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Errol Flynn: The true story of Australia's Hollywood icon
Errol Flynn was one of the first larger-than-life celebrities, an icon of the screen. This major biography uncovers the real story behind the well-cultivated Hollywood myths of this Australian-born actor.
Handsome and charismatic, Errol Flynn was one of the first great screen idols. He mesmerised millions around the world with his swordsmanship, swagger and smouldering sexuality. He portrayed an array of heroes in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and his life off screen was no less colourful.
This groundbreaking biography is the first complete account of Errol Flynn's life, from his unusual childhood in Tasmania and damaging family secrets, to his time in the brutal plantations of New Guinea, and his discovery by a Warner talent spotter. He quickly found fame in lead roles in blockbuster films like Captain Blood and Robin Hood. He was the man who had it all, who every man wanted to be, who every woman wanted.
This is both a revealing and intimate view of Flynn, and for the first time it gives serious attention to the many women in his life. Flynn's 1942 rape trial uncovered the sexual trafficking of underage girls in Hollywood on a grand scale. Tragically, he died aged only 50, from the self-inflicted consequences of a life lived to excess.
'Immaculately researched and brilliantly told. Errol Flynn is more gripping than all his movies put together.' Alison Bashford
'O'Brien brilliantly takes us to the dark heart of the world's most famous dream factory and one of its most notorious, and celebrated, habitués.' Frank Bongiorno
Handsome and charismatic, Errol Flynn was one of the first great screen idols. He mesmerised millions around the world with his swordsmanship, swagger and smouldering sexuality. He portrayed an array of heroes in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and his life off screen was no less colourful.
This groundbreaking biography is the first complete account of Errol Flynn's life, from his unusual childhood in Tasmania and damaging family secrets, to his time in the brutal plantations of New Guinea, and his discovery by a Warner talent spotter. He quickly found fame in lead roles in blockbuster films like Captain Blood and Robin Hood. He was the man who had it all, who every man wanted to be, who every woman wanted.
This is both a revealing and intimate view of Flynn, and for the first time it gives serious attention to the many women in his life. Flynn's 1942 rape trial uncovered the sexual trafficking of underage girls in Hollywood on a grand scale. Tragically, he died aged only 50, from the self-inflicted consequences of a life lived to excess.
'Immaculately researched and brilliantly told. Errol Flynn is more gripping than all his movies put together.' Alison Bashford
'O'Brien brilliantly takes us to the dark heart of the world's most famous dream factory and one of its most notorious, and celebrated, habitués.' Frank Bongiorno
- GenresBiography
455 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 31, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 7, 2026
O’Brien’s unflinching and occasionally brutal examination of the actor’s upbringing and experiences won’t win Flynn any new fans, but it certainly adds a new layer of insight into his excesses and behaviour, through the lens of colonial plunder and power. A fine dissection of the double standards of Hollywood and its ongoing shenanigans.
Did Not Finish
June 19, 2026I tried… I really did, I enjoyed the family background and early life stories. But once Errol started (and didn’t stop throughout his life) with his penchant for manipulating and seducing very young girls.. I was out. I can’t even look at the front cover knowing what he was like.
May 3, 2026
My father had known a man - whose name unfortunately I don’t recall - who’d worked and sailed with Errol Flynn in Australia and New Guinea in the years before he was famous and he’d told my father some of the shocking and hair-raising experiences with Flynn that wouldn’t have been common knowledge at the time, including Flynn's relationships with native women and involvement in rough justice meted out to plantation workers.
As an impressionable teenager rather obsessed with movie stars, this prompted me to surreptitiously read “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”, the shocking memoir of Flynn, although it now appears that early edition had been edited or expurgated in order to avoid possible law suits and more recent editions have been restored to include Flynn’s real opinion of the dark underbelly of the Hollywood he knew, plus his own guilt at having embraced what it stood for.
This new biography reveals much more. The author has been able to draw on private letters of Flynn and his family members and other rare hitherto unpublished archival material.
At the present time when the Epstein scandal shows no sign of going away, the searing similarities to what was going on in Hollywood from the 1920s onwards can’t be avoided. Starry-eyed girls and young women were trafficked with the promises of glamorous careers in the movies in exchange for sexual favours. Nearly all of the studio bosses and many others in powerful positions were culpable, and of course leading virile actors like Flynn took full advantage of the system. Flynn became notorious for his penchant for under-age girls and even faced a trial for rape, acquitted by a jury top-heavy with middle-aged women who were probably fans. When he died aged only 50, his partner was still a teenager. He’d also been married three times, always disastrously.
Flynn’s family was dysfunctional going back several generations and is covered here in detail. His academic father was a womaniser and his mother also had a relationship while still married. She was reputedly descended from Edward Young, one of the infamous “Bounty” mutineers – an interesting fact considering Flynn’s first film role was that of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutineers. There was nothing glamorous about those mutineers, they kidnapped and exploited both Tahitian women and men, and what took place on Pitcairn Island, then and since, doesn’t augur well for a long genetic line of moralists.
An immensely readable biography, although in some places there is extensive exposition on world events or history as background to Flynn’s antics that may not require reinforcement for some readers and easily can be skipped through.
This paragraph sums up Flynn’s life and legacy:
“Errol Flynn’s incredible life elicits competing emotions that run the full gamut from ardent admiration and curiosity to disgust. This journey through his life … reveals something greater than the life of one man … [his] story gives insight into the turbulent worlds he inhabited, and the great points of friction that made him both celebrated and contested, then and now. The questions about men’s power and sexual privileges, the entitlements and enablement of celebrities and the rich and powerful, the searing politics and enduring impacts of race and morality campaigns, the way men and women relate to each other, and the immense gulfs between what society permits for one sex and not the other, continue to convulse our lives.”
