My first assignment for Pirates Magazine was the "Flynnterview," an interview with Errol Flynn's daughter, Rory. Eventually, I had my own column (with illustrator Nikki Carey), The Art of Revenge, which shared arcane techniques for creating pirate-themed props and art. Pirates Magazine was a print publication with national distribution.
The Private Life of a Swashbuckler.
Bullet Valmont talks to Rory Flynn.
Mulholland Drive is a meandering, serpentine road which runs along the top of the Hollywood Hills dividing Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley. It was here, in the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, that Errol Flynn built a house which became legendary as the scene of wild parties, carnal conquests, fist fights, and one morbid tale of body-snatching. But much of Errol Flynn's life was not the stuff of legend, and has usually been overlooked by his biographers.
Rory Flynn's book, 'The Baron of Mulholland' tells of her childhood in that famous house, of the romance between her parents, (much of it in their own words as her mother apparently saved every letter Errol wrote to her),
and of the Errol Flynn we rarely hear about; the father, the husband, the family man.
I had the pleasure of meeting Rory (his daughter with second wife Nora Eddington) nine years ago when my pirate crew were supporting her efforts to obtain an Academy Award for her father.
I was, naturally, honored to do anything for the cause. Errol Flynn's movies and his autobiography -which tells of exploits exceeding anything he did on film- had inspired me (and others, I'm sure) in situations drunk or dire, thru life, to always ask, "What Would Errol Flynn Do?" The answer, inevitably was, "Reject mediocrity! Embrace adventure at every chance! Carry yourself with a confident swagger no matter how bankrupt your finances are. Protect women, and respect them but don't be ruled by them or pushed around by their nonsense. Most of all: love life and always seek the humor in even the worst situations." Errol Flynn knew how to live life. He was the definitive swashbuckler, on screen and off. He was indeed, as one of my co-pirates described him: "The Patron Saint of Swashbucklers."
With that Flynnian philosophy in mind, my crew began circulating a petition and contrived a plan to deliver it to the Academy by sailing a pirate ship down Wilshire Blvd. to their press conference announcing the award nominees. We would create a great spectacle to get their attention and once all the cameras were pointed at us we would unveil a long scroll of thousands of signatures demanding Academy recognition for Errol Flynn. Never mind that we didn't actually have a pirate ship capable of traveling on city streets like so many grandstanding parade pirates do. All we had was a VW Bug with a jolly roger sticker on the back of it but that was a trivial detail to be solved later. We were fired and inspired and determined to do Errol proud.
Our plan was scuttled when the Academy informed Rory that they never have, and would not, bestow awards to any recipients posthumously. No further explanation. There's your Hollywood gratitude for thirty years of great movies.
I spoke with Rory at her home in the Hollywood Hills, not far from the famous Mulholland house..
Bullet- Since this is Pirates magazine we can try to keep things to the subject of pirates. Yet I think it was those drinking, sailing, adventuring elements of Errol Flynn's life that interest people today just as much as his pirate movies.
Rory- I'd like to keep it in the vein of pirates but I don't really know how to do that. I guess you could say my dad did more pyrate movies than he did others? No, he did a lot of cowboy movies, he did about eight cowboy movies, but he did a lot, when you think about it he did 'Captain Blood', 'Sea Hawk', 'Adventures of Captain Fabian'..
B- 'Against All Flags'.
R- Yeah, there's gotta be at least about eight pirate films, but only a couple of them are good and the rest, you know, he was old and he shouldn't really have been doing them.
B- Why do you think he continued with it?
R- He needed the money probably and, you know, We'll do a lot of things to get other things accomplished so I think one of the reasons he did a lot of the work, I would imagine was to get his other (William Tell) movie done. In between all his wives sucking him dry for all his money. It's hard to keep a toll on it when you're a man with families and lots of kids.
B- How did he feel about making 'Don Juan' at the age of forty? Did he feel it exploited the public's perception of him?
R- I know he felt ridiculous getting in those tights again at forty. I think my dad, where he was successful in his movies is when he really felt the character. And he really was Don Juan and that was easy for him to be that charming, wonderful, cavalier cad because that's how he was percieved anyway by the public. And he did look good in tights and he definitely was charming with women.
I think Don Juan had a lot to do with him being here at home, he shot it here (in Hollywood). And my mother's in that movie.
B- She played the woman in the carriage.
R- Yeah, so she was on the set with him all the time. We grew up right here on Mulholland, and Warner Brothers was close and that was during the time he was actually a family man. He was working near home and coming home every night for dinner and they were having parties on the weekends and we were all running around crazy with animals up there and horses and monkeys and all the stuff he brought home from sets. That was probably one of the best times of his life because he was really happy. He had it all, he had a wife that loved him, he had children, and he was being this family man, I would say about seven years of his life he was very happy in that situation.
