On the ship from London, Flynn met and eventually married
Lili Damita, an actress five years his senior, whose contacts proved invaluable when Flynn arrived in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. publicity described him as an "Irish leading man of the London stage". His first appearance was a small role in
The Case of the Curious Bride (1935). Flynn had two scenes, one as a corpse and one in flashback. His next part was slightly bigger, in ''
Don't Bet on Blondes'' (1935), a
B-picture screwball comedy.
Captain Blood and stardom Warner Bros. was preparing a big-budget swashbuckler,
Captain Blood (1935), based on the 1922 novel by
Rafael Sabatini and directed by
Michael Curtiz. The studio originally intended to cast
Robert Donat, but he turned down the part, afraid that his chronic
asthma would make it impossible for him to perform the strenuous role. Warners considered a number of other actors, including
Leslie Howard and
James Cagney, and also conducted screen tests of those they had under contract, like Flynn. The tests were impressive, and Warners finally cast Flynn in the lead, opposite 19-year-old
Olivia de Havilland. The resulting film was a magnificent success for the studio and gave birth to two new Hollywood stars and an on-screen partnership that would encompass eight films over six years. The budget for
Captain Blood was $1.242 million, and it made $1.357 million in the U.S. and $1.733 million overseas, meaning a huge profit for Warner Bros. Flynn had been selected to support
Fredric March in
Anthony Adverse (1936), but public response to
Captain Blood was so enthusiastic that Warners instead reunited him with de Havilland and Curtiz in another adventure tale, this time set during the
Crimean War,
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). The film was given a slightly larger budget than
Captain Blood, at $1.33 million, and it had a much higher box-office gross, earning $1.454 million in the U.S. and $1.928 million overseas, making it Warner Bros.' No. 1 hit of 1936. The studio then put him back into another swashbuckler, replacing
Patric Knowles as Miles Hendon in
The Prince and the Pauper (1937). He appeared opposite
Kay Francis in
Another Dawn (1937), a melodrama set in a mythical British desert colony. Warners then gave Flynn his first starring role in a modern comedy,
The Perfect Specimen (1937), with
Joan Blondell, under the direction of Curtiz. Meanwhile, Flynn published his first book,
Beam Ends (1937), an autobiographical account of his experiences sailing around Australia as a youth. He also travelled to Spain, in 1937, as a
war correspondent during the
Spanish Civil War, in which he sympathised with the
Republicans.
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) in
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Flynn followed this with his most famous movie,
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), playing the title role, opposite de Havilland's
Marian. This movie was a global success. It was the sixth-highest movie grosser of 1938. It was also the studio's first large-budget colour film using the three-strip
Technicolor process. The budget for
Robin Hood was the highest ever for a Warner Bros. production up to that point—$2.47 million—but it more than made back its costs and turned a huge profit as it grossed $2.343 million in the U.S. and $2.495 million overseas. It received lavish praise from critics and became a world favourite; in 2019, Rotten Tomatoes summarised the critical consensus: "Errol Flynn thrills as the legendary title character, and the film embodies the type of imaginative family adventure tailor-made for the silver screen". In 1995, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States
Library of Congress and selected for preservation by the
National Film Registry. In a 2005 interview, de Havilland described how, during the filming, she decided to tease Flynn, whose wife was on the set and watching closely. De Havilland said, "And so we had one kissing scene, which I looked forward to with great delight. I remember I blew every take, at least six in a row, maybe seven, maybe eight, and we had to kiss all over again. And Errol Flynn got really rather uncomfortable, and he had, if I may say so, a little trouble with his tights." The final duel between Robin and Sir Guy of Gisbourne (
Basil Rathbone) is a classic, echoing the battle on the beach in
Captain Blood where Flynn also kills Rathbone's character after a long demonstration of fine swordplay, in that case choreographed by
Ralph Faulkner. According to Faulkner's student, Tex Allen, "Faulkner had good material to work with. Veteran Basil Rathbone was a good fencer already, and Flynn, though new to the school of fence, was athletic and a quick learner". The success of
The Adventures of Robin Hood did little to convince the studio that their prize swashbuckler should be allowed to do other things, but Warners allowed Flynn to try a
screwball comedy, ''
Four's a Crowd (1938). Despite the presence of de Havilland and the direction of Curtiz, it was not a success. The Sisters'' (1938), a drama showing the lives of three sisters in the years from 1904 to 1908, including a dramatic rendering of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, was more popular. Flynn played alcoholic sports reporter Frank Medlin, who sweeps Louise Elliott (
