In the summer of , Errol Flynn traveled to Havana to star in The Big Boodle , a low-grade crime drama about a casino croupier who stumbles across a counterfeiting ring. It was a far cry from the big-budget, high-flying epics that had made Flynn a star 20 years earlier, but, then, the year-old was no longer the dashing swashbuckler.
I heard he went to Brazil to get ready for the role. If he did, the regimen didn't take. When Flynn showed up on the set—the casino interiors were filmed at the famed Hotel Nacional—he was overweight, drinking heavily and had trouble remembering his lines. Nevertheless, Flynn continued to exude a certain aura. Since the mids, Flynn had been one of Hollywood's highest earners, one of its most renowned bons vivants and its most notorious star.
But in many ways, his most intriguing role still lay ahead. In Cuba, a couple years after making The Big Boodle , Flynn would become involved in a burgeoning revolution, playing opposite a new kind of international star, one not confined to the screen: Fidel Castro. It would prove to be a most memorable experience, even for a man whose life had been one long series of improbable exploits.
Born in the Australian territory of Tasmania in , the preternaturally handsome Flynn had come to Hollywood almost by chance. After trying his hand at a number of jobs, including plantation overseer, gold prospector and even correspondent for The Sydney Bulletin , he had drifted into acting.
When a Warner Bros. Once in Hollywood, Flynn didn't have to wait long for his big break. In , he was cast as the lead in Captain Blood , the tale of an eighteenth-century Irish doctor forced to become a pirate. It became one of the year's most popular films and it cemented a partnership between Flynn, director Michael Curtiz and costar Olivia de Havilland that would last for the next five years and produce such classic action films as The Charge of the Light Brigade , The Adventures of Robin Hood and Santa Fe Trail.
