He Who Gets Slapped: Errol Flynn Stars with a Striking Bette Davis

“He was just beautiful, Errol,” Bette Davis once remarked about Errol Flynn, her costar in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). “He himself openly said, ‘I don't know really anything about acting,’ and I admire his honesty, because he's absolutely right.”

Maxwell Anderson’s play Elizabeth the Queen opened on Broadway on November 3, 1930 with Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt acting out the tempestuous relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Warner Bros. secured the movie rights to the costume drama and signed two of the studios top draws—Davis and Flynn—to play the leads.

Flynn wanted his character to be part of the title and suggested calling the picture something other than Elizabeth the Queen. Warner Bros. first came up with The Knight and the Lady, which Davis didn’t cotton to, then Elizabeth and Essex, which was a copyrighted book title and therefore jettisoned. And so, in the spirit of The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and The Private Life of Don Juan (1934), the film became The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.

Photography began in June of 1939 and, true to many a Bette Davis film set, there was discord in the air, first between the strong-willed actress and director Michael Curtiz, then between Davis and Flynn, for whom she had little regard. She perceived the actor as having a limited range, a too-casual work ethic and, worst of all, he wasn’t Laurence Olivier, her personal choice for the role.

In his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn recounts in detail how a famous scene unfolded:

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May 17

Dennis Hopper is born in Dodge City, Kansas, 1936. He emerged on the silver screen in 1954 in Johnny Guitar and soon thereafter made a number of films that became classics: Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Giant (1956) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Hopper, never a shrinking violet, had this to say about his early days in Hollywood: “In the ‘50s, when me and Natalie Wood and James Dean and Nick Adams and Tony Perkins suddenly arrived…God, it was a whole group of us that sort of felt like that earlier group—the John Barrymores, Errol Flynns, Sinatras, Clifts—were a little farther out than we were. So we tried to emulate that lifestyle. For instance, once Natalie and I decided we'd have an orgy. And Natalie says, "Okay, but we have to have a champagne bath." So we filled the bathtub full of champagne. Natalie takes off her clothes, sits down in the champagne, and starts screaming. We take her to the emergency hospital. That was our orgy, you understand?”

March 21

Lili Damita dies of Alzheimer’s disease in Palm Beach, Florida, 1994. The French actress came to Hollywood at the dawn of sound at the request of producer Samuel Goldwyn; she soon appeared in The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929), The Cock-Eyed World (1929), Fighting Caravans (1931) and This is the Night (1932). But her films were not as newsworthy as her relationship with a young newcomer named Errol Flynn. “What began as an affair went far beyond that,” Flynn recounted in his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways. “We decided it would be a good idea to take a house…Thereafter Lili showed me a great deal of the surroundings. We went everywhere, to Palm Springs, to San Diego, to San Francisco. She showed me plenty…With Lili I naturally met many of the screen notables I might not have met at this time. I also saw many of the Hollywood beauties. The sight of them stirred me to frenzies of interest and Lili to furies of jealousy.” Though the two were married in June of 1935, Flynn was anything but tamed, in spite of Damita’s wishes. “Lili had an overpowering possessiveness, like a blanket or an oxygen tent,” the actor said. “I had to be mighty careful not to be caught with any lipstick that wasn’t her shade.” Flynn and Damita divorced in April of 1942. They had one child—Sean Flynn—who became a photojournalist and went missing in Cambodia in April 1970.

January 2

Ross Alexander commits suicide in Los Angeles, 1937. As a teen, he appeared in a number of Broadway productions before interest from Hollywood pulled him westward. Paramount handled him first, putting him in The Wiser Sex (1932), a film that audiences largely ignored. He got a second chance at Warner Bros. and acted in Depression-era musicals like Flirtation Walk (1934) and flimsy comedies like Going Highbrow (1935). Bigger breaks came with the roles of Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) and Jeremy Pitt, opposite Errol Flynn (above), in Captain Blood (1935). A closeted gay man, Alexander entered a marriage of convenience to Aleta Friele, a troubled young actress who, a few months after the wedding, killed herself with a rifle in outside their Hollywood Hills home. The actor immediately entered a second marriage with actress Anne Nagel, but persistent depression, major debt and a career slump drove him to turn a gun on himself at his Encino ranch home. Alexander was 29 years old. His final film—Ready, Willing and Able (1937), starring Ruby Keeler—was released after his death.

September 9

Producer Jack L. Warner (above, flanked by Fay Bainter and Bette Davis) kicks the bucket in Los Angeles, 1978. With brother Harry, Albert and Sam, he founded Warner Bros., built a heady stable of stars—Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Errol Flynn and Edward G. Robinson, to name five—and produced a vast number of social dramas that characterized the studio’s output. 

A staunch Republican since the Red Scare, Warner campaigned for Richard Nixon when he ran against John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential race, with an ad entitled “Why Nixon Should Be President” bought by Warner running in major newspapers at the time. Years later, with Nixon finally ensconced in the White House, Warner screened the musical 1776 (1972) for the commander in chief. The song “Cool, Cool Considerate Men” (below) was cut from the movie as a result, as Nixon felt it could be used against his party for that year’s upcoming election.