Bette Davis) off her feet on a visit to Silver Bow, Montana. Their married life in San Francisco is difficult, and Frank sails to Singapore just hours before the catastrophe. The original ending of the film was the same as the book: Louise married a character named William Benson, but preview audiences disliked the ending, and a new one was filmed in which Frank comes to Silver Bow to find her, and they reconcile. Apparently, audiences wanted Errol Flynn to "get the girl" or vice versa. Bette Davis preferred the original ending. Flynn had a powerful dramatic role in
The Dawn Patrol (1938), a remake of a
pre-code 1930 drama of the same title about
Royal Flying Corps fighter pilots in World War I and the devastating burden carried by officers who must send men out to die every morning. Flynn and co-stars
Basil Rathbone and
David Niven led a cast that was all male and predominantly British. Director
Edmund Goulding's biographer
Matthew Kennedy wrote: "Everyone remembered a set filled with fraternal good cheer.... The filming of
Dawn Patrol was an unusual experience for everyone connected with it, and dissipated for all time the legend that Britishers are lacking in a sense of humor.... The picture was made to the accompaniment of more ribbing than Hollywood has ever witnessed. The setting for all this horseplay was the beautiful English manners of the cutterups. The expressions of polite and pained shock on the faces of Niven, Flynn, Rathbone et al., when (women) visitors were embarrassed was the best part of the nonsense." In 1939, Flynn and de Havilland teamed up with Curtiz for
Dodge City (1939), the first
Western for both of them, set after the
U.S. Civil War. Flynn was worried that audiences would not accept him in Westerns, but the film was Warner's most popular film of 1939, and he went on to make a number of movies in that genre.
Second World War in
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) Flynn was reunited with Davis, Curtiz and de Havilland in
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), playing
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Flynn's relationship with Davis during filming was quarrelsome; Davis allegedly slapped him across the face far harder than necessary during one scene. Flynn attributed her anger to unrequited romantic interest, but according to others, Davis resented sharing equal billing with a man she considered incapable of playing any role beyond a dashing adventurer. "He himself openly said, 'I don't know really anything about acting, she told an interviewer, "and I admire his honesty because he's absolutely right." Years later, however, de Havilland said that during a private screening of
Elizabeth and Essex, an astounded Davis had exclaimed, "Damn it! The man
could act!" Warners put Flynn in another Western,
Virginia City (1940), set near the end of the Civil War. Flynn played Union officer Kerry Bradford. In an article for TCM, Jeremy Arnold wrote: "Ironically, the
Randolph Scott role [as Captain Vance Irby, commandant of the prison camp where Bradford was a prisoner of war] was originally conceived for Flynn.... In fact,
Virginia City was plagued with script, production and personnel problems all along. Shooting began without a finished script, angering Flynn, who complained unsuccessfully to the studio about it. Flynn disliked the temperamental Curtiz and tried to have him removed from the film. Curtiz didn't like Flynn (or co-star
Miriam Hopkins) either. Humphrey Bogart apparently did not care for Flynn or Randolph Scott. Making matters worse was the steady rain that fell for two of the three weeks of location shooting near Flagstaff, Arizona. Flynn detested rain and was physically unwell for quite some time because of it. As Peter Valenti has written, "Errol's frustration at the role can be easily understood: he changed from antagonist to protagonist, from Southern to Northern officer, almost as the film was being shot. [This] intensified Errol's feelings of inadequacy as a performer and his contempt for studio operation". It was not, but
The Sea Hawk made a profit of $977,000 on that budget of $1.7 million. in
Santa Fe Trail (1940) Another financial success was the Western
Santa Fe Trail (1940), with de Havilland and
Ronald Reagan and directed by Curtiz, which grossed $2,147,663 in the U.S., making it Warner Brothers' second-biggest hit of 1940. At the zenith of his career, Flynn was voted the fourteenth most popular star in the U.S. and the seventh most popular in Britain according to
Motion Picture Daily. According to
Variety, he was the fourth-biggest star in the U.S. and the fourth-biggest box-office attraction overseas as well. Flynn consistently ranked among Warner Bros.'s top stars. In 1937, he was the studio's No. 1 star, ahead of
Paul Muni and
Bette Davis. In 1938, he was No. 3, just behind Davis and Muni. In 1939, he was No. 3 again, this time behind Davis and
James Cagney. In 1940 and 1941, he was Warner Bros.'s No. 1 top box-office draw. In 1942, he was No. 2, behind Cagney. In 1943, he was No. 2, behind
Humphrey Bogart. Warners allowed Flynn a change of pace from a long string of period pieces in a light-hearted mystery,
Footsteps in the Dark (1941).
