EX-BOXER, ARTIST, TV HOST TRIES ACTING
Richmond Times Dispatch, January 20, 1985 by Carole Kass
Guess who vied to portray Errol Flynn, the screen’s favorite rake and swashbuckling lover, in CBS’ “My Wicked, Wicked Ways...The Legend of Errol Flynn”? Tom Selleck, Bruce Boxleitner, Pierce Brosnan and Kevin Klein.
But who got the part? A relative newcomer: Green-eyed Duncan Regehr, the handsome, jut-jawed 6-foot-5-inch hunk who plays the Visitors’ commander on “V,” and played Lydon, the hero-gladiator in “The Last Days of Pompeii.”
Like so many big men, Regehr, 31, is a gentle one. He hails from Canada where his family still lives. He started figure skating at age 5 and acted as host of a teen-age cable TV talk show at age 14. He became a portrait painter and an Olympic –class heavyweight boxer. But he cried when hurt.
Cried? He explained over coffee at a Beverly Hills, Calif., pool: “Between 1976 and 1980 I was in training for a spot on Canada’s Olympic boxing team. I boxed only because of the serious physical challenge. I learned it was an art, and it was a terribly dangerous on which – strangely – was attractive to me.
“I’m not brave, nor am I crazy. But because of boxing’s implicit challenge I had to do it. It’s really not too bad, but I’m too sensitive. If I was hit hard enough, I would cry. That was disconcerting to the others. If I was hit on the nose I would get a lump in my throat.”
Regehr always knew he wanted to be a performer. He studied voice, movement, acting and fencing. He appeared in the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival. He was heard in radio dramas and did voices for cartoon characters.
He made Canadian films and starred in a Canadian TV series before arriving in Hollywood in 1981. Since then he co-starred in “Goliath Awaits” and was featured in “The Blue and the Gray” then starred in “Wizards and Warriors.”
And now he plays the dashing hero in a glossy, fictionalized version of Flynn’s life with a title taken from the late star’s autobiography.
Yet, he said about “My Wicked, Wicked Ways,” “When Errol Flynn wrote his autobiography, he gave us his own interpretation of his life. We’ve even taken it out of the first person singular. It’s no longer an autobiography. It’s a biography.
“Errol Flynn wrote what he remembers. No one will ever know if what he wrote was the truth. So, there is the writer’s interpretation of what Errol wrote and then my interpretation of it. What I set out to do was to show his charm, his wit, his honor and love of life.
“There is action. Flynn was a Hollywood legend. We deal with his personal as well as his professional life.” The film calls for Regehr to wear a mustache, dance, ride horses and fence. “We follow Errol during his first seven years in Hollywood up to 1943 when he was brought to trial on charges of raping a 17-year-old girl. We took some dramatic license. Our version isn’t too literal. We tried to capture the joy in Flynn’s life, his love of life.
“We do not deal with the last seven years of his life when he was on the way down.
“I liked Errol Flynn a great deal. Everybody loved him. He would have been a very interesting person to know, I think. Unfortunately, I never met him. I was 7 when he died.
“But I talked to people who knew him. I looked at his films, tried to capture the essence of a person. I might as well cut my throat as try to impersonate him. I would have enjoyed knowing him, I think.”
Flynn might have been disconcerted at this gentle giant who seeks to provide the late star’s “essence.” For Regehr is busy not only acting but also writing a TV pilot. “My goal is to broaden my horizons. I don’t want to be just an actor.”
He is already a man of various talents and interests. His soft, Canadian-accented speech is reminiscent of Ronald Coleman, Fredric March, Claude Rains and the classical actors of yesteryear.
Regehr say he has been offered acting parts “I wouldn’t dream of doing. Experience is important but so are standards. Since I have been offered nothing I want to do, I’m working on my own thing.”