Celebrity Birthday of the Day

Happy Birthday, Errol Flynn! 

Known to most of the world as a non-jackass version of Robin Hood, Flynn gets mention on this blog not for his professional life (which was hilariously mediocre), but rather for being one of the most ridiculous men to ever live. 

Allow me to explain....

Born in 1909 in Australia, Flynn was the son of Theodore and Lily Flynn, a lecturer and (according to Wikipedia) a person not related to mutineers, respectively. 

Confused by this, the young Flynn quickly made a name for himself, getting kicked out of one school for fighting, and another for fighting and having sex (presumably not at the same time, though you never know).   

Whatever it was, by age 20 Flynn was already cooler than any of us could ever hope to be, and he eventually moved to New Guinea, where he tried his hand in the tobacco and copper mining businesses. However, since neither of these industries required his skills -- to be demonstrated later -- in extreme laziness and/or ability to seduce very young women, he failed. 

By the early 1930s, Flynn had moved to England, where not being able to find a respectable job, he began acting. Appearing first in pieces of shit, he eventually landed a starring role in Captain Blood (1935), a movie about a doctor who's falsely accused of being a pirate, and then, after thinking about it for a while, decides he doesn't mind being a pirate after all. Along the way, he stabs Basil Rathbone to death. 

The movie was an international smash hit (though having seen it, I can't imagine why), and Flynn quickly decided to take advantage of his newfound stardom by drinking and screwing young girls a lot. 

Shockingly, this behavior eventually caught up to Flynn when two (2!) underage girls accused Flynn of statutory rape in 1942. By then the hugely famous star of The Adventures of Robin Hood, Flynn found himself supported by groups like the American Boy's Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn (ABCDEF), whose members began each meeting by imagining what Flynn's life was like and then fervently masturbating to it. 

In a trial that would have made the O.J. circus look like getting a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, Flynn -- represented by superstar attorney Jerry Giesler -- was acquitted on all charges by the mostly-female jury, who were famously reduced to giddy laughter by his dashing, molester testimony. His ability to get away scot free (by claiming in part that the underage girls weren't "raped" because, after all, they totally wanted to do him) proved the origin of the phrase "In like Flynn" (from the Latin meaning "rapes teenagers and gets away with it"). 

Flynn, for his part, spent most of the trial flirting with an 18-year-old named Nora Eddington, who worked at a snack bar in the courthouse (he eventually married her, proving my long held theory: Nora Eddington was dumber than a tree stump). 

A famous alcoholic and hedonist, Flynn quickly ruined his looks and his health. Irritated with being given boring "swashbuckler" roles but unwilling to do anything strenuous about it, he eventually descended into relative professional obscurity. Banned from drinking on set on his later, crappier movies, he started injecting oranges with vodka and eating them between takes. 

Confronted about his ridiculous lifestyle, Flynn let everyone know exactly what his plan was: 

"I intend to the live the first half of my life. I don't care about the rest."  

After his totally unexpected divorce from Nora Addington, Flynn began dating 15-year-old Beverly Aadland, telling her he totally loved her and planned to marry her, though he almost certainly knew -- approaching age 50 and suffering from an enlarged heart -- that he was about to drop dead. 

Which of course he did, of a heart attack, less than four months after his 50th birthday. After the autopsy, the medical examiner said Flynn had the body of a 75-year-old man (which makes his relationship with Beverly Aadland that much creepier). 

Flynn's autobiography, originally titled In Like Me, but eventually released with the title My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was published posthumously. It's theme was captured in Flynn's last words: 

"I've had a hell of a lot of fun and enjoyed every minute of it." 

Apparently Flynn's friends agreed. They buried him with six bottles of whiskey. And a 16-year-old girl. 

You know, for good luck.