Photo: RR Auction
In April 1970, Sean Leslie Flynn — an acclaimed war photojournalist and the son of golden-age Hollywood superstarErrol Flynn— vanished without a trace. He was 28.
Sean was on assignment in Southeast Asia the day Viet Cong guerrillas reportedly abducted him and a fellow photojournalist; it would be the last time either man was seen alive. After Sean’s perplexing disappearance, his mother, French American actress Lili Damita, declared him legally dead in 1984.
Below chronicles the troubling mystery of a promising life cut short and the story of a man whose disappearance has continued to confound Hollywood more than half a century later.
Who is Errol Flynn’s son?
Sean was the only son of action hero Errol, best known for his swashbuckling escapades in 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Sean pursued a brief acting career, appearing uncredited in the 1960 filmWhere the Boys Areand starring in the 1962 movieThe Son of Captain Blood.However, he found his true calling in photojournalism, traveling to dangerous war zones — from Israel, during anArab-Israeli conflict, to Vietnam and Cambodia — taking pictures for TIME,Paris Matchand United Press International.
During theVietnam War, Sean parachuted into combat zones with U.S. troops. In 1970, as North Vietnamese troops advanced, he traveled to Cambodia on assignment for TIME.
What happened to Errol Flynn’s son?
Many of Sean’s friends continued searching for the missing adventurer in the following decades, including British Australian photographerTim Page, who visited Cambodia several times to look for clues about Sean’s disappearance. However, Page died in 2022 without ever discovering what happened to his lost friend, according toThe New York Times.
Damita’s collection of letters, photographs and mementos included pictures of the handsome photographer throughout his life and early letters that reveal a young man determined to chart his own path, giving a rare glimpse into the life of one of Hollywood’s most daring descendants.
While in high school, he wrote to his mom, “If father andMGMwant me to do a picture, they can all go to hell — I just want to be with my family.”
In another, he wrote about looking for a job in construction “loading cement.” Sean also expressed his appreciation for his mother in one haunting letter.
“I just want to say ‘thanks’ for home, the car, and just the fact that you are the best mother that I could ever want; and although you never hear me say it, I love you very much! I actually tried to be with you a lot, but everything just didn’t seem to go together,” the letter read.
The collection included a gold-embroidered red silk banner with original packaging sent to his mom from Vientiane, Laos, during his last assignment during the Vietnam War.
The archive also contained materials Damita kept after Sean’s disappearance, such as a “Whatever Happened to Sean Flynn?” bumper sticker, along with a “Where Is Sean Flynn?” T-shirt with a picture of the late photojournalist.
source: people.com