B- Why do you think that ended?
R- Why? Because men, in general, basically think with their (external appendages). I hate to say it, but you know, it pretty much leads them around. You have a guy that is turning women down all the time. And they're still coming in his trailer and.. So, with my mom she just said: "Don't bring it home. I know you'll do whatever you want. If that makes you happy, just don't bring it home." and I think she just got tired of it, tired of the phone calls from women. I mean, it's my mother's fault too. Why would you marry somebody like that? It would just be such a nightmare to marry such a good-looking guy. I'd rather have an ugly guy.
B- You had quite a menagerie at Mulholland, didn't you?
R- Yeah, he used to bring all the animals from the films that he made. He'd bring them home. It was eleven acres. So we had horses. He brought home that monkey from 'That Forsyte Woman'. The monkey was horrible. You know, monkeys are mean, they're like horrible rats. That monkey, my grandmother had to take care of it and whenever he got in the house of course he went through all of it, everything was undone, the cupboards he'd throw everything out and try to eat everything. We had to keep him locked out. But he was really mean to the kids, he would get up in the bushes and we would get on the swings and he'd come and pull our hair right off. I picture my grandmother going "No! No! Don't do that!" and he's like swinging on the swing, grabbing my hair and pulling me off the swing.
So I don't know why he let them run free, they hit all the kids and my poor grandmother, with a broom was always chasing this monkey out of there. But, anyway, he loved animals, he saved them. He would welcome all the animals. It was fun up there, growing up, it really was.
B- Did you get to go sailing with your dad?
R- Oh, yeah! We used to go about every weekend. They didn't like us to come because we were always a nightmare on the boat. My grandmother, oh, she hated it. "Oh, you're gonna fall overboard and nobody'll care! They're all drinking."
B- One reason that movies like 'The Dawn Patrol' and 'Adventures of Robin Hood' and 'The Sea Hawk' are so much fun to watch is that it seems everyone was having such fun while making them.
R- Yeah, they were. There was hardly a movie where my dad wasn't having a good time, until the end. And I still even think one of his best movies is 'The Sun Also Rises', best in the sense, in his older years.
I have this documentary, 'The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn'. I'm gonna give you a copy before you write this interview because there's things in there I never saw before. And one of the most interesting things in it is my dad comes back from New York on a train, it's all documentary footage, he's getting off the train, there's all these press there and you hear them say: "Errol, what do you think? You got nominated Best Supporting Actor for 'Sun Also Rises'?" And you see my dad, he was kind of like a little bummed at first and you see his face just change into this thing that makes you realize that he really did care. This is the clarity moment of "Did Errol care or did he not?" Was he really that "F**k it all," kind of guy or did he care what his peers thought? This shows exactly, he really cared.
How they pulled the nomination, I don't know. But he was so proud, you could see it. He's going: "Yeah, guys, it's really cool." I never saw him get that way, and after all the work and stuff he did, it really made me cry because I realized it how much he really cared about acting. It wasn't just a fluke thing he did for a couple years, this was his whole life. So that's a sad moment.
Unfortunately he didn't know the rollover. If he had waited, he would have gotten it all back. But when you're in it you can't see it very clear.
B- What do you think of the recent pirate movies and what do you see as the differences between a character like Jack Sparrow and a character like Captain Blood?
R- In a way he's (Jack Sparrow) brought it back into the limelight again, which is a good thing.
I think that the difference is that they really made these (Pirates of the Caribbean) movies for kids. They're like cartoons, it's not a real movie, wheras in my dad's day it was a real movie, adults were watching it. These Johnny Depp things, they are just for kids, with all the monsters, it's like a little kid's movie, so it has nothing to do with what my dad did. My dad, they took characters; Robin Hood, Don Juan, all these guys were real people and they were adults. Maybe not Captain Blood..
B- Will you tell us about the inspirations for your book?
R- The reason I wrote it is that I had a lot of older fans -not you guys that are pirates, it's way different with you- but the ones that are still alive that actually liked my dad or who had a crush on him. So these are the ones who said "I've read every book. Please, we just want something personal, you know, something real." So that's really why I wrote the book, to give them something else to read about, which was who my father was privately, with us, for that small amount of time. I'm not trying to tell anybody who he was, I'm just telling my memories.
They've asked me; "won't you do a biography on him?" Well eight-hundred biographies have already been done. I didn't even know my dad that way, he died when I was twelve. All I knew of him was a father, in those young years, how he treated us, how he raised us, how he disciplined us. What he thought was important: our manners, our politeness. Being fair, that was his main thing: you're fair and you treat animals well. Because you'll treat humans well if you treat animals well. This is what he taught us..
