Here's a snippet from a thread on TCM message boards:

However, in February, 1958, backstage of the play The Master of Thornfield in which Flynn briefly (and disasterously) appeared, he was interviewed by writer, biographer and friend Tony Thomas. The Australian-made Flynn documentary Tasmanian Devil includes a small audio clip from that interview in which the following exchange between the two men can be heard:

Thomas: "Errol, the last picture in which we saw you, The Sun Also Rises, and even the critics who had not liked you before said that you were wonderful."

Flynn: "Well, if the critics said that, you know, it's a kind word in a hard cruel world."

Thomas: "The news has just come through from Hollywood that you have been nominated for an Academy Award."

Flynn: "Yes, isn't that something? I never thought it would happen to me."

The narrator of the documentary, Hammer horror star and former Flynn co-worker, Christopher Lee, then said, "On the verge of recognition at last, his nomination for the Oscar was mysteriously withdrawn."

Over the years I have read few, very few, references to Flynn's lost nomination, the one that mysteriously disappeared.

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True? Hollywood urban legend? Anyone ever heard about this before??

Here's a clip from a documentary that mentions his nomination.....

One possible explanation?

pretty weird

Weird but not unexpected. Flynn made the wrong kind of news with his criminal trial for statutory rape in early 1943. He was lucky in the sense that his accusers, two recently-turned 18 year old girls - they were underage at the time of the alleged incident - pranced around in "little girl" dresses apparently enjoying the publicity. Adele Rogers St. John wrote an essay in the February 1943 issue of Photoplay magazine titled, "What I Think of Errol Flynn" with a photo of Flynn and his attorney at the trial. Her conclusion was that Flynn didn't do it but he left himself open for such charges by hanging around under-age girls.

The media of the day covered the trial as light-hearted relief from the war news. Flynn was acquitted by the jury and the judge was quoted as thanking the jury saying, "I'm sure we all had a good time" or words to that effect.

But like Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, the passage of years did not cause the public to have amnesia. I can only guess that if Flynn was ever nominated for an AA for THE SUN ALSO RISES, the folks involved thought the trial would be regarded as ancient history, if the public remembered it at all. But like Ted who tried for the 1980 Presidential nomination, the Flynn buzz likely caused the past to be dug up. I'm not surprised he was nominated, he deserved it. But I'm not surprised his name was withdrawn either.

Bob

After reading this thread, I dug up the old Errol Flynn blog thread on this urban legend but then stayed on Microsoft Bing which pulled your decade old thread about this question here and posted there not realizing it was not the same thread as the new one. Fortunately, I was able to delete it and then post it here:

Almost certainly an urban legend. Even most Flynn bluffs don't believe it:

https://www.theerrolflynnblog.com/2022/ ... omination/

When did the Academy ever tell nominees in private of a nomination in advance? A person can decline a nomination after it's been announced, and some nominations have been rescinded (as was the infamous case of the Bowery Boys' D-movie HIGH SOCIETY getting a screenplay nomination that was clearly meant for the Sinatra-Kelly-Crosby film of the same name also released that year). Maybe Flynn concocted this fantasy himself and told it to people who believed it and maybe it was from a fan but there's no evidence to back it up as the Flynn board poster shows via vintage articles of that year's nominations being announced. None of the major Oscar books like Robert Osborne's detailed volume had ever backed up this story.

Harlowgold wrote: ↑

Fri May 10, 2024 12:03 am

Almost certainly an urban legend...

Well, most (but certainly not all) urban legends are not backed up by the voices of supposedly credible people in a documentary. Are you saying that Tony Thomas and Christopher Lee were victims of (or willing participants in) a hoax?

For some reason, my original link does not pull it up correctly but these guys did a terrific job shooting it down:

https://www.theerrolflynnblog.com/2022/ ... omination/
https://www.theerrolflynnblog.com/2022/ ... on-part-2/

Frame Rate wrote: ↑

Fri May 10, 2024 4:03 pm

Harlowgold wrote: ↑

Fri May 10, 2024 12:03 am

Almost certainly an urban legend...

