In his final years he suffered from Buerger's disease, acute inflammation and thrombosis (clotting) of arteries and veins of the legs, hands and feet as a result of his excessive cigarette smoking.
In the early days of establishing his Hollywood career, he passed himself off as Irish in the belief that few people knew of Australia. He was born, educated and began work in Australia, later drifting between Papua New Guinea and Sydney (rumoured to have been a fighter for PNG) before stumbling on to acting. The Australian film In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) captured some attention for him in the States and so, owing enormous debts to the Australian Taxation Office, he moved to America. He said to the ATO, "I'm willing to forget if you are".
In the last two years of his life Flynn caused a scandal by touring the world with his teenage mistress Beverly Aadland working as his secretary.
In the last year of his life he turned down an offer to star in a major swashbuckling series for US television, in which Flynn would play the same kind of character he had played in Captain Blood (1935), with younger stand-ins performing his stunts. "I knew it would be crap," he explained.
Independent writer/director Patrick Stark is creating a dramatic feature about the last days of Flynn's life in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, in the Garden of Everlasting Peace.
It has been said that his 1959 autobiography, "My Wicked Wicked Ways," was originally to be called "In Like Me."
It was during a "Parkinson" (1971) interview that his good friend David Niven revealed that during the filming of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Flynn was busy on a horse during a break applying makeup with one hand whilst holding a mirror in the other. An extra seeing this assumed (like most of the people around) that he was gay, and decided to "pock" the horse up the behind with his lance - the horse bucked, throwing Flynn to the ground. He got to his feet and asked who had done that, the extra volunteered, thinking that this would only add to his embarrassment. However, Flynn dragged him from the horse and gave him a sound beating. They were the best of friends after that.
Mentioned in the Jimmy Buffett song, "Pencil Thin Mustache".
Mentioned in the song "Blood on the Rooftops" by Genesis.
Nearly died from food poisoning after eating uncooked ground hamburger meat mixed with raw egg yolk early in 1959.
On arriving in Britain in 1933, he found an acting job with the Northampton Repertory Company, where he worked for seven months. However, it is disputed whether he performed at the 1934 Malvern Festival and in Glasgow and London's West End.
On his mother's side, he was a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian and Edward Young, of H.M.S. Bounty fame.
Once stated that his only regret was his non-participation in World War II.
Portrayed by Jude Law in The Aviator (2004).
Probably his most uncharacteristic screen appearance occurred in Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) when he sang and danced his way through a pub number entitled "That's What You Jolly Well Get".
Ranked #70 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Robin Hood was produced at an estimated cost of $2 million, and was one of the first Warner Bros. films to be shot in the three-strip Technicolor process.
Scenes and costumes worn by the characters in Robin Hood have been imitated and spoofed endlessly. For instance, in the Bugs Bunny animated short film, Rabbit Hood, Bugs is continually told by a dim-witted Little John that "Robin Hood will soon be here." When Bugs finally meets Robin at the end of the film, he is stunned to find that it is Errol Flynn, in a spliced-in clip from this film. Other parodies were Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in Robin Hood Daffy and Goofy and Black Pete in Goof Troop's Goofin' Hood & His Melancholy Men.
The Adventures of Robin Hood was Errol Flynn's first film in Technicolor.