Known to millions as the preeminent swashbuckler of the silver screen, Errol Flynn was a complex man who lived a life far more adventurous than any of his films. In My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn reveals himself to be a self-aware and cosmopolitan devotee of excitement and pleasure. With gusto, he recalls his years as a soldier of fortune in the South Seas, his trip to war-torn Spain, his battles in Hollywood with studio honchos (Jack Warner was a particular nemesis) and ex-wives (esp. Lili Damita), and the furor surrounding his trial for rape in 1943. Freely mixing verbal abuse and tall tales with candid confessions, Flynn's autobiography makes for one hell of a read.
My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Autobiography of Errol Flynn
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Editorial Reviews
Review
This is a major autobiography in the tradition of Cellini, Casanova, and Frank Harris. (Guardian )
Flynn set the record straight and is brutally honest in his posthumously published self-portrait. This restored version of the 1959 original contains numerous passages deletec from earlier editions for fear of lawsuits—he was equally brutal in his portrayal of many Hollywood big shots—plus eight pages of photos and a new introduction by biographer Jeffrey Meyers. (Library Journal )
A document on Hollywood life far beyond its fan magazine fascination… . [Flynn] delivers footnotes to film history that are hard to come by. (San Francisco Chronicle )
The Tasmanian-actor portrays himself not as a debonair swashbuckler but as a chronically unhappy soul whose luck talent and high spirits vaulted him to fame, even as he remained unfulfilled until the end. (Indiana Gazette, Raleigh News and Observer )
This restored version of the 1959 original contains numerous passages deleted from earlier editions for fear of lawsuits- he was equally brutal in his portrayal of many Hollywood big shots- plus eight pages of photos and a new introduction by biographer Jeffery Meyers. (Michael Rogers Library Journal )
In the book, Flynn writes in a loose style, sometimes reminiscent of someone writing in a journal, sometimes as though he is talking to a friend. (Carol Moulton Clifton Record )
"the confessions of a rake, unsparing of himself or anyone else..." (Newsweek )
William Macy isn't a fan of horses, althoughn he understands the power of aniamals on the human spirit. <1>But there's something about telling stories about animals that allows us to epathize ever more than we can with people. (The Scoop )
Incredibly absorbing… . Just as in life, Flynn spares himself nothing-and from his book emerges the same roguish charm that endeared his celluloid incarnation to millions. (Saturday Review )
Flynn writes cleverly, as he talked. He has left us a good book. (The New York Times )
Flynn set the record straight and is brutally honest in his posthumously published self-portrait. This restored version of the 1959 original contains numerous passages deletec from earlier editions for fear of lawsuits—he was equally brutal in his portrayal of many Hollywood big shots—plus eight pages of photos and a new introduction by biographer Jeffrey Meyers. (Library Journal )
A document on Hollywood life far beyond its fan magazine fascination… . [Flynn] delivers footnotes to film history that are hard to come by. (San Francisco Chronicle )
The Tasmanian-actor portrays himself not as a debonair swashbuckler but as a chronically unhappy soul whose luck talent and high spirits vaulted him to fame, even as he remained unfulfilled until the end. (Indiana Gazette, Raleigh News and Observer )
This restored version of the 1959 original contains numerous passages deleted from earlier editions for fear of lawsuits- he was equally brutal in his portrayal of many Hollywood big shots- plus eight pages of photos and a new introduction by biographer Jeffery Meyers. (Michael Rogers Library Journal )
In the book, Flynn writes in a loose style, sometimes reminiscent of someone writing in a journal, sometimes as though he is talking to a friend. (Carol Moulton Clifton Record )
"the confessions of a rake, unsparing of himself or anyone else..." (Newsweek )
William Macy isn't a fan of horses, althoughn he understands the power of aniamals on the human spirit. <1>But there's something about telling stories about animals that allows us to epathize ever more than we can with people. (The Scoop )
Incredibly absorbing… . Just as in life, Flynn spares himself nothing-and from his book emerges the same roguish charm that endeared his celluloid incarnation to millions. (Saturday Review )
Flynn writes cleverly, as he talked. He has left us a good book. (The New York Times )
From the Publisher
12 1.5-hour cassettes
--This text refers to the
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
76 of 83 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For a generation or two of eager young men, he was the epitome of adventure and accomplishment, especially with the opposite sex, and Errol Flynn's autobiography doesn't disappoint. "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" is a remarkably candid and eloquent account of the star's life as he saw it that reads like you are there spending a besotted long evening in the company of the screen world's Tasmanian Devil.
