Customer Reviews

Inherited Risk: Errol Flynn and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Vietnam

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jeffrey Meyers, best known for his works on such literary figures as D. H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a gifted, at times brilliant biographer. Here he brings to his treatment of Errol and Sean Flynn his knowledge of the world's great literature. Meyers can take almost any figure and make him acceptable from a literary point of view. Who else could find a parallel between Errol Flynn and Edgar Allan Poe? One can imagine a future Meyers biography of Bugsy Siegel, with frequent allusions to Julius Caesar, Faust, and MacBeth.

Meyers's gift for finding parallels between disparate people's lives is especially impressive. I found those between the lives of John Barrymore and Flynn to be especially compelling and insightful - more so than those between Errol and Sean. With reference to Sean, few will feel competent to judge the validity of Meyers' sections which reincarnate his last days. Some of it I found persuasive, but other parts - especially some of the links in the chain of logic - seemed weak; the recreation of "the facts" may be a bit too confident when dealing with mainly hearsay evidence.

In the main section of this book Errol Flynn comes across as a tragic, forlorn, dejected, melancholic sociopath. The habitual choice to put Flynn in a darker rather than positive light surfaces in numerous ways, as in Meyers' handling of Basil Rathbone. All biography involves some shading of details, which usually goes under the heading of "literary license." But the deliberate reshaping of a quotation by rearrangement and omission, for the purpose of producing the desired result, is disingenuous - a distinct "no-no" for a front-rank biographer. At the top of p. 146, a long comment of Basil Rathbone is subtly rearranged so as to produce the desired result  to contribute to Meyers' overall scheme of the father-son shared death-wish. It creates a false impression of what Rathbone actually wrote about Flynn, and leaves one wondering how many other things have been cleverly reshaped in order to fit the thesis.

The question therefore lingers: Does Meyers actually get under Errols skin (or that of Sean for that matter)? The answer, I fear, must be no - despite what Meyers and his publicists say. Meyers, in my opinion, is far too detached in his literary mien to explore effectively a man like Flynn. His Flynn is a two-dimensional, black-and-white figure who set out to destroy himself. The real-life Flynn was an infuriatingly complex, three-dimensional, Technicolor personality. Meyers is a very careful writer, but he also tends to be a cold, dispassionate, joyless writer, with an occasional tendency toward shading and over simplification. One gets little sense of the joi-de-vivre of the Errol Flynn of this book. Flynn was at heart a very, very funny man.

On the other hand there is something un-humorous, at points even tiresome, about INHERITED RISK. The whole thing is written from the point of view of Greek tragedy. It is doubtful that after reading it the reader will have chuckled even once. This is a major failing in a biography of Errol Flynn. The ever-so-literate Meyers, in all his zeal to analyze him - to dissect him into his component parts and to isolate his various destructive influences - has somehow let the real Flynn elude him.

There are other anomalies in INHERITED RISK. In one of his appendices (p. 326), Meyers breaks down Flynn's films into three categories: "best," "seeable," and "poor." With all due respect to Meyers, the list is bizarre, and may call into question his cinematic judgment. Is "The Roots of Heaven" (1958) really a better film than "They Died with Their Boots On" (1941) or "Adventures of Don Juan" (1949)? What cinematic myopia would place "The Sisters" (1938), "Edge of Darkness" (1943), and "Northern Pursuit" (1943) - not to mention "Silver River" (1948) - into the "poor" category?

Despite the dual photos on the front of the dust-jacket, the book is not really an analysis of the relationship of the two men, Errol and Sean, along the lines of Sir Edmund Goss' FATHER AND SON. The disparity in the treatments is made clear by the arrangement - Sean constitutes the endpapers (totaling a mere 49 pages), while the main section deals with Errol (244 pages). There is thus a serious question of balance.

Also, Meyers' central idea of Greek tragedy - that of the fatal character flaw of the father being reproduced in the son, leading to the latter's inevitable doom, does not really come off - no matter how energetically Meyers tries. One gets from this book the clear impression that the lives of the two Flynns were a complete waste. That may well have been true of the son, but it can't be said of the father. Errol Flynn brought untold joy to millions worldwide  and still does to this day.

