"Simply put, the tragedy of Errol Flynn is that he became a prisoner of his public image."
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The Young Errol: Flynn Before Hollywood by John Hammond Moore Trafford Publishing
book review by Susan Illis
Tracing the life of Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn from his birth in 1909 in Hobart, Tasmania, through his erratic schooling to his wild young adulthood, Moore's The Young Errol shows how Flynn perfected his on- and off-screen persona long before he ever suspected he had a future in Hollywood. Moore utilizes primary source material, including diaries and personal interviews, gathered during his own residence in Australia in 1970. However, the memories of those who knew him slightly several decades previously might be colored by Flynn's larger-than-life public image.
The book presupposes some knowledge on the part of the reader, even though it's been a half-century since Flynn's death, and the focus is Flynn's early life, before Flynn begins his ascension toward fame. Nonetheless, his well-written, impeccably researched biography evokes not only Flynn's childhood and young adulthood, but also the setting in which they occurred—untamed, early twentieth century Australia and Papua New Guinea. Moore's assertion that Flynn was not acting at all, but merely being his own swashbuckling self is well-supported by the text, which shows him as a "human butterfly" flitting from job to job, one place to another, and, of course, from woman to woman, while alighting on each as long as they suited his purpose. The sparkling moments in this short biography occur when Moore allows glimpses of his own humor to show through.