Los Angeles Times' Edwin Schallert wrote: "Errol Flynn becomes a modern for a change in a whodunit film and the excursion proves eminently worth-while... an exceptionally clever and amusing exhibit ..." The film was not a big success; far more popular was the military drama
Dive Bomber (1941), his last film with Curtiz. In later years,
Footsteps in the Dark co-star
Ralph Bellamy recalled Flynn at this time as "a darling. Couldn't or wouldn't take himself seriously. And he drank like there was no tomorrow. Had a bum ticker from the malaria he'd picked up in Australia. Also, a spot of TB. Tried to enlist but flunked his medical, so he drank some more. Knew he wouldn't live into old age. He really had a ball in
Footsteps in the Dark. He was so glad to be out of swashbucklers". Flynn became a
naturalised American citizen on 14 August 1942. Flynn was mocked by reporters and critics as a "draft dodger" because the studio refused to admit that their star, promoted for his physical beauty and athleticism, had been disqualified due to health problems. Flynn started a new long-term relationship with a director when he teamed with
Raoul Walsh in
They Died with Their Boots On (1942), a biopic of
George Armstrong Custer. De Havilland was his co-star in this, the last of eight films they made together. The movie grossed $2.55 million in the U.S. alone, making it Warner Bros.' second-biggest hit of 1942. Flynn's first World War II film was
Desperate Journey (1942), directed by Walsh, in which he played an Australian for the first time. It was another big hit. The role of
Gentleman Jim Corbett in Walsh's
Gentleman Jim (1942) was one of Flynn's favourites. Warner Bros. purchased the rights to make a film of Corbett's life from his widow, Vera, specifically for their handsome, athletic and charming leading man. The movie bears little resemblance to the boxer's life, but the story was a crowd-pleaser. Despite—or perhaps because of—its departure from reality,
Gentleman Jim packed the theatres. According to
Variety, it was the third Errol Flynn movie to gross at least $2 million for Warner Bros. in 1942. Flynn eagerly undertook extensive boxing training for this film, working with Buster Wiles and
Mushy Callahan. Callahan's remembrances were documented in Charles Higham's
Errol Flynn: The Untold Story. "Errol tended to use his right fist. I had to teach him to use his left and to move very fast on his feet...Luckily, he had excellent footwork, he was dodgy, [and] he could duck faster than anybody I saw. And by the time I was through with him, he'd jab, jab, jab with his left like a veteran". Flynn took the role seriously and was rarely doubled during the boxing sequences. In
The Two Lives of Errol Flynn by
Michael Freedland, Alexis Smith told of taking the star aside: "'It's so silly, working all day and then playing all night and dissipating yourself. Don't you want to live a long life?' Errol was his usually apparently unconcerned self: 'I'm only interested in this half,' he told her. 'I don't care for the future. Flynn collapsed on set on 15 July 1942, while filming a boxing scene with Ward Bond. Filming was shut down while he recovered; he returned a week later. In his autobiography,
My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn describes the episode as a mild heart attack. In September 1942, Warners announced that Flynn had signed a new contract with the studio for four films a year, one of which he would also produce. In
Edge of Darkness (1943), set in Nazi-occupied Norway, Flynn played a Norwegian resistance fighter, a role originally intended for
Edward G. Robinson. Director
Lewis Milestone later recalled, "Flynn kept underrating himself. If you wanted to embarrass him, all you had to do was to tell him how great he was in a scene he'd just finished playing: He'd blush like a young girl and muttering 'I'm no actor' would go away somewhere and sit down". With a box office gross of $2.3 million in the U.S., it was Warner Bros.'s eighth-biggest movie of the year. In Warners' all-star musical comedy fund-raiser for the
Stage Door Canteen,
Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943), Flynn sings and dances as a cockney seaman boasting to his pub mates of how he's won the war in "That's What You Jolly Well Get", the only musical number that was ever performed by Flynn on screen.