INHERITED RISK is a missed opportunity. With all the research that went into the book, it could have been the best Flynn biography ever written. But throughout most of it Meyers staid approach just doesn't hold the readers attention. There is also a procrustean feel  the impression that the lives of these two men are being stretched and cut to fit the "Greek tragedy" model that Meyers is pushing. Such shortcomings, sadly, mar what otherwise might have been a monumental biographical achievement.

I have to agree with Mr. Hurst's eloquent review, and I'll put it more succinctly: this is a lousy book. Why write a biography of Errol Flynn, of all people, if you're going to do it with no humor and with lordly disdain? It's like a biography of Tom Sawyer written by his half-brother, the tattle-tale goody-goody Sid. Like many, I guess, I picked it up in order to read about Sean Flynn, since there is so little out there about him. But as noted, Sean is reduced to three chapters presented as endpapers. One might conclude there wasn't enough to his short life to make a full book... if there weren't so much other evidence of the biographer's tendency to stop researching once he has enough evidence to support his (rather ugly) pre-determined thesis.

I don't feel that this book did the "man" Sean Flynn any justice. The author was filled with his own need to create a myth connecting Errol Flynn and his son in some tableau of doom. The title "Inherited Risk" says it all, that Errol lived his life with a sense of danger and that Sean was trying to follow in his father's footsteps by living a life that put him in constant danger. The object of a journalist or writer is to be objective not subjective. Mr. Meyers seems like he is doing a lot of guesswork, and trying to put it together in a biography of two people that he does not even begin to understand. I don't know much about Errol, except that my father was a big fan of his movies. Sean was always the one who caught my interest, the combat photographer, like so many others in his field at the time, risked all for the truth. He was known as a generous, kind man to all his friends.

As far as Sean having a deathwish, I don't believe this. One would have to understand the times, to understand the insanity going on over in Vietnam and Cambodia. Thousands of people were being killed and Sean wanted to show this. He was burned out on the Vietnam war, on the atrocities being committed on both sides. Just before he disappeared, he had planned to buy land in Bali and live out his life there. Bali was where he went when he needed to find peace. If he was going on a suicide mission into Cambodia, why would he be making plans for the future? Sean wanted to go into Cambodia and talk to the people and get their side of the story. He already had done some film for the documentary that he wanted to do. Sean and Dana Stone figured that they could ride into the jungle and get the story. What they, like the other journalists that were captured, hadn't figured on was the Khmer Rouge. Sean and the other journalists were victims of circumstance, and if rumors are to be believed among the first victims of the "Killing Fields."

Sean Flynn was a man trying to do something he believed in, and he had the courage to go out and try to accomplish something that would get at the truth of what was really going on in Cambodia. Cambodia was a dangerous place, and the U.S. involvement there at the time, was little known. The Khmer Rouge was beginning to rise to power and the Cambodian government was beginning to fall. Sean knew that the Cambodian people were suffering. He wanted to get their story. If he and the other journalists had been able to do this, maybe something would have been revealed about the Khmer Rouge and all the genocide might have been prevented. Alas, that was not to be. I like to think of Sean being a man of principals and courage, who risked his life doing what he believed, not as someone with a deathwish.

Mr. Meyers diplomacy was by far the most impressive component of this book, as he didn't take sides with Errol Flynn, and I found Meyers ability to stay neutral and informative helpful. One example of this was the description of Errol's at times violent outburst towards Nora Eddington. However, Meyers on some occasions didn't sufficiently corroborate his assertions. For example, he did not provide evidence to substantiate that Errol's reported theft of jewellery from a wealthy older lady in Sydney or the young lady who supposedly robbed him in Macau, to be false stories. Meyers stated that these events were untrue accounts as described in Flynn's "My Wicked, Wicked Ways." The fact that these assertions are not argued with evidence from Meyers leaves it open to the benefit of the doubt to Flynn. This booked was lopsidedly Errol. Sean Flynn was a sprinkling in this book, with approximately 60 pages dedicated to him, in a book containing 324 pages. Sean was close to MIA in this book, which was by far the biggest disappointment for me, and his final resting place still remains a mystery despite some theories. I am grateful to Meyers for some personal insights on Sean, in particular, his brief attendance at university, and that his actual meetings with his father Errol numbered less than twenty. Mr. Meyers has written and sold many more books than me. Notwithstanding this fact, I found his book only to be a thin layer of recycled old soil, rather than bedrock of new or compelling information on Errol and Sean Flynn. But in Mr. Meyers defence, the fact that Errol and Sean are deceased, and many decades have past since both died, with so many fictitious stories surrounding both, it is fair to state that this book was always going to be a difficult assignment.