Errol Flynn won little critical acclaim in his lifetime. His only Academy Award nomination, if you can call it that, was bestowed on Peter O'Toole for playing a thinly-disguised Flynn in the 1982 film "My Favorite Year," where O'Toole plays a character named Alan Swann with an affinity for cognac rather than vodka but otherwise is an obvious parallel for Flynn.
Was Alan Swann the real thing? Was Errol Flynn? "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" leaves room for doubt. He tells some improbably tall tales of fighting natives in New Guinea and sailing through hurricanes in the Caribbean. I think I believe the slapping story about Bette Davis, though, since I read it in a couple of other places. The post-mortem story about John Barrymore is legendary, too, and it's especially fascinating reading Flynn's account since he was the victim of one of Hollywood's most legendary heartless pranks, a punking that Ashton Kutcher would have blanched at.
Flynn was an odd screen star, as he makes clear, starting out a gold prospector on the other side of the Pacific from Hollywood with no thought of movie acting until he found himself virtually drafted by a director making a movie about the mutiny on the Bounty, in which young Flynn played Fletcher Christian.
Later, he recalls his time with another actor who also played Christian in a better-known production, Clark Gable: "If anyone should ask 'What do two actors talk about when they meet?' the answer is Themselves.'"
Yet Flynn isn't quite as full of himself as that. As "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" makes clear, the last thing he really cared about was his screen image. That's actually a negative for me reading the book; I hoped to read more about his on-screen work. Alas, he barely mentions "The Adventures Of Robin Hood," his greatest screen role, and less than that of other screen performances like George Armstrong Custer in "They Died With Their Boots On" and the title role in his breakout film, "Captain Blood."
Flynn claims here he hated his cinematic roles enough to contemplate suicide after a time faced with the repetitiveness of one swashbuckler after another. He found sanctuary in booze instead. If there's one message in "My Wicked, Wicked Ways," it was that Flynn was a serious person, with an interest in science and literature, though all that was drowned out in the public imagining by his attraction for the opposite sex.
This is actually a point of obvious, repetitive bitterness for Flynn or his ghostwriter, I suspect both: "A man who for a woman fits the bill is the one who pays the bill."
The poormouthing does grate after a while. Reading Flynn complain about divorce lawyers is like hearing Charles Manson whine about police officers. He brought it on himself, as he's the first to admit, unable to understand monogamy in the abstract or in practice. But he seems unwilling to make the connection between the life he led and the inevitable results.
Still, this is an engaging, intelligent book that at times reads like Joseph Conrad and at times like a deposition at the Los Angeles district attorney's office. Never less than entertaining, it never quite gels into something coherent. If nothing else, it shows Flynn nearing the end of his days still displaying real wit and self-awareness. "There's out, and then there's out," Alan Swann says. Errol Flynn seems far from out here, and indeed, he comes across more alive from reading this than many actors on the screen today.
Errol Flynn won little critical acclaim in his lifetime. His only Academy Award nomination, if you can call it that, was bestowed on Peter O'Toole for playing a thinly-disguised Flynn in the 1982 film "My Favorite Year," where O'Toole plays a character named Alan Swann with an affinity for cognac rather than vodka but otherwise is an obvious parallel for Flynn.
Was Alan Swann the real thing? Was Errol Flynn? "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" leaves room for doubt. He tells some improbably tall tales of fighting natives in New Guinea and sailing through hurricanes in the Caribbean. I think I believe the slapping story about Bette Davis, though, since I read it in a couple of other places. The post-mortem story about John Barrymore is legendary, too, and it's especially fascinating reading Flynn's account since he was the victim of one of Hollywood's most legendary heartless pranks, a punking that Ashton Kutcher would have blanched at.
Flynn was an odd screen star, as he makes clear, starting out a gold prospector on the other side of the Pacific from Hollywood with no thought of movie acting until he found himself virtually drafted by a director making a movie about the mutiny on the Bounty, in which young Flynn played Fletcher Christian.
Later, he recalls his time with another actor who also played Christian in a better-known production, Clark Gable: "If anyone should ask 'What do two actors talk about when they meet?' the answer is Themselves.'"
Yet Flynn isn't quite as full of himself as that. As "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" makes clear, the last thing he really cared about was his screen image. That's actually a negative for me reading the book; I hoped to read more about his on-screen work. Alas, he barely mentions "The Adventures Of Robin Hood," his greatest screen role, and less than that of other screen performances like George Armstrong Custer in "They Died With Their Boots On" and the title role in his breakout film, "Captain Blood."
Flynn claims here he hated his cinematic roles enough to contemplate suicide after a time faced with the repetitiveness of one swashbuckler after another. He found sanctuary in booze instead. If there's one message in "My Wicked, Wicked Ways," it was that Flynn was a serious person, with an interest in science and literature, though all that was drowned out in the public imagining by his attraction for the opposite sex.
This is actually a point of obvious, repetitive bitterness for Flynn or his ghostwriter, I suspect both: "A man who for a woman fits the bill is the one who pays the bill."
The poormouthing does grate after a while. Reading Flynn complain about divorce lawyers is like hearing Charles Manson whine about police officers. He brought it on himself, as he's the first to admit, unable to understand monogamy in the abstract or in practice. But he seems unwilling to make the connection between the life he led and the inevitable results.
Still, this is an engaging, intelligent book that at times reads like Joseph Conrad and at times like a deposition at the Los Angeles district attorney's office. Never less than entertaining, it never quite gels into something coherent. If nothing else, it shows Flynn nearing the end of his days still displaying real wit and self-awareness. "There's out, and then there's out," Alan Swann says. Errol Flynn seems far from out here, and indeed, he comes across more alive from reading this than many actors on the screen today.
40 of 44 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
By the time Errol Flynn got around to the task of putting his incredibly adventurous life on paper, booze, drugs and a life of dissipation had caught up with him. At 50, he was a wasted shadow of the once beautiful, vibrant movie idol who had captured a nation's imagination in such glorious screen epics as "Captain Blood" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood." No longer capable of the sustained concentration and commitment necessary to write an autobiography, Putnam and Sons assigned Flynn to a ghost writer by the name of Earl Conrad. Conrad spent many hours interviewing Flynn, and the result is "My Wicked, Wicked Ways." While the book was not written by Flynn, Conrad tried to duplicate the actor's unique way of expressing himself so that it was, in a way, spoken with Flynn's voice. The reader of "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" should be aware that a great deal of its contents has, since its publication, been discovered to be false. Flynn either made things up as he went along -- he was a notorious and gifted liar -- or he was confused thanks to the two quarts of vodka he tossed down every day of his life, and simply got some things wrong. Whatever the case may be, Errol Flynn did not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth in "his" autobiography. However, "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" is still a rousing look at a rousing life...at one of the most visually stunning men of his or any other day...at a man who could seemingly generate screen magic without effort...at a man whose demons drove him, at the age of 50, into his grave with the body of an 85-year-old man. For those reasons it is worth reading.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By W. Wren
Format:Paperback
I'm currently reading, and having a helluva great time enjoying, My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Autobiography of Errol Flynn. Good heavens, what a read. Is anything he says true? Well, maybe. Probably, at least some of it. But that's not really the point, not for me.
It reads as if it's the transcript of a recording of a great raconteur, a teller of tall-tales whose favourite tale is his own life. You get the sense of a man who is totally self-absorbed but, somehow, has such a winning personality you love him for it.
I originally picked up the book because I was interested in finding a unique character I might make use of in a story, a model for a supporting player. Well, geez ... did I ever get my money's worth in Flynn. It's not simply a matter of a long, episodic tale but also one of style. The words, syntax ... everything that goes into creating a "voice" in writing, is here.
It's the breezy voice of a kid who never grew up.
For me, the incidents are less important than the personality that comes across (although the incidents are quite remarkable). Together, personality and incidents, it makes for an incredibly entertaining book.
Flynn is a character, in the truest sense. He's marvellous and if I had known him, I don't think I would have trusted him any further than I could throw him.
(By the way, it sounds as if the writing of My Wicked, Wicked Ways was a great story too, or so the book's introduction suggests.)
It reads as if it's the transcript of a recording of a great raconteur, a teller of tall-tales whose favourite tale is his own life. You get the sense of a man who is totally self-absorbed but, somehow, has such a winning personality you love him for it.
I originally picked up the book because I was interested in finding a unique character I might make use of in a story, a model for a supporting player. Well, geez ... did I ever get my money's worth in Flynn. It's not simply a matter of a long, episodic tale but also one of style. The words, syntax ... everything that goes into creating a "voice" in writing, is here.
It's the breezy voice of a kid who never grew up.
For me, the incidents are less important than the personality that comes across (although the incidents are quite remarkable). Together, personality and incidents, it makes for an incredibly entertaining book.
Flynn is a character, in the truest sense. He's marvellous and if I had known him, I don't think I would have trusted him any further than I could throw him.
(By the way, it sounds as if the writing of My Wicked, Wicked Ways was a great story too, or so the book's introduction suggests.)
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ego Maniac
Much too egotistical and this man was certainly in love with himself more than any woman he bedded during his life!
Published 17 days ago by merrel wilkenfeld
5.0 out of 5 stars
A read for your eyes only
i have already read the reviews on the book in the front cover and i love it already.I'm ready for the ride!
Published 1 month ago by thia912002
5.0 out of 5 stars
Errol Flynn
I loved this book about an extraordinary life of a somewhat questionable but likeable character. It is a great read.
Published 1 month ago by lesley grill
4.0 out of 5 stars
My Wicked Wicked Ways: The Autobiography of Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn spins a great tale of his exploits and even though occasionally it sounds a little far fetched in places, he certainly led a fascinating life and was involved with some... Read more
Published 2 months ago by annfitz
4.0 out of 5 stars
What a life!
Excellent autobiography by Errol Flynn filled with spicy secrets of his own life, and some tantalizing Hollywood gossip from the 30's and 40's. Read more
Published 2 months ago by toni salvatore
5.0 out of 5 stars
So very interesting
A very interesting life. His life was not what I thought it would be. I passed it on to a friend who was also attending the movies of that period that the public library... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Sandra P. McGuire
4.0 out of 5 stars
What a Life
Between this book and another I got on Errol Flynn I now feel I have a pretty good perspective on this is actor's very different life style. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mary Tucker
4.0 out of 5 stars
My Wicked Wicked Ways
This is a very good telling of his life story. It includes all kinds of things that I had no idea of before: his early life bouncing around the world, the beginnings of his hmmm... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Avid Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved it- if you love Old Hollywood Stars like Flynn
this book will be very nostalgic, as he brings up many acting names from the great past of the Silver Screen. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Comparison Shopping Consumer
5.0 out of 5 stars
My wicked,Wicked Ways
I have read this book more than five times and will say that this book is a 5 star book. Please buy it and read it and you will enjoy it.
Published 4 months ago by Anthony A Rashad
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