Statutory rape charges In late 1942, two 17-year-old girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, separately accused Flynn of
statutory rape at the
Bel Air home of Flynn's friend
Frederick McEvoy, and on board Flynn's yacht
Sirocco, respectively. The scandal received immense press attention. Many of Flynn's fans founded organisations to publicly protest the accusation. One such group, the American Boys' Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn—ABCDEF—accumulated a substantial membership that included
William F. Buckley Jr. The trial took place in late January and early February 1943. Satterlee testified that she had sex twice with Flynn aboard his boat when she was 15 years of age. Photographer
Peter Stackpole, who joined Flynn's yacht cruise at
Catalina Island on assignment for
Life magazine, testified that Flynn and Satterlee spent hours together below decks, with the crew staying above, and that Satterlee was angry with Flynn and sullen afterward. Flynn denied everything, and blamed Stackpole's photography assignment for the presence of Satterlee on the yacht. Flynn's attorney,
Jerry Giesler, impugned the accusers' character and morals and accused them of numerous indiscretions, including affairs with married men and, in Satterlee's case, an abortion (which was illegal at the time). He noted that the two girls, who said they did not know each other, filed their complaints within days of each other, although the episodes allegedly took place more than a year apart. He implied that the girls had cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of avoiding prosecution themselves. Flynn was acquitted, but the trial's widespread coverage and lurid overtones permanently damaged his carefully cultivated screen image as an idealised romantic leading player.
After the trial Northern Pursuit (1943), also with Walsh as director, was a war film set in Canada. He then made a film for his own production company, Thomson Productions, where he had a say in the choice of vehicle, director and cast, plus a portion of the profits.
Uncertain Glory (1944), a war-time drama set in France with Flynn as a criminal who redeems himself, was not a success, earning only a modest gross of $1.5 million. Thomson Productions made no more movies. Still, Flynn earned $175,000 in 1943. With Walsh he made
Objective, Burma! in 1944, released in 1945, a war film set during the
Burma Campaign. Although popular, it was withdrawn in Britain after protests that the role played by British troops was not given sufficient credit. A Western,
San Antonio (1945), was also very popular, grossing $3.553 million in the U.S. and was Warner Bros.' third-biggest hit of the year.
Post-war career Flynn tried comedy again with
Never Say Goodbye (1946), a comedy of remarriage opposite
Eleanor Parker, but it was not a success, grossing $1.77 million in the U.S. In 1946, Flynn published an adventure novel,
Showdown, and earned a reported $184,000 ().
Cry Wolf (1947) was a thriller with Flynn in a seemingly more villainous role. It was a moderate success at the box office. He was in a melodrama,
Escape Me Never (1947), filmed in early 1946 and released in late 1947, which lost money. More popular was a Western with Walsh and
Ann Sheridan,
Silver River (1948). This was a hit, although its high cost meant it was not very profitable. Flynn drank so heavily on the set that he was effectively disabled after noon-hour, and a disgusted Walsh terminated their business relationship. Warners tried returning Flynn to swashbucklers and the result was
Adventures of Don Juan (1948). The film was very successful, becoming Warner Bros.' 4th-biggest hit of the year. As with some other Flynn films, it was more popular in Europe than the States, grossing $3.1 million there and $2.1 million in the U.S., with total earnings of $4.7 million on an approximate budget of $3.25 million. However, from this point on, Warner Bros. reduced the budgets of Flynn's films. In November 1947, Flynn signed a 15-year contract with
Warner Bros. for $225,000 per film. His income totalled $214,000 that year, and $200,000 in 1948.
