Thursday, October 26, 2023

"Like something out of a zoo": Freda Jackson on Errol Flynn

Embed from Getty Images

I've found a 2018 article about Freda Jackson in the Nottingham Post. It's headlined 'The railway porter's daughter from Nottingham who became a Hollywood star', but I don't believe she ever went to Hollywood.

It tells the story of Jackson's career in the theatre, films and television, but let's concentrate on what it has to say about her relations with Errol Flynn - they were in the repertory company at the Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton together:

You can understand why notorious womaniser Errol Flynn might have been attracted to Nottingham-born actress Freda Jackson.

Flynn, the dashing actor with matinee idol looks, and Jackson, a dark-haired beauty, shared many a scene together as they learned their craft with the Northampton Repertory Theatre in the years before the Second World War.

The pair reputedly had a relationship but how true that is we will never know - although judging by Miss Jackson’s comments about Flynn after they performed together in a 1934 production of Othello, the attraction might not have been mutual.

"He was not an intellectual man but he was very shrewd," she said in a 1984 interview. "He knew that his supreme good looks were not enough to get him where he wanted to go, so he came to Northampton to learn his job.

"He did learn a lot from us, including how to walk across the stage without looking like something out of a zoo. When he left, he did so in a cloud of unpleasantness after hitting the stage manager, who was a woman."

David Niven's judgement on Flynn, incidentally, was:

"You knew where you were with Errol Flynn. He always let you down."

No comments: