errol impresses and is solid to play the lead in Homicide at Monte Carlo. His efficiency has chins wagging.

In October 1934, Irving Asher cables Jack Warner, chief government of Warner Brothers in the USA. Warner replies to Asher with directions to ship Flynn all bills paid to America.

In Southhampton, Errol boards the celebrated ocean liner, Paris, and crosses to New York. He steps ashore on November 20. A Warner’s agent greets him and passes on a rail ticket. Flynn takes the prepare to Chicago and days later flies to Los Angeles.

On November 27, 1934, at Warner Brother’s Studios in Burbank, the twenty-five-year-old rising star indicators a six-month contract at one-hundred and fifty {dollars} every week.

Jack Warner takes a calculated danger and casts Errol Flynn within the lead function within the 1935 epic, Captain Blood. He’s massively standard with audiences and rises to superstardom in a short while.

Errol Flynn and Mary Hordern went on to excel of their careers, and in public life.

Errol Flynn performed starring roles in Hollywood movies from the mid-Thirties via the 40s and into the Nineteen Fifties. He married thrice and fathered 4 kids.

Mary Hordern was on the forefront of excessive vogue working tirelessly and was a number one vogue author and editor. She married as soon as to Anthony Hordern, they usually had two daughters collectively.

Coincidentally, every handed away on the age of fifty and inside two years of each other.

Ought to any additional info come to mild, the article might be up to date accordingly.