Later Warner films '' (1949) After a cameo in Warner Bros.' Technicolor musical comedy ''
It's a Great Feeling (1949), Flynn was borrowed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to appear in That Forsyte Woman (1949), which made $1.855 million in the U.S. and $1.842 million abroad which was the eleventh-biggest hit of the year for MGM. He went on a three-month holiday then made two medium-budget Westerns for Warners, Montana'' (1950), which made $2.1 million and was Warner Bros.' fifth-biggest movie of the year, and
Rocky Mountain (1950), which made $1.7 million in the U.S. and was Warner Bros.' ninth-biggest movie of the year. He returned to MGM for
Kim (1950), one of Flynn's most popular and profitable movies from this period, grossing $5.348 million ($2.896 million in the U.S. plus $2.452 million abroad, on a budget of $2.056 million) while making it MGM's fifth-biggest movie of the year by box office and eleventh biggest overall for Hollywood. It was shot partly in India. On his way home, he shot some scenes for a film he produced,
Hello God (1951), directed by William Marshall; it was never released. For many years, this was considered a lost film, but in 2013, a copy was discovered in the basement of the surrogate court of New York City. Two of seven cans of the movie had deteriorated beyond hope, but five survived and were sent to the George Eastman House film archive for restoration. Flynn wrote and co-produced his next film, the low-budget
Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951), directed by Marshall and shot in France. Flynn wrote articles, novels and scripts but never had the discipline to turn writing into a full-time career. Flynn wound up suing Marshall over both movies. For Warners, he appeared in an adventure tale set in the Philippines,
Mara Maru (1952). That studio released a documentary of a 1946 voyage he had taken on his yacht,
Cruise of the Zaca (1952). In August 1951, he signed a one-picture deal to make a movie for Universal in exchange for a percentage of the profits: this was
Against All Flags (1952), a popular swashbuckler. In 1952, he was seriously ill with
hepatitis, resulting in liver damage. In England, he made another swashbuckler for Warners,
The Master of Ballantrae (1953). After that, Warners ended their contract with him and their association that had lasted for 18 years and 35 films.
Europe Flynn relocated his career to Europe, starting with a swashbuckler in Italy,
Crossed Swords (1954). This inspired him to produce a similar movie in that country,
The Story of William Tell (1953), directed by
Jack Cardiff with himself in the title role. The movie fell apart during production, was never finished, and ruined Flynn financially. Desperate for money, he accepted an offer from
Herbert Wilcox to support
Anna Neagle in a British musical,
Lilacs in the Spring (1954). Also shot in Britain was
The Dark Avenger (1955), for Allied Artists, in which Flynn played
Edward the Black Prince. Wilcox used him with Neagle again in ''
King's Rhapsody (1955), but it was not a success, ending plans for further Wilcox-Flynn collaborations. In 1956 he presented and sometimes performed in the British-filmed television anthology series The Errol Flynn Theatre'', perhaps most notably in the episode entitled "The Strange Auction". Paired not merely with his then current wife,
Patrice Wymore (with whom he had appeared previously and would do so again during the course of this series), but also—in their first and only onscreen collaboration—with son
Sean (product of Flynn's first marriage, to actress
Lili Damita), it is precisely this performance—or, rather, one specific moment therein—to which author Thomas McNulty devotes the final paragraph of his 2004 Flynn biography. There is a moment in
The Errol Flynn Theatre that is symbolic of his life. In the episode titled “The Strange Auction,” Patrice Wymore asks him: “What is it that makes you keep wandering around?” And for a moment Flynn’s eyes come alive and a weary smile lights up his features. “I don’t know,” he says, “I’ve often wondered myself. Chasing some sort of lucky star, I reckon. It always seems to be just over the horizon.”
Return to Hollywood Flynn received an offer to make his first Hollywood film in five years:
Istanbul (1957), for Universal, which was not well received. He made a thriller shot in Cuba,
The Big Boodle (1957), then had his best role in a long time in the blockbuster
Ernest Hemingway adaptation
The Sun Also Rises (1957) for producer
Darryl F. Zanuck, which made $3 million in the U.S. Flynn's performance in the latter was well received and led to a series of roles where he played to type, assaying drunks. Warner Bros. cast him as
John Barrymore in
Too Much, Too Soon (1958), and Zanuck used him again in
The Roots of Heaven which made $3 million (1958). He met with
Stanley Kubrick to discuss a role in
Lolita, but nothing came of it. Flynn went to Cuba in late 1958 to film the self-produced
B film Cuban Rebel Girls, where he met
Fidel Castro and was an enthusiastic supporter of the
Cuban Revolution. He wrote a series of newspaper and magazine articles for the
New York Journal American and other publications documenting his time in Cuba with Castro. Flynn was the only journalist who happened to be with Castro the night Batista fled the country, and Castro learned of his victory in the revolution. Many of these pieces were lost until 2009 when they were rediscovered in a collection at the
University of Texas at Austin's
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. He appeared in a short titled
Cuban Story: The Truth About Fidel Castro Revolution (1959), his last-known work. ==Personal life==