Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

Record Details:

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When she came in, her mother told Beverly she had a phone call earlier in the evening. "It was Errol Flynn," Mrs. Aadland told her daughter. "I guess you weren't kidding this morning, were you?" Beverly dashed for the phone with her heart skipping beats to call Errol. He told her he wanted to see her the next night. No one-night thing "That was what I had been dying to hear. Now I knew for certain it wasn't just a one-night thing between Errol and me. I knew now that we'd be together forever." And it began to look like Beverly was right. From then on Errol and Beverly seemed to go everywhere and do everything together. "That was our story — togetherness," Beverly said. "Errol and I went everyplace— to all the big cities in America, Europe, and to Africa and Cuba." The gossip columnists had a field day. "Another young girl in Errol Flynn's clutches," they wrote. "How long will she last with him until she's burned?" they asked. But Beverly didn't seem to care. "I knew what they could not know — of the real and vibrant love that Errol and I shared. "The words 'I love you' were difficult for Errol to express. He had used them first when he met his first love, Lili Damita, whom he married twenty-five years ago. And he never spoke them again in real life — until he whispered them to me." That happened in Paris while Errol was making Roots of Heaven for Darryl Zanuck. "I was the happiest woman in the world that day." After that. Errol and Beverly were seen more and more together. "People who knew Errol would stop and ask him, 'Isn't Beverly too young for you?' "But Errol had a ready answer for all of them. His eyes would twinkle and he would reply in that clipped way of his, 'I may be too old for her, but she is not too young for me.' "In truth, he was not too old for me. Believe it or not, I felt like a mother to him. "He needed watching over. And that was my job. That was the way I acted toward him — as a sort of guardian. "There was a very young quality about Errol even if he was forty-eight years old and I only fifteen. He was in many ways a child — a daredevil and a pixie. "I felt I was his stabilizer. Physically and emotionally I felt ten years older than Errol. Yet, I was never too aware of his age. He was the kind of man who impressed me as being ageless. "He needed a young girl like me. An older woman could never have understood Errol." As Beverly got to know Errol better, she began to know more about his ways and his interests. She saw the real Flynn. "He was not just a zany, happy-go-lucky individual as most people knew him. There were many sides to Errol Flynn." People generally saw the three sides of Flynn — the lover, the drinker, and the adventurer. "It's true that Errol loved those three things the most — wine, women, and adventure," Beverly explained. "But he also was a man of great polish and brilliance. There were many other sides to his nature. There was not only Errol the lover, but there was Errol the man who loved life. And there was Errol the man who loved culture, and Errol the teacher." Beverly also found out that Errol was a sincere and loyal person with a strong 60 distaste for hypocrisy. "He never gave a hang for the critics. He knew he was being ridiculed and criticized for being seen with me. But he would say to me, 'Don't let that talk get you down. I want to do exactly as I please — and being with you is what I want most in the world.' " Errol 's attachment and fondness for Beverly was reflected in the nickname he gave her — 'Woodsie' for 'Woodnymph.' "He told me I was like a woodnymph. Errol was like that. He could never see people as people. His imagination soared too high for that. To him people were symbols — or delightful animals, or coarse, crass objects. But never people." Errol also devised another nickname. "He'd call me his 'S.C This meant 'small companion.' But most of the time I was his 'Woodsie.' " When Beverly came into Errol's life, his hell -raising days were for the most part behind him. But that only was by contrast to the Flynn of old. To Beverly, it wasn't exactly so. "There was still a lot of hell in Errol even as I knew him," she said. Errol and Beverly often talked about those days of yesteryear, of the early '30's when Flynn shot up like a meteor on the Hollywood scene. There were some bitter, some scandalous episodes. ■M ! ! ! ! ! ! I ! I ! I I I ! I ! I I ! I ! I ! ! ! * ~ Tennessee Ernie Ford: Life doesn't Z begin ot 40 for those who went like 60 when they were 20. Sidnc\ Skolskv in the New York Post ~ Ti i i i n i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i " "Errol never did mind talking about the past. He had no bitter feelings about it. But our talks of the old days never lasted long. We lived in the present." Beverly recalled the happy days she spent in New York with Errol. "We had such wonderful communication between us. We would sit for hours by the window and look out at the skyscrapers and the great melting pot of humanity below, the city with its endless traffic jams and grinding noises. "We could sit together like that in any situation or place and share the most trivial experience together, as we shared the biggest moments. " 'We're like ham and eggs.' Errol would say. 