As an impressionable teenager rather obsessed with movie stars, this prompted me to surreptitiously read “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”, the shocking memoir of Flynn, although it now appears that early edition had been edited or expurgated in order to avoid possible law suits and more recent editions have been restored to include Flynn’s real opinion of the dark underbelly of the Hollywood he knew, plus his own guilt at having embraced what it stood for.
This new biography reveals much more. The author has been able to draw on private letters of Flynn and his family members and other rare hitherto unpublished archival material.
At the present time when the Epstein scandal shows no sign of going away, the searing similarities to what was going on in Hollywood from the 1920s onwards can’t be avoided. Starry-eyed girls and young women were trafficked with the promises of glamorous careers in the movies in exchange for sexual favours. Nearly all of the studio bosses and many others in powerful positions were culpable, and of course leading virile actors like Flynn took full advantage of the system. Flynn became notorious for his penchant for under-age girls and even faced a trial for rape, acquitted by a jury top-heavy with middle-aged women who were probably fans. When he died aged only 50, his partner was still a teenager. He’d also been married three times, always disastrously.
Flynn’s family was dysfunctional going back several generations and is covered here in detail. His academic father was a womaniser and his mother also had a relationship while still married. She was reputedly descended from Edward Young, one of the infamous “Bounty” mutineers – an interesting fact considering Flynn’s first film role was that of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutineers. There was nothing glamorous about those mutineers, they kidnapped and exploited both Tahitian women and men, and what took place on Pitcairn Island, then and since, doesn’t augur well for a long genetic line of moralists.
An immensely readable biography, although in some places there is extensive exposition on world events or history as background to Flynn’s antics that may not require reinforcement for some readers and easily can be skipped through.
This paragraph sums up Flynn’s life and legacy:
“Errol Flynn’s incredible life elicits competing emotions that run the full gamut from ardent admiration and curiosity to disgust. This journey through his life … reveals something greater than the life of one man … [his] story gives insight into the turbulent worlds he inhabited, and the great points of friction that made him both celebrated and contested, then and now. The questions about men’s power and sexual privileges, the entitlements and enablement of celebrities and the rich and powerful, the searing politics and enduring impacts of race and morality campaigns, the way men and women relate to each other, and the immense gulfs between what society permits for one sex and not the other, continue to convulse our lives.”
August 16, 2026
If I had to describe this book in one word it would be "scholarly". It has 38 pages of (small print) notes, 14 pages of bibliography and 9 pages of index entries. I'm not a particular fan of Errol Flynn's, I doubt I've ever watched one of his films all the way through, but this book is a bit grim. It's written with a 21st century viewpoint so his sexual excesses and predilection for very young girls is emphasised and (rightly) critically judged. I think I would have enjoyed some more balance but the author didn't find much to applaud. Maybe she was right but I did spot some glimpses of a man who could be genuinely charming, kind and generous. He was also beloved by his children, who he seemed to adore, and he also looked after his parents, as best he could, throughout his life. There aren't many likeable characters to be found here - including his parents, his three wives, lovers, some in-laws, biographers, friends and enablers. His sister Rosemary perhaps comes out best. There is no one left alive apart from his two daughters, the older of whom was 14 when Flynn died, so you must judge for yourself the author's implications that his lust derived from his parents' behaviour and his own exposure to the worst of colonialism and imperialism. I'm fairly certain the author didn't like the man and found nothing to admire but she wanted to expand on his place in Australian history and to provide a picture that counteracted his worldwide fandom. I think she succeeded but it was not a particularly edifying read for me.
August 20, 2026
Well written and researched account of Flynn’s life. Although he was Tasmanian born, a dubious a troubled man (a philanderer of the worst kind).
Read
July 20, 2026Oh what a depressing book (and in the time we’re examining, or not examining, Epstein and Tate). The struggles of girls at the hands of adults with more power in this world are ongoing and seemingly, unchanging.
June 16, 2026
Just brilliant. Errol Flynn is not someone I've ever cared to *really* unpack but the author crafted this so beautifully; a joy to read (even when the content was at times anything but). I became so invested (and reviled) by this man that I'm telling everyone who will listen about this book. Bravo, Patricia - a brilliant work of non fiction and so meticulously researched.
April 5, 2026
A really enthralling book.
May 15, 2026
Enjoyable and interesting read, more about the social, economic, political, legal requirements of the period that Flynn lived through.
July 26, 2026
I may be Flynn's #1 fan in New Zealand. I have 25+ books on Flynn, have visited his grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in L.A., and named my son "Flynn" as a first name. Was Flynn a perfect person or even a "good" guy? Probably not. What fascinates me is the dichotomy between his public persona as a romantic cinematic hero and his turbulent, hedonistic private life. It's fair to say that Flynn's off-screen life was just as (or more!) adventurous as his on-screen roles. As I absolutely have to buy anything Flynn related, I snatched up this book. What can I say? Having read so many previous biographies (even the awful ones!), this book still kept me entralled, and there was a lot of content I had never come across before. Highly recommended!
May 14, 2026
A triumph. Patricia O’Brien takes a compelling subject and story and sets it in a much larger context of social and political change, Australian and US history and the financial and sexual mores of the movie business. It is rare to read a book which weaves popular writing and scholarship together so seamlessly. The book also speaks directly to our current era. Most importantly, it’s a great read.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews