Australian-born actor, who achieved enormous fame in Hollywood in the 1930s, especially in romantic, swashbuckling roles, and often playing opposite Olivia de Havilland. He took US citizenship in 1942.
Flynn's adventurous pre-acting life in New Guinea and Australia, his enormous fame in Hollywood's Golden Age, and his notorious romantic life have ensured that he remains a figure of fascination in both Australia and the United States.
In addition to films and novels explicitly based on his life, he has appeared as a character in Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004), in which he was played by British actor Jude Law and inspired the characters of Alan Swann, played by Peter O'Toole in My Favourite Year (1982) and Neville Sinclaire, played by Timothy Dalton in The Rocketeer (1991): the latter character's Nazi sympathies were drawn from unsubstantiated claims in the book Errol Flynn: The Untold Story.
