Athletic, dashing, and heroic onscreen, and a notorious bon vivant in his personal life, Errol Flynn ranked among Hollywood's most popular and highly paid stars from the mid-'30s through the early '40s, and his costume adventures thrilled audiences around the world. Unfortunately, a combination of hard-living, bad financial investments, and scandal brought Flynn's career to a tragic end in 1959.
He was born on the isle of Tasmania, the son of distinguished Australian marine biologist/zoologist Prof. Theodore Thomson Flynn. In school, Flynn was more drawn to athletics than academics and he was expelled from a number of exclusive Australian and British schools. At age 15, he found work as a shipping clerk in Sydney, and the following year he sailed to New Guinea to work in the government service, but the daily grind proved not to the adventuresome Flynn's taste, so he took off to prospect for gold. In 1930, Flynn returned to Sydney and purchased a boat, and he and three friends embarked upon a seven-month voyage to New Guinea. Upon arrival, Flynn became the overseer of a tobacco plantation and also wrote a column for the Sydney Bulletin.
More