Born 1909 in Battery Point, Tasmania, Australian actor Errol Flynn was considered the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks, he achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Flynn was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland, and reputation for his womanizing and hedonistic personal life. His most notable roles include the eponymous hero in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which was later named by the American Film Institute as the 18th greatest hero in American film history, the lead role in Captain Blood (1935), Major Geoffrey Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and the hero in a number of Westerns such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and San Antonio (1945).
Flynn developed a reputation for womanizing, hard drinking, chain smoking and, for a time in the 1940s, narcotics abuse. He was linked romantically with Lupe Vélez, Marlene Dietrich and Dolores del Río, among many others. He was also a regular attendee of William Randolph Hearst’s equally lavish affairs at Hearst Castle, though he was once asked to leave after becoming excessively intoxicated.
Flynn died of myocardial infarction in 1959 at the age of 50. These vintage portrait photos show a young and handsome Errol Flynn in the 1930s and 1940s.
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