HOLLYWOOD: 14,001 Nights

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Along a narrow trail in the jungle of darkest New Guinea, pith helmet set at a jaunty angle, strides the lithe young figure of Errol Flynn. Suddenly the dark wall of foliage opens, and a hail of spears comes streaming through. Ambush! The native bearer next to Flynn falls dead with a spear through his belly, and Flynn is struck in the foot by a poisoned arrow. Not a whit dismayed, the hero leaps behind a tree, whips out his revolver and starts firing. With the first shot he brings down one of the nasty savages. The rest of them melt into the jungle.

The fact of interest in this scene is that it did not happen in one of Flynn's films. It happened in real life—or so the late Cinemactor Flynn assures his fans in his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways (Putnam, $4.95). The book is written in a loose, well-Erroled prose that sounds as if it was talked on tape at 2 a.m. in the back booth of the Brown Derby, and the reader is often left wondering where the facts leave off and the Flynn-flam begins. But on the whole, My Wicked, Wicked Ways tells an entertaining, cautionary tale about a badly frightened black sheep who tried to prove he was the big, bad wolf and to live up to his public image ("a sword in one hand and a garter in the other").

Bottle Smeller & Gigolo. Flynn, the son of a noted biologist, was born in 1909 in Hobart, Tasmania. His mother, Errol says, considered him "a nasty little boy," and at 16 he almost killed another youngster in a fight, was expelled from school and took work as an office boy. Caught dipping into petty cash to bet on the horses, he got the sack, had to sleep in public parks till he heard of a gold strike in New Guinea. At 17, he set out to make his fortune, and for the next five years he lived by his remarkably quick wits in a wild and woolly part of the world. First off, he bluffed his way into the colonial service as a sanitation officer. Caught with a high official's wife, he landed gracefully on his feet as the manager of a copra plantation, soon bought a little schooner and took to running freight and passen gers along the coast, running "indentured laborers," i.e., slaves, to the gold fields. Twice he tried for a strike in the gold fields, twice he failed.

Meanwhile, the handsome young Aussie had made himself a name around the island as a big man with the native girls, and as a brawler. He was tried for the murder of a native, and barely escaped a long prison term. Back in Sydney to cool off (and to take treatment for a virulent dose of gonorrhea), Errol got a job as a bottle smeller for a soft-drink company, i.e., he sniffed empty bottles to detect kerosene, etc., to discover which bottles needed special washing. Later he was the gigolo of a wealthy middle-aged woman who "woke my understanding of the possible wonder and diversity of the female form." One night, tired of his work, Errol skipped out with all her jewels.

Actor & Husband. Flynn set out for England to make his fortune as an actor. On the way, to hear him tell it, he stopped off at every gambling hell, opium den and bawdyhouse from Macao to Marseilles. Late in 1932, he joined the Royal Hong Kong Volunteers to fight the Japanese in Shanghai, deserted when the going got tough. Eventually he got to London alive, landed a job in a provincial repertory group, later a bit part in a British film.