Film - 2004: Bicentenary of Tasmania

Flynn, Errol Leslie Thomson (1909-59), Hollywood movie star, was born in Hobart to Marelle and Theodore Flynn. His father's work as a zoologist often took the family away for extended periods with Errol attending numerous schools in Hobart, Sydney and in England. After many jobs Errol drifted into acting with his first role as Fletcher Christian in In the Wake of the Bounty, filmed in Sydney in 1932. By 1935 he had moved to Hollywood and became a celebrated star when he featured in Captain Blood. He starred in 55 films. From his three marriages he fathered a son and three daughters. Despite a tarnished movie star image, created by a private life of divorces, alcohol and sex scandals, he is affectionately remembered as the handsome Hollywood swashbuckler.

Lovely, Louise (1895–1980), film star and producer, was born in Sydney, illegitimate. In around 1911 she starred in nine film melodramas, and with her husband Wilton went to Hollywood in 1914 and became a star. Wilton resented her success, and since she was interested in film production she worked with him in a touring enterprise. When this arrived in Hobart, Marie Bjelke Petersen showed Louise her book Jewelled Nights, and in 1925 Louise filmed it, starring as the (male) hero. She aimed to make Tasmania a second Hollywood. With some scenes shot on the West Coast, the film showed Tasmania’s magnificent scenery, but was a financial failure. The marriage broke up, and Louise married a Melbourne theatre manager. In 1946 they moved to Hobart and managed the Prince cinema, Louise often serving in the sweet shop.

Oberon, Merle (c.1911–79), film star, appeared on the cover of the Weekly Courier 28 June 1934 as ‘Tasmania’s Own Screen Star’, an accompanying article claiming she was the daughter of Irish and French parents and was taken by an uncle to India. Oberon’s legendary beauty and achievements have been subsumed by the urge to establish her birthplace. Despite extensive publicity, all efforts to find documentary evidence of her Tasmanian links have been negative, but claims that she was the daughter of an East Coast Chinese mother and European father have continued unabated and have been vigorously upheld against the counterclaim that she was born in India. The 2002 documentary The Trouble with Merle showed an Indian birth certificate revealing that Merle’s father was her Indian mother’s step-father.

Further reading: Weekly Courier 28 June 1934; Seeview Pictures, The Trouble with Merle, 2002.

These entries are from The Companion to Tasmania History that is being published by the Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies at the University of Tasmania.

It will be available for purchase in 2005, for further information contact, Dr Alison Alexander, email: Alison.Alexander@utas.edu.au, or phone 03 6226 2607.