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mabelmoments:

Errol Flynn and Bes Mudi aboard the Zaca.

via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats

[Insert sniggery joke about Errol and his love of pussy here. I would never be so crass]

Fun facts time, Mabes! I’ve been to a party in the morgue where he was autopsied! Here’s a little something from the History of Vancouver website:

October 9 [1959] Movie actor Errol Flynn arrived in Vancouver with his teenage companion Beverly Aadland. Jobs for Flynn were now few and far between and he was, understandably, continually plagued with money problems. He came to Vancouver as a result of a call he had received earlier from an old friend, stock promoter George Caldough. It happens that at the time Flynn called Caldough was in a financial bind himself. As he later wrote in Weekend Magazine—a long, cheerful piece he wrote in prison—Caldough was desperate “for some new vision to bail me out and put my company on an equitable footing—but what?”

Flynn’s call gave him the answer. The actor wanted to know if Caldough was still interested in buying his yacht, the Zaca. (Caldough had admired the boat extravagantly.) He was, and arranged to meet Flynn in Hollywood the following week. Caldough had recently read about an American company that intended, through public subscription of $1.9 million, to finance a deep-sea treasure-hunting expedition off the coast of Spain. Caldough, his brand churning, began thinking about the Zaca, with ERROL FLYNN at the helm, searching for sunken Spanish gold. That would raise one hell of a public subscription.

In a fever of excitement and speculation Caldough flew to Hollywood and met Flynn.

He was shocked by the actor’s appearance. “We hadn’t met in two years, but he had aged 20 … He followed me to Vancouver — accompanied by his 17-year-old friend, Beverly Aadland — after about 10 days. If anything, his appearance had deteriorated and he seemed to need help in just getting around. But his personal charm was unabated …”

Flynn and Aadland stayed with the Caldough family on Eyremount in British Properties for several days during that October 1959 visit. “He seemed to be happiest when reminiscing, watching TV or talking to my children,” Caldough wrote. Even though his glory days were done, Flynn’s visit excited Vancouver mightily. He was delighted when Orpheum Theatre manager Ivan Ackery went to great lengths to obtain and show a short film Flynn had made about the Zaca in 1952, and phoned Ackery to thank him.

Flynn was supposed to go to New York for a TV show, but his famed disregard for time was in full flower. The Caldoughs half-heartedly tried for three days to get him on the flight to New York, but they kept missing it. There was always another party, more people to entertain, more Hollywood stories to tell.

Finally—it was October 14, 1959—Flynn said he really did have to go and suggested they leave for the airport three hours early.

En route, Flynn began to experience severe pain in his back and legs. Caldough, who was driving, veered off and headed for the West End apartment—at 210-1310 Burnaby Street—of a friend, Dr. Grant Gould. Astonishingly, not long after their arrival, a few people materialized and another party began!

Flynn, who was standing against a wall to relieve the pain in his back, regaled the group with stories of the Hollywood figures he had known, especially John Barrymore and W.C. Fields (both, tellingly, heavy drinkers). He was, apparently, a superb story teller. But then he stopped and announced he was going to lie down for an hour and then would take everyone out for dinner. He moved into the doctor’s bedroom and lay down on the floor.

When Beverly Aadland looked in on him a little later to see how he was, she found him trembling, his face blue. She could hardly hear his heart. Her screams brought the doctor … but it was already too late.

Al Gowan, a member of the inhalator squad (summoned by one of the guests, Art Cameron, manager of the Sylvia Hotel at the time), said “Flynn was dead before we got there. The man was a living skeleton. His liver was gone, his heart was gone.”

The death certificate, dated October 23, indicated myocardial infarction, coronary thrombosis, coronary atherosclerosis, liver degeneration, liver sclerosis and diverticulosis of the colon as the causes of death.

Flynn’s autobiography came out that same year. It was titled My Wicked, Wicked Ways. They caught up with him in Vancouver. He was 50.

From Backstage Vancouver page 106ff.