“Come, all you young men with your wicked wicked ways, The hardcover binding is nearly worn out - a heavily-read book, though the last checkout stamp in the front reads “Sep 30 ’76.” The title is Flynn’s winking quote from an old ditty: So last month I picked up My Wicked, Wicked Ways from Cincinnati’s always-magnificent Mercantile Library.
The release of the latest Robin Hood film (in which Russell Crowe turns the jolly scalawag into a morose mercenary) seemed like a good time to read up on Errol Flynn, whose 1938 Robin Hood has been the gold standard for years. Before that he had been in exile in Europe after a series of legal hassles, bad business deals, feuds with studio heads, and a change in public tastes.Īnd before THAT he was Hollywood’s handsomest star and its biggest scoundrel, the fun-loving natural who did his own stunts, the swashbuckler who thrilled audiences in Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood, and the womanizer whose lust for young women led to a 1943 statutory rape trial that Flynn survived only by the skin of his teeth and the dimple of his chin.
Posthumous autobiography, it turned out: Flynn died at age 50 on a stranger’s bedroom floor in Canada before his finished book could be published.Īt the time, Flynn was in the midst of something like a comeback, having been recalled to Hollywood to play a succession of dissipated drunks and lechers - roles Flynn admits he was suited for by type. So begins My Wicked, Wicked Ways, the jaw-dropping 1959 autobiography by Errol Flynn.
I particularly detest books that begin something like, “Ah, there was joy and happiness in the quaint Tasmanian home of Professor Flynn when the first bellowings of lusty little Errol were heard…” So if you are interested, let’s get down to the meat of the matter.
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