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Movies Forum Index » Silent Movies Forum » Craig Daily Press: Maurice Flynn heads for Hollywood ....
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| Bruce Calvert... |
 Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 8:52 pm |
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http://www.craigdailypress.com/news/2008/may/10/maurice_flynn_heads_hollywood_and_back_and_back/
Maurice Flynn heads for Hollywood . and back . and back
A photo of Maurice "Lefty" Flynn on Corona Pass in Colorado. Enlarge photo
Courtesy
Shannan Koucherik
May 10, 2008
Not everyone who came to the Yampa Valley in the first part of the 20th
century to build a home stayed here.
Many people found that, for many reasons, they needed to move on. For some
it was the harsh discovery that farming in northwest Colorado was much more
difficult than nearly any other part of the settled United States.
For others, the draw of a very different world was hard to resist.
Maurice Bennett Flynn was born May 26, 1892, in Greenwich, Conn., to Joseph
A. and Anna Flynn. He would be joined by a sister, Katherine, in 1897. There
isn't much information available about his early years in the small Irish
family, though he did play football for Yale - where he gained the name
"Lefty" because he kicked with his left foot.
His large stature of 6 foot 2 inches and 200 pounds made him formidable on
and off the field.
The first mention of him in the Craig area is in February 1916.
Flynn and his father had recently purchased the Harrison ranch east of Craig
(about where Ike's Auto is), and were building a "modern bungalow" for his
intended bride.
The Feb. 24, 1916, Moffat County Courier described the home: "The new
residence will be one of the finest in the country and will contain five
rooms, two large sleeping porches, besides several small pantries, china
closets, etc. It will be modern in every respect. A well will be drilled
near the house."
He renamed the place Elkhead Ranch and began stocking it with cattle.
No doubt Lefty knew that the girl he intended to bring to Craig wouldn't put
up with a cramped log cabin with a sod roof. He planned to convert the
homestead into "an up-to-date spud and diversified farming ranch."
Unfortunately, his bride wasn't impressed enough to stay, and within a few
years he was divorced.
When WWI began, Flynn put his ranching plans aside and enlisted as a crew
member on one of the 3,500 new submarine chasers that were being built to
show the United States' sea power. He was joined in his enlistment by Roy
and Ward Job of Craig as well as several other young men from the Yampa
Valley.
He didn't come back to the Yampa Valley right after his tour of duty,
although he kept ownership of his ranch. Instead, he headed farther west to
try his hand as a movie star. After several years of being cast as an extra,
he finally established himself as a silent screen actor and continued to
make movies - many of them serials - until the late 1920s. He came back to
Craig briefly in May of 1923 to introduce the area to his latest move,
"Smiles are Trumps."
As still is common with the media today, the Craig Courier liked to keep a
local connection to anyone who was off in the world doing interesting
things. Maurice Flynn fit into this category perfectly. In June 1925, Flynn's
marriage to diminutive film star Viola Dana was front page news in Craig.
Dana was widowed when her husband died of the flu during his tour of duty
during the war. She started dancing onstage at age 2, and her siblings
joined her in the motion picture industry.
Flynn's wanderlust soon led him from starring in movies to producing them,
but that endeavor didn't last long, and by October 1927 he was back in
Craig, claiming that he was back to stay. "Never in my life have I been as
happy as I have here in Craig," Flynn told the Craig Empire.
A month later, he hosted his latest film, "High and Handsome," for an
appreciative Craig audience. Soon after, he built a large toboggan slide for
the community and encouraged everyone to come to his place and enjoy the
ride.
The fall of 1928 found the Flynns in the Catskills of New York. They claimed
plans to return to Craig that winter but never made it. While they were in
New York, Flynn's mother committed suicide and his restlessness took him
farther afield than the meadows he owned in Moffat County.
By early 1929, he was divorced from Viola and had moved to Honolulu to take
a job as the athletic director of a large hotel. He and his doctor announced
they would make Hawaii their permanent home.
Hawaii apparently couldn't calm Flynn's wanderlust either. Within two years,
he was in London, where he married into minor royalty when he took Nora
Phipps as his fourth bride. Nora was the inspiration for the original Gibson
Girl artwork. Time magazine reported the marriage in the society column of
the July 27, 1931, issue. "A zealous photographer who sought to photograph
the bride and groom was knocked out by husky Mr. Flynn."
When Nora attempted to return to the United States a few months later, she
found that her 18 year absence and former marriage to a British military
officer had voided her U.S. citizenship. She would have to wait at least
four years before being granted citizenship again.
Nora and Lefty settled down - as much as he could - in Tryon, N.C., and
served as host to many celebrated artists. One of them was F. Scott
Fitzgerald, who visited them in 1935. Fitzgeralds' daughter Scotty stayed
with the Flynns while her father stayed in a nearby hotel. He wrote many
works of short fiction during that stay, including one based on the Flynns
and their marital histories. The story appeared in the June 1935 issue of
McCall's magazine. He stayed in Tryon until 1937 when he returned to
Hollywood to try to regain his failing muse.
Of note is a first-edition copy of "All The Young Men" that is signed by
Fitzgerald with the inscription: "For Lefty and Nora, the horse and the
cart, the eye and eyeball, the spleen and the heart, the tooth and the
dentist, wind and the weather - well that's quite enough to say you two
together. F Scott Fitzgerald." The rare book is offered on the Internet for
$45,000
Even though he never lived permanently in Craig again, Maurice Flynn kept in
contact with many of his friends throughout the years. In 1958, he sent his
regrets that he would not be able to attend the Golden Jubilee celebration
but assured readers that the years had mellowed him and that he held fond
memories of his days in Moffat County.
He died just months later in Camden, S.C. at age 66, and the cottage he
built so long ago for his bride burned down in September 1964. The memories
of Maurice "Lefty" Flynn are as fragile as the cans of film in the Hollywood
vaults, but perhaps throughout his restless travels he was able to remember
the quieter days on his ranch in Craig.
Shannan Koucherik may be reached at honeyrockdogs(at)msn(dot)com
--
Bruce Calvert
--
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