B- He was one of the first stars to protest the "running-W" wires that were used to trip horses. Didn't he even quit one of his films and refuse to return unless they stopped tripping the horses?
R- Yeah, the trip-wires. That was in 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. But, you know, he's Australian. What do australians love more than animals? Nothing. Drinking and animals, that's it. So, I think we all inherited that, and that was good.
B- You'll be traveling to Errol's home island of Tasmania soon.
R- I'm going down there in November. It's his one hundredth birthday in 2009, and they're giving him a (postage) stamp, they're republishing my book, they're having a huge ceremony in Tasmania. The orchestra from Sidney is coming. I'm trying to get organized so I dedicate them all the writings of my dad and put it in the museum because that's where he's from. I can't think of a better place. They really love him down there and they really care about him.
This Hollywood, he's such a black sheep here. There was one time about two or three years ago at the Academy Awards when they showed the first hundred years of film clips where my dad wasn't in it. The Academy's never recognized my dad. It's a sad thing, you do such great work and then you're treated like sh*t. Warner Brothers wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for my dad.
And there (Tasmania), it's wonderful. They really love him, respect and honor him the way that he should be honored here, so I'm not leaving them anything here. It's going to Tasmania. I was thinking about Ireland but he's still not connected to Ireland like he is to Tasmania. So that's what I'm going to do to make this a really great ceremony. It's going to happen on his birthday, (June 20th) 2009, so sail over on your pirate boat!
The Next Flynneration:
Rory Flynn began modeling at age 17, finding success on the runways of New York, London, and Paris. She became a photographer at age 25 and met Sean's father in Sri Lanka while shooting stills for a film he was producing. They have been married since 1987. Rory's book, 'The Baron of Mulholland - A Daughter Remembers Errol Flynn' is available via her website at: InLikeFlynn.com
Rory's son, Sean Rio Flynn, is 18 years old and has been an actor since age 7. For four years he portrayed Chase, one of the leads on the television series 'Zoey 101'. He also plays guitar and piano and is currently writing and composing music while waiting for his next acting role. Rory says: "He's not going to be a doctor or lawyer. He'll be in the arts. He's definitely a Flynn."
Luke Flynn, the son of Errol's daughter, Arnella, is 31 years old and has been a successful model since age ten. He is currently pursuing an acting career in London.
(Bullet Valmont is the scriptwriter/choreographer of Revenge From The Sea. His annual 'Sea of Darkness' tall-ship cruise is one of the most popular pirate-themed events in southern California. Bullet can be found online at RevengeFromTheSea.com.)
The Art of REVENGE
by Bullet Valmont and Nikki Carey.
Being an instructive, and illustrative Exposition of the Author's Methods, Inspirations, and Frustrations concerning the Fabrication of the GIBBET CAGE.
This may surprise you, but the California pirate scene is more than just petty drama, castrating litigation, and egomaniacs with small-sword complexes. It's also home to plenty of film-industry refugees utilizing arcane techniques to create really cool piratical art.
Nikki Carey was building monsters for The X-Files when she came aboard Revenge From The Sea. She's bestowed her sanguinary talents upon our gore-splattered voyages ever since, designing all manner of accessories to embellish our performances, from flags and tavern signs to a severed tongue and the captain's head. But the first of these creations was the gibbet cage.
With no precedent to consult, we had to design the cage as we went along. Many approaches were tried and squalls weathered and much beer was consumed in frustration before we worked thru every complication. Here in Pirates Magazine, however, we'll be sparing you such toil as we'll be sharing all our hard-learned methods of cage making and taking you point by perilous point thru the construction of your own.
I'll warn you at the start; this is not an easy project. But then, if it were easy everybody would have a gibbet cage and it wouldn't be nearly as cool or prestigious, would it? That said, if you pay close heed to my inebriated instruction and Nikki's meticulously rendered diagrams you should be able to breeze thru this like trade winds thru a tattered jib.
Among all history's gruesome relics, the gibbet cage is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasant to behold and, in my arrogant opinion, every pirate crew would benefit to have one, or several, hanging around.
So go forth now, we implore you, and create!
Nikki Carey (illustrations) is a special effects artist, sculptress and illustrator. Her film and television work includes: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5, Starship Troopers, The X-Files, Underworld and 300. She is now based in Portland where she helms BoilerGoth.com.
Bullet Valmont (writer) is the scriptwriter/choreorapher of Revenge From The Sea and author of the advice blog WenchWhisperer.com. He's been performing as a pirate since 1993.
