The Young Errol

About the Book

A fascinating account of the early life of one of Australia’s most colorful and controversial sons. John Hammond Moore trace film star Errol Flynn’s turbulent career from his birth in sedate Hobart through his eccentric schooldays and his youth in Sydney and cruising the Pacific to his years as a pioneer tobacco planter in Papua and the discovery that led to Hollywood and stardom. The author comments: ‘While his golden age in Hollywood produced wondrous swashbuckling, Errol Flynn was not really acting at all. He was merely transferring a natural style developed in Sydney, Port Moresby, Rabaul, and London to a much larger audience. Anecdotes, quotations from Flynn’s own diaries and from people who knew him in Australia and Papua New Guinea crowd one upon the other to underscore this truth, and to embellish this rollicking tale of a man who in the author’s words: ‘lived for half a century the sort of life adolescents dream of but men dare not attempt.’

About the Author

John Hammond Moore was born in Maine, USA in 1924. He attended Hamilton College and the University of Virginia and has worked as a journalist, editor and university lecturer in Australia and America. His published works include some fifty articles in historical and popular journals in both countries. He lived in Australia from 1969 until 1971, and became interested in the life of Errol Flynn during a visit to Papua New Guinea for a professional conference in 1970.