Nicholas R.W. Henning - Australian Author
Author of: Brennan Cooper, The Tourist, Boomerang Baseball, and The American Dream: From Perth to Sacramento

As a long time fan of Errol Flynn, I had to buy this latest biography. This is probably one of the best written biographies on Flynn I have ever read. It is right up there with MY WICKED WICKED WAYS by Flynn himself. This book is painstakingly researched with obvious assistance from the Flynn family for accuracy. No outrageous claims are made as in the past books about the actor. It is downright eerie how parallel Sean and Errol Flynn's lives really were. Definitely a must read for Flynn fans and highly recommended to those who love all things Classic Hollywood.

Reviewed by Miriam van Veen

There is a tendency to describe people whose lives veer into chaos far more frequently than our own as troubled. The balance is provided in this book by rendering an account of how superior the lives of ERROL AND SEAN FLYNN IN HOLLYWOOD AND VIETNAM seem compared to the rest of us. I'm partial to this account because I was already a fan of the Flynn associates in Nam: Tim Page, Michael Herr, John Steinbeck IV, Robert Sam Anson, and Dana Stone. Dana Stone gets credit for taking the photo in Ha Than in 1968 in which Sean Flynn, "In full battle dress and holding a grenade, with arms outstretched and right boot in midair, he charges over the top of the hill and attacks the North Vietnamese enemy. . . . After the officer was wounded, Sean saved the day by assuming one of Errol's movie roles, leading the charge himself and killing an enemy soldier." (pp. 55-56). There are few pictures of Sean in this book, but real fans will have the collection in REQUIEM: BY THE PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO DIED IN VIETNAM AND INDOCHINA, edited by Horst Faas and Tim Page.

The picture of Sean Flynn and Dana Stone on motorcycles in Vietnam, c. 1970, facing page 97, might be rough for those whose expectations were shaped by Jack Warner's "considerable shrewdness and a clear grasp of public taste." (caption to picture 11). Errol Flynn was interesting enough to dominate the first 29 pictures in this book. Then number 30 shows Sean Flynn with a friend, Steve Cutter, in 1958, and the final page of pictures shows the contrast between the highly professional look of an American studio portrait, c. 1962, and how Sean and Dana would look when last seen by Western eyes.

If armies are usually considered highly disciplined, as well as the most modern, civilized mechanism for establishing order in the midst of chaos, Sean and Dana miscalculated how outrageously the enemy in Cambodia would be striving for something else, that they hadn't counted upon. A journalist card issued by the U.S. Department of Defense was supposed to be sufficient to convince the inhabitants of this planet that they possessed the opportunity to have their story told to the world, and the cameras should have convinced the enemy that the main thing the Americans wanted to take was pictures. Part of Sean's trouble was that he was expecting to see more than the usual amount of trouble. The previous year, Sean spent a few days in jail in Djakarta because of a 17-year-old high school girl, daughter of a Caltex corporation lawyer and a princess from Sumatra, "named after a Hindu goddess." (p. 49). For me (still an effetely snobbish reader and broadcaster of my own opinions), being in the army was like spending two years with the Djakarta taxi driver who drove Sean and the girl to her home in his Mercedes taxi. The taxi driver assumed that the girl was the hot attraction that Sean thought she was and returned with a Chinese businessman. The story is related partly in words that Sean wrote to his mother November 2 and December 4, 1969, which admitted that Sean "stepped out of the bushes swinging a baseball bat. He smashed the car's and windshield, then attacked the driver. The Chinese customer meanwhile had fled." (p. 49).