'I'm the ham — we go together.' " Beverly can never forget one winter morning in New York. "Errol got me up at four o'clock in the morning and said. 'Let's get out and commune with nature.' I didn't think the idea was wild at all. I simply got dressed and went out with him. "We went walking through Central Park in the snow. It was so peaceful and so beautiful. You can't imagine what it was like unless you've done the same thing . . . and you've done it with Errol Flynn. "We even sat on the hotel room floor and watched a fly crawl. "And if that sounds crazy, it isn't at all. That was part of our togetherness." Then Errol took Beverly to Europe. "It was there Errol had his first chance to show me his great depth. He took me to the museums in London and Paris; then I learned the side of Errol that was the teacher, the man who loved culture. "He also took me to the English countryside and showed me the castles. He spun tales of English lore that fascinated me. "In Paris, I learned more about Errol the fun-lover. I remember we sat in the hotel balcony overlooking the street. We had green almonds and started to spit them down on the gendarmes below. "We'd made 1,000 franc bets on who would hit the gendarmes first. After a few tries. I made a direct hit on a gen darme's face. It really stung him. H< came charging up the stairs and storme< into the room. "We threw the almonds under the sof; and sat on the balcony pretending we wen gazing out at the view. We laughed lik< the devil after the gendarme left our suit* disgusted because he couldn't prove anything." Errol also took Beverly to many brilliant parties in Paris. It was there she go to know still another side of Errol — th< bon vivant. "Women practically fell at his feet. The} simply adored him. They were awed bj his charm and personality." Then there was the trip to Africa. Erro had to go on location in French Equatoria Africa for the shooting of Roots of Heaven Beverly could not make the entire trip t< the Dark Continent with him, but wai able to spend a few days together then with Errol. And now Beverly had a chanc< to see Errol's adventurous side. "We went on small game hunts and w< did things together like we'd never don« before, like swimming with hardly : stitch on. . . ." Beverly then came back to New Yori alone. And here she learned of still another Flynn — the Pygmalion — a man driver by some compulsion to remold his younf sweetheart. From the fetid, forsaken regioi of the Equatorial jungles Errol penned i series of letters to Beverly, spouting ar array of poetry, passion, concern for hii young beloved, and a desire to make something of her. Presumably. Errol wrote to Beverly in one letter, you have never delved intc anything more profound in the literary sense than reading the funnies on Sunday morning. Why don't you try reading a book. . . . He suggested that Beverly read George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, the classical myth of a king and sculptor of Cyprus who carved an ivory statue of a maiden who suddenly came to life. Shaw adapted this ancient tale to forge his own modern allegory of a wealthy scholar who changes a poor, ragged girl into an electrifying articulate society woman. It's the story now celebrated in song in My Fair Lady. And to Flynn, Beverly was his own Fair Lady. This passage from another letter clearly showed Errol's concern about Beverly"s dress: I just bought you some lovely African Moorish embroidered cloth so we can design something quite different for dresses for you and have it made up. Yet even when Errol was being serious still another of his many sides seemed to pop up — this one the pixie. In that very same letter that talked of Beverly's attire he wrote her: Following are the matters on the agenda I will now take up with ■ I you . . . note: (1) Your extreme precocity (your adolescence is no excuse) is funny. (2) Your almost hedonistic delight in any pretense to the rudiments of culture or acquisition of the basic ladylike behaviorism (I think we shall avoid this subject; if I ever find you being ladylike I'll clip you over the side of the ear) is deplorable. In this next letter to Beverly. Flynn shattered the traditional conception of him as the insouciant lover — the man who took romance on the wing. In my throat there is a sort of lump— nothing physical — just pure emotion. I guess, when I think of you. . . . And there was more of Flynn's emo