Well, most (but certainly not all) urban legends are not backed up by the voices of supposedly credible people in a documentary. Are you saying that Tony Thomas and Christopher Lee were victims of (or willing participants in) a hoax?

Supposedly credible people have made many a falsehood whopper in scores of Hollywood documentaries, but this is minor stuff. Certainly, neither Lee nor Thomas (back in 1958) were deliberately being deceitful. Lee was just the narrator, he read what was put before him; I seriously doubt two out of a hundred documentary narrators ask, "is this true?" or make any attempt at confirming the accuracy of what they are reading. That's not their job.

Tony Thomas either misunderstood Hollywood hyperbole about the possibility of Flynn getting a nomination as a fact or misspoke and called it an actual nomination when he meant to say talk of one. The Flynn blog does prove at least one newspaper article mentioned Flynn as one of the possibilities of getting a supporting Oscar nomination that year among a dozen or so other potential candidates and I suspect that was the seed of confusion to the belief Flynn actually received one.

Tony Thomas was unquestionably Flynn's biggest fan and most knowledgeable among film historians on his career. In 1969 he wrote THE FILMS OF ERROL FLYNN for Citadel which many feel is the best book ever written about Errol's career. Thomas does not write one word about an Oscar nomination for Errol, or a removed Oscar nomination, or even a deserved but unreceived Oscar nomination for this or any other film. He does say Flynn made something of a "comeback" with the movie but no story about him receiving or refusing an Oscar nomination in the pages devoted to the film. Tony Thomas may have believed the story in 1959 but he certainly didn't by 1969.

It's easy to find this out and separate urban legend from actual truth. You can contact NFIS at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library to examine AMPAS minutes for you. Authors are now able to investigate them.

missdupont wrote: ↑

Tue May 14, 2024 2:32 pm

It's easy to find this out and separate urban legend from actual truth. You can contact NFIS at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library to examine AMPAS minutes for you. Authors are now able to investigate them.

Then perhaps someone can finally get to the bottom to the various claims about 'unofficial' nominees and write-in candidates in the first few ceremonies, before the Academy had properly nailed down the voting process. The claim that Corinne Griffith was nominated for The Divine Lady (1929) and Bette Davis for Of Human Bondage (1934) are the most famous ones, but it would be fascinating to know if other names came up in internal debates before the official list of candidates was issued.

Robert Osborne's Oscars book is usually cited as the source for the claims about Davis and Griffith, and it would be nice to confirm where he got that information.

Brooksie wrote: ↑

Wed May 15, 2024 8:45 am

missdupont wrote: ↑

Tue May 14, 2024 2:32 pm

It's easy to find this out and separate urban legend from actual truth. You can contact NFIS at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library to examine AMPAS minutes for you. Authors are now able to investigate them.

Then perhaps someone can finally get to the bottom to the various claims about 'unofficial' nominees and write-in candidates in the first few ceremonies, before the Academy had properly nailed down the voting process. The claim that Corinne Griffith was nominated for The Divine Lady (1929) and Bette Davis for Of Human Bondage (1934) are the most famous ones, but it would be fascinating to know if other names came up in internal debates before the official list of candidates was issued.

Robert Osborne's Oscars book is usually cited as the source for the claims about Davis and Griffith, and it would be nice to confirm where he got that information.

Just went to the official AA website oscar.org for the first time in quite a while and found it odd they have now removed all "write-in" candidates who placed in the top three with the odd exception of Davis in Of Human Bondage. Wasn't there a technical winner in 1935 who was a write-in candidate? They don't mention it now. And I hate the fact they have removed who came in second/third in the early 1930's which apparently was publicized after the fact back then. They also removed the information that Fredric March actually had one vote more than Wallace Beery in 1932 though it was declared a tie at the time for being "statistical tie" which was weird in the first place given there were probably just a fairly modest amount of people who voted back then so that one vote should have conclusively made a single winner.

They do include Corinne Griffith but not a mention of it being a "late discovered nominee"; I think somebody somewhere online wrote a fairly detailed piece about it but not sure if they consulted the Academy for more information.

