THIS IS SEAN FLYNN. HIS FATHER WAS ERROL FLYNN. SEAN WAS DESTINED FOR MOVIE STARDOM, BUT HE CHOSE A DIFFERENT PATH. HE DROVE A MOTORCYCLE INTO COMMUNIST HELD-TERRITORY IN CAMBODIA ON APRIL 6, 1970 AND WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN. THIS IS A STORY ABOUT YOUTH, WAR, AND DEATH. ABOUT LOVE, FRIENDSHIP, AND GETTING THE PHOTO. THIS IS HIS STORY. BY HIS FRIEND, PERRY DEANE YOUNG. #MISSING THE MANY MYSTERIES OF SEAN FLYNN 88 OS08_088-095_SeanFlynn.indd 88 9/22/11 4:20:17 PM 89 OS08_088-095_SeanFlynn.indd 89 9/22/11 4:20:18 PM SEAN FLYNN eautiful. That was Captain Blood and General Custer One of his grade school teachers how Michael Herr and Gentleman Jim Corbett. As !lm remembers Lili running so hard in the described Sean Flynn executive Jack Warner said of him: “He parent-son races she fell on her face. in his brilliant book, was all the heroes in one magni!cent “I was mother, father, everything to Dispatches. Sean was sexy, animal package.” His escapades him,” she told me. “I did it all myself.” Bindeed beautiful, no question about o" camera only added to that image. She felt a young boy should know all it, and outwardly calm no matter how Errol was a fantasy !gure to about guns so she took him to have desperate the situation. He had the millions of people, but he was the shooting lessons from a colourful perfect manners of an old-fashioned very real father of my friend, Sean. It character with a range outside town. gentleman, and yet there always didn’t help that his son grew up in the It was the beginning of Sean’s lifelong seemed to be inner voices calling precise physical image of his father. fascination with weapons. to him from some dark place deep Sean’s mother, the French-born Sean was a senior at the within, urging him on to mysterious actress, Lili Damita, had been the real Lawrenceville School in October of ventures. How else do you explain star when she met the poor Australian 1959 when Errol died in Canada, at his obsession with weapons. His actor on a boat to America in 1935. the age of 50 and in the company fascination with mortal combat in Lili had starred in several major silent of his teenage girlfriend, Beverly Vietnam. And, of course, his !nal movies, but, like so many others, she Aadland. When young Sean journey down a road in Cambodia he was unable to make the transition attended his father’s funeral at knew he might never return from. to talkies. After marrying Errol, she Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Sean’s actor father, Errol, had the never made another movie. grace to say, “he looks like me, but After Sean was born in 1941, Errol better.” And Errol himself was no would write in his memoir, My As an actor, Sean was slouch when it came to looks. For Wicked Wicked Ways, Lili’s real as unconvincing as his nearly 30 years he was the ultimate career became suing him for all he father had been a swashbuckling hero to moviegoers was worth. She took Sean to live in true natural the world over. Errol was Ivanhoe Palm Beach, Florida, as far away from and Don Juan and Jeb Stuart and Errol and Hollywood as she could get. AMERICAN COMBAT HELICOPTERS ON A SEARCH AND DESTROY MISSION IN SOUTH VIETNAM IN 1967 Glendale, CA, he caught the eye of all the old pros in Hollywood. Hy Seeger, George Hamilton’s agent, said, “He was maybe the most beautiful boy I had ever seen.” George had also grown up in Palm Beach and he and Sean had been friends since they met before a judge on separate speeding charges. When the 20-year- old George was !lming Where the Boys Are in Fort Lauderdale in 1959, he got a walk-on part for his friend Sean, who was 18. Sean’s mother was ferocious in her opposition to a !lm career for her only child. It would take a year before she relented and allowed him to sign with SEAN FLYNN AND TIM PAGE WORKING AS PHOTOGRAPHERS IN VIETNAM Seeger as his agent. 