Tying it all together like this book does is a hoot: "American officers expected extraordinary courage from Errol's son and Sean always met their expectations. Accompanying the 4th Division's long-range recon patrollers for a month, Sean walked point on dangerous four-man patrols in the northern Highlands. He stayed in a besieged bunker at Kon Tien where, in only three days, 375 Marines were wounded." (p. 51). As famous as Sean Flynn became, it might still be possible to find 375 Marines who remember being wounded in the same bunker at Kon Tien, but it seems more likely they were wounded at Con Thien when Sean was in some other country. Sean probably had more combat experience than most of the guys on walking recon patrols for the 4th Division, who previously were more likely to have some incident of looking for a lost pet in their childhood than of finding anything in the Highlands. Most of the 4th Division called it the Central Highlands. Up north, where the Marine operated, Con Thien was at one end of the McNamara Line on the map on page 127 of HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE VIETNAM WAR by Harry G. Summers, Jr. According to an official count in that book, 3,077 mortar, artillery, and rocket rounds struck the base there during the week of September 19-27, 1967, only three months after Sean Flynn photographed the results of the six-day Arab-Israeli War, when, "On his way back from Sinai, Sean dragged a recoilless rifle behind his rented Volkswagen and gave it to Mandy Rice-Davies (who had been implicated in the John Profumo spy-and-sex scandal in Britain and had emigrated to Israel) to decorate her discotheque in Tel Aviv." (Meyers, p. 45).

Most of ERROL AND SEAN FLYNN IN HOLLYWOOD AND VIETNAM is devoted to the life of Errol Flynn, pages 59-303. His death of a heart attack was rather pathetic, as the doctors in those days seemed better able to find heart problems in an autopsy setting than "when Flynn suddenly felt sharp pains in his back and legs." (p. 295). A doctor told him to ease the pain by lying on the floor. "After an autopsy, the coroner found that his death was caused by myocardial infarction (blood not reaching the heart), coronary thrombosis (clot in the coronary blood vessels) and coronary atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries)." (p. 295). Errol's mother, Marelle, wrote to Sean two months later that "my poor boy knew that he had not long to live. He had several heart attacks, & had been warned seriously only a short time ago." (p. 295).

To the best of my knowledge this is a well researched account of the life of Flynn. A person who seems to be one of those types who is either loved or despised intensely, Flynn is a tough subject for an unbiased account. Mr. Meyer's book, according to some Flynn experts is flawed in some details however the basic facts and incidents offered are well supported and provide a truly tragic and sad saga of a man whose influence on myself has been inescapable! I learned of Flynn as a young toddler watching his films from my daddies knee. I always enjoyed Bogart, Cagney, Cooper and Wayne however there was always something so much more compelling in Flynn's classic films. It was very painful for me to read of his life. This is something I'd purposely held back from doing in light of all the unsubstantiated negative stories surrounding Flynn's life. It was particularly hard to read of his son's tragic life. Perhaps it's not possible to have an entirely accurate representation of Flynn or that of his son given their nature and circumtances. Being a new father myself I plan on spending as much quality time as I possibly can with my son!

Jeffrey Meyers has written one of the great father-son biographies, told in the bold and cutting style of his earlier triumph "Bogart." The introductory quote from Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender Is the Night" brilliantly keys the reader to the appeal of these two legends -- "There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything."

While there is more than one legend as to the details of Sean's death at the hands of his Vietnamese and/or Cambodian captors, the author's research drew him to a reasonable, if not yet provable conclusion. There are good arguments both for and against each of several sketchy accounts of Sean's alleged execution. The focus of this book, however, is the impact of the life of the father on the psyche of the son. Meanwhile, others drawn to the mystery continue to pursue the facts of what happened to Sean and his friend Dana Stone. How unfortunate that the Vietnamese government has never come forward with the facts in its possession on the fates of any of the ten international journalists captured in the same area during early April 1970. What outdated political sensitivities could possibly justify the damage done for over three decades to the surviving families and friends of these brave journalists?

It is encouraging that other recent works including "The Eagle Mutiny" by Richard Linnett and Roberto Loiederman and "The Last Battle" by Colonel Ralph Wetterhahn have attempted to focus on those left behind on the battlefields of Cambodia. Perry Deane Young's "Two of the Missing" is a great account of the disappearance of his colleagues Sean Flynn and Dana Stone. Tim Page's "Requiem" provides a stunning memorial to the work of each of those photojournalists lost in Cambodia and his documentary "Danger at the Edge of Town" continues to provoke admiration, argument, and most importantly further investigation.