I believe Hal Mohr was a write-in Cinematography winner for a MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. As a touching footnote, I think many years later someone picked up that Oscar at an auction, and kindly returned it to Hal Mohr, shortly before his passing.

The Academy website seems to get a little creative in smoothing over the quirks of the earliest ceremonies. For example, it lists 'nominees' for the first ceremony, but publicity at the time actually describes them as 'Honourable Mentions' - a subtle but important difference. They might better be described as second-placegetters.

The second ceremony is when they started to formalise the voting process. It was all set out in great detail in industry magazines (they even included the nomination form). The rules do clearly state that a longlist of ten would be narrowed down to a shortlist of five official nominees in each category.

However, search industry publications, and all you'll find is the names of the winners. It seems that neither the longlist or shortlist were ever made public. I guess what the Academy is saying when it claims that 'all nominees were informal' is that the concept of official nominees did not exist until the third ceremony, when they were widely publicised alongside the names of the winners.

But does that mean we should regard all the second ceremony 'nominees' as informal? Should the Academy post the longlist of ten, or the shortlist of five? One way or the other, the anomaly of their inclusion of the Griffith nomination on the website still needs further explanation.

The tie is easier to explain. It was stated in the rules for the third ceremony that any candidate who came within three votes of a winner was considered to have 'tied' with them (but would nevertheless receive a bronze statuette rather than a gold one). I'm guessing that was phased out when the rules were revised again in (I think) 1936.

The Corinne Griffith nomination was never mentioned anywhere by anyone until Osborne started writing his Oscar books. Revising history. The early nominees were selected by panels and were not nominated by the various branches. The trouble with adding Griffith and more famously Bette Davis is that it becames a selective revision of Oscar history.

I have no doubt these women had write-in votes, which were banned altogether after Hal Mohr won the Oscar over the official nominees, but they were not the only ones. No matter how you look at it, no number of write-in votes translates into a "nomination" as they have steadfastly allowed for Bette Davis. And since a write-in could only occur AFTER the fact (no nomination). Write-in campaigns for Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, and Marion Davies did not result in nominations or awards.

By 1932 or 33, I believe the panels were gone and nominations came from the various branch members. Griffith could not have been a "nominee" since the nominees were selected by panels. So whatever write-in campaign there was for her, it was also after the fact (no nomination).

Apparently it may be true that the eventual write-ins for the above ladies in the award voting (not the nominations) may have placed them ahead of the actual nominees, that still doesn't translate into a nomination.

I don't recall ever reading that nominations were made from pre-selected slates of nominees (which could have resulted in write-ins if your gal was not on the pre-selected slate. But did slates ever exist?

Take a look at the rules for the second ceremony at the link I posted above. It appears that the rules were peculiar to this particular ceremony; by the following year, Louis B. Mayer made various changes, which apparently included the explicit publication of the nominees. By that point, the studios had realised the publicity potential of the Academy Awards, and industry publications are full of boasts that so-and-so a movie or individual had won X number of gongs. Studios would naturally be proud to say (and publicise) that their stars were nominees.

It is entirely possible that Griffith was among the ten longlisted nominees. It would make more sense if she were a formal nominee rather than a write-in - The Divine Lady did win for Best Director, after all. It is even possible that she was one of the five shortlisted nominees, but requested that her nomination be withdrawn due to her highly publicised screen retirement in mid 1930. All of these are issues that might be elucidated by the AMPAS minutes.

I arranged the musical score for THE ADVENTURES OF ERROL FLYNN. The only reference to this in the documentary was one line - "there was even talk of an Oscar nomination".

Frankly, I always thought Flynn should have been nominated for TOO MUCH TOO SOON rather than THE SUN ALSO RISES.

Would certainly be an interesting project for someone to research. Maybe AMPAS is more open with their records to these kinds of "ancient histories" histories nowadays.

A few years back I contacted them with a simple "was William Randolph Hearst ever a member of the Academy" query and was told that these sorts of records and information were sealed. Yet even back in the day, they used to issue updates about membership



I wonder when the earliest list of nominees got into the news, as Brooksie notes, when they realized the importance of publicity for the awards...??