90 OS08_088-095_SeanFlynn.indd 90 9/22/11 4:20:47 PM AMERICAN COMBAT HELICOPTERS ON A SEARCH AND DESTROY MISSION IN SOUTH VIETNAM IN 1967 By that time, Sean was a freshman for one or two brief visits. Only one Sean arrived in Saigon carrying at Duke University. He had been at of his movies was ever seriously two suitcases, a suit, an attaché case, Duke only about three months when reviewed. His mother gave him her a camera and a tennis racket. A he got the o"er from director Harry Joe mother’s apartment in Paris that letter from Paris-Match got him his Brown to star in The Son Of Captain became his base camp for various accreditation. Having never worked Blood, a sequel to his father’s !rst big hunting trips to Africa. as a journalist or photographer, he set !lm, which Brown had also directed. When he set o" for Vietnam in o" to cover the war. As an actor, Sean was every bit as January of 1966, he was pursuing He had no deadlines, so he was able sti" as his father had been natural “the sole great adventure,” and one his to stay out with the troops as long as and convincing in his cutthroat roles. father had never experienced. Errol was he wanted. The Green Berets adopted One reviewer said Sean, “seems like ridiculed for playing heroes in the him as one of their own. A Green a nice boy, which is going to be his movies but was ineligible for service Beret o#cer told me: “The guys fell handicap for some time to come.” in the Second World War. The Hearst in love with him; they thought he When Sean set o" to !lm another papers sent him to cover the Spanish was the greatest thing going. They B movie in Spain in 1961, he left Civil War, but he turned tail and ran identi!ed with him because he Hollywood for good, returning only at the !rst signs of danger. was willing to take his share of the 91 OS08_088-095_SeanFlynn.indd 91 9/22/11 4:20:50 PM SEAN FLYNN chances.” No other correspondent old wooden door and sped o" to the taken acting lessons “and he had the had such access to missions. And military hospital. After this, Tim was depth to be a good actor.” Sean came out with pictures such as taking no-risk assignments like a George never saw his friend again. the ones of prisoners being tortured, visit to the Coast Guard cutter, Point The next thing he heard, Sean was which nobody had gotten before. Welcome. Incredibly, the ship was in the Six Day War in Israel and then The stories under Sean’s byline were bombed and strafed by American F-4 he was back in Vietnam after the Tet not the shallow observations of a movie !ghter jets on nine di"erent passes. O"ensive began in January of 1968. I swashbuckler, they were sensitive Two Coast Guardsmen were killed. had arrived in Saigon the night before stories about the “real stupidity of war.” Tim counted 800 pieces of shrapnel Tet and had made the rounds of all the In one, Sean described an in his body and carefully saved his New Year’s Eve parties. At 3am, my American captain crying as he hospital bills and mailed them to the o#ce called and said, “Come to work watched a Vietnamese child dying Secretary of the Air Force. if you can get across the street.” of shrapnel wounds. After he moved If Sean had a charmed reputation I covered the !ghting in Saigon, into moving !lm, Sean began as one of the lucky ones everybody then $ew to Danang where I was in stockpiling hours and hours of !lm wanted to be with, Tim was the and out of the siege at Khe Sanh and with the ambition of producing the opposite. One colleague said he was the battle for Hue. To me, it was all ultimate documentary on war. “a walking magnet for shrapnel.” A so overwhelming it never seemed After the “Five O’clock Follies” — the collection was taken up to get him quite real to me. I was watching a daily American press brie!ng — one out of the country. He left with Sean movie and so never felt the very real day in Saigon, Sean encountered Tim to !lm the worst, and last, of his bad dangers. And, one afternoon at the Page. They became instant friends, movies, this one called Cinq Gars Danang Press Center, Sean Flynn the war’s odd couple. On the surface, Pour Singapore or Five Guys For walked onto the set of my movie. the two seemed polar opposites and Singapore. Tim went o" to America AD yet they would become the kind of where he proudly got himself arrested bosom buddies that can only happen (for drugs) on stage with The Doors. in the midst of war. Tim was every bit When the Singapore !lm had its THE LAST PHOTO OF SEAN AND DANA as gregarious as Sean was careful, premiere in Paris, Tim and Sean were contained, polite. Invited to an together again, arriving in Tim’s taxi embassy party, the two showed up in in jeans and T-shirts.