Errol Flynn, one of cinema's more colorful actors during the Golden Age of Hollywood, was known for his swashbuckling and adventuresome roles as well as his frequent womanizing and carousing. Flynn's film debut as a 23-year-old actor was in the low budgeted movie, March 1933's "In The Wake of the Bounty," cinema's first movie with sound to be made on the 1789 British ship mutiny in the Pacific Ocean.
Born 1909 in Tasmania, Australia, Flynn had no acting experience when filmmaker Charles Chauvel scoured for a young man to play Fletcher Christian, second-in-command on the HMS Bounty.
Reportedly Chauvel spotted Flynn's picture in a newspaper showing him with on a wrecked yacht. Another account has John Warwick, an actor in the movie, recommending Flynn as being the ideal Fletcher character.
From "seafaring folk," Flynn had a passion for boats throughout his life. As a troublesome student in several schools, he was kicked out from each one for his hyper behavior. Flynn finally buckled down in his mid-teens to attend an English private boarding school for two years before returning to Australia, where he worked in a series of jobs, including a sheep castrator and a fisherman. His large circle of friends included Warwick, who saw Flynn's appeal for film in his good looks and extraverted behavior.
"In The Wake of the Bounty" was small Australian studio Expeditionary Films' first movie. The movie's introduction says the studio's feature films were travelogues, re-enacting historical events before they segued into the actual places these incidents occurred. The Australian film was second movie in cinema about the mutiny, the first an early 1916 silent. Flynn, who claimed kinship to the Bounty officer Fletcher, could never offer any proof to this lineage. But it's ironic he personally identified so closely to the officer who in the face of authority refused to bend because he felt was right.
"In The Wake of the Mutiny," although a failure at the box office, did serve as an inspiration for Flynn to pursue an acting profession. He immediately went to England where he was able to get a spot on a repertory company, receiving invaluable acting training. He performed on the London and Glasgow stage, and earned the lead in 'Murder at Monte Carlo,' a low budgeted (now lost) Warner Brothers film made in England. Its producer, Irving Asher, was so impressed by Flynn's acting he contacted Warner Brothers Studio to offer him a contract, which it did. He journeyed to Hollywood via an ocean liner in 1935, where he met his future first wife, French-American actress Lil Damita, on board. 1935 proved pivotal in Flynn's career, because after a couple of minor roles in Hollywood, he received the lead as Peter Blood in the swashbuckler movie "Captain Blood."
Born 1909 in Tasmania, Australia, Flynn had no acting experience when filmmaker Charles Chauvel scoured for a young man to play Fletcher Christian, second-in-command on the HMS Bounty.
Reportedly Chauvel spotted Flynn's picture in a newspaper showing him with on a wrecked yacht. Another account has John Warwick, an actor in the movie, recommending Flynn as being the ideal Fletcher character.
From "seafaring folk," Flynn had a passion for boats throughout his life. As a troublesome student in several schools, he was kicked out from each one for his hyper behavior. Flynn finally buckled down in his mid-teens to attend an English private boarding school for two years before returning to Australia, where he worked in a series of jobs, including a sheep castrator and a fisherman. His large circle of friends included Warwick, who saw Flynn's appeal for film in his good looks and extraverted behavior.
"In The Wake of the Bounty" was small Australian studio Expeditionary Films' first movie. The movie's introduction says the studio's feature films were travelogues, re-enacting historical events before they segued into the actual places these incidents occurred. The Australian film was second movie in cinema about the mutiny, the first an early 1916 silent. Flynn, who claimed kinship to the Bounty officer Fletcher, could never offer any proof to this lineage. But it's ironic he personally identified so closely to the officer who in the face of authority refused to bend because he felt was right.
"In The Wake of the Mutiny," although a failure at the box office, did serve as an inspiration for Flynn to pursue an acting profession. He immediately went to England where he was able to get a spot on a repertory company, receiving invaluable acting training. He performed on the London and Glasgow stage, and earned the lead in 'Murder at Monte Carlo,' a low budgeted (now lost) Warner Brothers film made in England. Its producer, Irving Asher, was so impressed by Flynn's acting he contacted Warner Brothers Studio to offer him a contract, which it did. He journeyed to Hollywood via an ocean liner in 1935, where he met his future first wife, French-American actress Lil Damita, on board. 1935 proved pivotal in Flynn's career, because after a couple of minor roles in Hollywood, he received the lead as Peter Blood in the swashbuckler movie "Captain Blood."