The Young Errol

Book excerpt: A fascinating account of the early life of one of Australias most colorful and controversial sons. John Hammond Moore trace film star Errol Flynns turbulent career from his birth in sedate Hobart through his eccentric schooldays and his youth in Sydney and cruising the Pacific to his years as a pioneer tobacco planter in Papua and the discovery that led to Hollywood and stardom. The author comments: While his golden age in Hollywood produced wondrous swashbuckling, Errol Flynn was not really acting at all. He was merely transferring a natural style developed in Sydney, Port Moresby, Rabaul, and London to a much larger audience. Anecdotes, quotations from Flynns own diaries and from people who knew him in Australia and Papua New Guinea crowd one upon the other to underscore this truth, and to embellish this rollicking tale of a man who in the authors words: lived for half a century the sort of life adolescents dream of but men dare not attempt.