Errol Flynn was an infamous Hollywood swordsman, and not just on screen in his numerous swashbuckling films. The heartthrob famously made the most of his good looks and fame. He reputedly had peepholes and two-way mirrors installed in his bathroom and bedroom and became notorious in industry circles for his debauched parties. At one, he infamously even ‘played’ You Are My Sunshine on the piano using his reportedly large endowment. So he was shocked and furious when a fellow male star dared to turn him down after he blatantly made a late night pass. Incredibly, it was one of England’s greatest screen legends.
Flynn and his one-time partner in crime David Niven had two of the biggest sexual drives in Hollywood. The latter, although popularly regarded as a rather proper and buttoned-up English gentleman, himself famously admitted that “my erection was stronger than my spirit.”
In 1938, the two stars had ignited the screen in patriotic morale booster The Dawn Patrol about heroic British pilots in World War I. On the screen, they played plucky square-jawed chaps, idealised versions of an honourable, proper British male. The reality was very different.
Recognising kindred spirits, that same year the pair set themselves up together in a home where they could indulge themselves freely.
Flynn was already a major star after 1935’s Captain Blood and the pair had starred together in The Charge of the Light Brigade in 1936.
Niven’s career was also blossoming fast. He gave credit to British actress Merle Oberon, with whom he lived during his first years in Hollywood. As well as teaching him about the craft and the industry, she wanted to marry him – but the young actor was having too much fun already with numerous affairs and did not want to be tied down.
He later said: “I have just a few regrets. One of the biggest is not marrying Merle when I had the chance… But I just couldn’t get enough when I was a young man.”
Needing to move out of Oberon’s home, he seized the opportunity for freedom and fun with Flynn, and they set up home together.
The two screen pin-ups rented a house together on the coast that Niven infamously christened ‘Cirrhosis-by-the-Sea’ in honour of the hard-drinking and partying and sexual escapades that went on there.
They were a match made in heaven, until one shocking night destroyed their friendship forever.
Film biographer and friend Michael Mann later recounted that Niven told him: “We had finished making The Dawn Patrol and we were celebrating our success with a couple of girls, and after we had sent the girls home, Flynn… well, he grabbed me… where a man doesn’t expect to be grabbed by another man.”
What happened next destroyed their close friendship forever.
Niven added: “That’s the sort of thing schoolboys might do, and I felt that it was time he really grew up, and I told him so, and he said, ‘Oh come on, sport, you and I, we’re pals, and there’s nothing wrong in a couple of pals having a little fun together.’
“And then he tried to grab me again. I had no idea where this came from. I told him he should grow up and that I was heading home, and he got rather nasty and was almost spitting with rage.
“He yelled, ‘I think you’re the one who should grow up, Niven. This is Hollywood. People here are phonies. They f**k anything that moves. What makes you so f**king different?'”
Niven moved out and soon after fell in love and tried to settle down with his first wife, Primmie Rollo. They married in September 1940, while the actor was in active military service during World War II. Two children swiftly followed, David Jr in 1945 and James in 1945.
Even so, his uncontrollable sex drive never abated: “I was a fool. When we were apart during the war, it was all too easy to have sex with other women who wanted to go to bed with a Hollywood movie star. Some of them no more than 16, but I was insatiable, you see – always have been. It’s a terrible flaw in me. I can forgive myself by and large, but to be unfaithful to the best wife a man ever had was unpardonable. I knew it at the time, but my erection was stronger than my spirit, if you’ll pardon the vernacular.”
Flynn would find his career in crisis in 1942 when two underage girls accused him of statutory rape. Although acquitted, the public trial damaged his Hollywood career. Aged just 50, he died in 1959 in financial difficulties. A blood clot on the heart and major liver damage were listed by the coroner.
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