Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was

Author of 30 books about movies and movie stars, Thomas here defends Flynn (1909-1959) against the charge made by Charles Higham in Errol Flynn: The Untold Story (1979) that the Hollywood swashbuckler, who played Captain Blood, Robin Hood, the Earl of Essex and Don Juan, was a Nazi spy. Thomas's detailed examination of Higham's evidence (including interviews with many original sources) convincingly shows that Higham quoted documents selectively, twisted witnesses' words and made a flawed case based on guilt by association: Flynn's prewar friendship with a bumbling Austrian doctor who spied for the Nazis in China. Thomas devotes two-thirds of the book to Flynn's defense; readers will wish that his gripping biographical sketch of the talented, lazy, hedonistic actor were more fleshed out. The volume concludes with a dispensable, albeit entertaining, epilogue by Patricstet Knowles, a friend of Flynn. Photos not seen by PW . (Oct.)