Flynn had a genius for living
Boston Globe January 20, 1985By Robert A. McLean - Globe Staff
“Come, all you young men with your wicked, wicked ways,
Sow your wild oats in your younger days,
So that we may be happy when we grow old...
For the day’s growing short, the night’s coming on.
Well darling – just gimme yer arm and we’ll joggle along.
Anonymous
Errol Flynn, the flamboyant, controversial screen star whose success as a Hollywood leading man and bon vivant, some say, helped coin the phrase “In Like Flynn,” wrote in his biography “My Wicked, Wicked Ways:”
“One thing I always knew how to do is enjoy life. If I have any genius, it is a genius for living.”
The essence of that philosophy - the spirit and thorough enjoyment of a brief, but spectacular life – is captured in “My Wicked, Wicked Ways...The Legend of Errol Flynn,” based on his million-copy best-seller, which airs Monday at 8 p.m. on Ch. 7.
For Doris Keating, Flynn’s godchild and co-producer of the three-hour CBS film, it was a seven-year labor of love. And for Keating, daughter of a long-time Flynn friend and business associate, it also was a seven-year search for the man who would portray her beloved godfather.
After sifting through thousands of resumes and attending countless auditions. Keating and her co-producers found and chose Duncan Regehr, a handsome Canadian-born actor with an amazing resemblance to Flynn, and a stubborn reluctance to mimic or attempt to recreate the legendary superstar.
The film chronicles Flynn’s life, from his arrival in Hollywood in 1935 at age 26, through his meteoric rise to stardom in the pre-World War II years, and his arrest and ultimate acquittal in a devastating statutory rape case in 1943. Flynn died in 1959.
Costarring is Barbara Hershey, portraying the tempestuous French star Lili Damita, who became Flynn’s first wife. Hal Linden plays Flynn’s studio boss, Hollywood mogul Jack Warner, and Darren McGavin portrays Dr. Gerrit Koets, a close friend and confidant.