He was one of Hollywood’s all-time great ladies’ men — a spirited womanizer who inspired the expression “in like Flynn.” The actor’s twilight years are recounted in Friday’s “The Last of Robin Hood,” which details Errol Flynn’s (Kevin Kline) raucous life and his relationship with an underage aspiring actress named Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning).
Here are five more scandalous facts about Flynn, who died in 1959.
He lost his virginity at age 12.
He writes in his autobiography that it was with a girl who worked for his mom: “plump,” “blond,” “not handsome, but available.” One night his parents were out, and he approached her and caressed her leg. When she didn’t react, he moved his hand upward.
Finally, she grabbed him, took him into the bedroom and had sex with him, admitting she hoped it would get her out of paying him back some money.
He had one of Hollywood’s most legendary libidos.
Flynn once boasted that he had spent 12,000 to 14,000 nights having sex. Robert Douglas once recalled walking into Flynn’s dressing room to find the star naked in his armchair, with one woman on top of him and another waiting patiently.
His house was a voyeur’s dream.
What many guests at Flynn’s Mulholland Drive mansion didn’t know was that Flynn had tricked out the house with peepholes and two-way mirrors, one of which had a view into the bathroom.
Above the bed in one of the downstairs bedrooms was another two-way mirror accessible through a crawl space.
He was an equal-opportunity lover.
According to “Errol Flynn: The Untold Story” by Charles Higham, the swashbuckler crossed swords with Tyrone Power, Howard Hughes and Truman Capote.
He loved young women.
The actor supposedly claimed, “I like my whiskey old and my women young.” His tastes caught up with him in 1943, when he was tried for statutory rape. Two underage girls (“jailbait” and “San Quentin quail”) claimed he had bedded them. Flynn was acquitted.
Flynn spent his breaks during the trial hitting on the teenager who ran the courthouse’s cigarette stand. Flynn invited her home — and she later became his second wife.