Errol, Fidel and the Cuban Rebel Girls

by Boyd Anderson

Overview

Based on true events, Errol, Fidel and the Cuban Rebel Girls recreates one of the 20th century's great untold stories. Cuba, 1959: In the final year of his life, Errol Flynn found time for one last adventure. The dashing star of many Hollywood films had always longed to be a real hero. Fidel Castro was the genuine article, and now he was looking for fame. What each man had the other wanted and, as revolution raged around them, the stage was set for an explosive encounter. Cuba is on the brink of revolution and Errol Flynn is there making what will be his final film. When they meet, Errol is involved in the latest in a long line of relationships with under-age women, while Fidel is ready to march triumphantly into Havana after overthrowing the Batista government. Within days of the coup, Errol is chased out of Cuba with a firing squad and Fidel hot on his heels. Featuring a full cast of Hollywood movie stars, beautiful women, Cuban revolutionaries and New York mobsters, Errol, Fidel and the Cuban Rebel Girls is the story of two men at the opposite ends of astonishing careers. It is a story with two heroes ... but there is only ever room for one.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780702246296
Publisher:	University of Queensland Press
Publication date:	08/01/2010
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

Errol, Fidel and the Cuban Rebel Girls

A Novel

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By Boyd Anderson

University of Queensland Press

Copyright © 2010 Boyd Anderson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7022-4629-6

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CHAPTER 1

People don't get killed in movies.

Port Antonio, 9 August 1958

Okay, I was dead. Me, that son of a bitch. I had finally fulfilled the predictions of countless doctors, studio heads, gossip columnists and women of my acquaintance and given up my faithless ghost. And it's typical of that damned Fidel that he should try to upstage me at such a significant point in my life's drama. To get his entrance in first, as he has just done. I suppose I shouldn't really blame him ... I've done both to him on occasion, as you will see. But what he has also done by getting in first is to rearrange history, another knack of his. The fact is this story doesn't start with him on the twenty-third floor of the Hilton. It doesn't start in Havana at all. You could say it should really start in Tasmania, after all it's where I was born, but that's far too long ago and way too far away. Fidel never wanted it to be told, which is the main reason why you haven't heard it until now. But it was never his story to tell. History is written by its winners, which means this story is mine, and so I'll choose where to start it. Jamaica.

Port Antonio, to be exact. A quiet little neck of the Caribbean woods, 500 miles from Havana as the crow flies, or two hours as the plane flew in those days. I had just written in the first draft of my memoirs that I considered myself barely halfway through my life's span and was now considering my prospects for the second half. You might say I was deluding myself: how to top the first fifty years of what many good judges (me included, I'm not too shy to admit) said was one of the century's most bizarre lives? If I had known that in fact I had just one more year left in me it might have caused my toes to curl up right there and then. But I was happy enough in my delusion and had no idea such a fate awaited, in spite of countless warnings. There and then I was actually consumed with the consideration of two pressing problems, and it is with these that the story should begin because they were the reason our paths crossed, mine and Fidel's. Mine at the end of everything, and his at his beginning.

I had recently returned to Jamaica, which was now 'home' as much as anywhere in the world, from six months on a draining location shoot in French Equatorial Africa. The Roots of Heaven, that one was called. More like the roots of hell. I'd had to contend with 130-degree heat, wild animals, relentless insects, exotic illnesses, sick and dying crew, John Huston, Orson Welles and recurring bouts of malaria. You can take your pick which was the most difficult to endure, although my own pick would be Orson, The Boy Wonder. There's only so much bombast and bitterness I can take, so many old hat magic tricks, so many hours spent waiting while he argues the toss with the director about how to shoot a scene. I agree with Rita Hayworth when she divorced him: I couldn't take his genius anymore.

The exertion had taken its toll on my body in an unusual way. Oh yes, I had been given two years to live, but that was fifteen years before. Now I seemed to have lost the ability to (not to put too fine a point on it) enjoy what I enjoyed most, and was most famous for enjoying, and what was living without that? My second problem was not nearly so novel – I was broke.

I was in no doubt that the years ahead were going to be difficult and the memoirs, even if they sold a million, would still leave me high and dry. They would leave me high and dry because the last few years had drained every last drop. Not of vodka, of course, there was still plenty of that, and as I lay there deep in thought I took a decent swig to remind me of the fact. But just about everything else had been drained from me, bled from me by the vampire. Lili Damita, past wife, present bloodsucker. Like a Salamaua leech. In Like Me, that's what I was going to call my memoirs, and at least that was shaping up to be something I was happy with. In Like Me. Clever, huh? And I thought it would show the bastards of the press and the bastards of Hollywood who could take a joke. Wait till they get a load of it, I thought. All those twittering vaginas and all those Hollywood has-beens who needed a publicity department to make their lives sound interesting. All I ever needed a publicity department for was to keep a lid on mine. Now they could read all about it for themselves, and then they'll see that 'in like Flynn' is no laughing matter. If that's what you think of me, boys, I'll really give you something to think about. Lili can think about it, too. Lili the leech. There's still plenty left in the bucket to tip a good load on her. She's got everything, she can have the bucket, too. Feed the load to her latest girlfriend. Let the bitch wallow in it, Lili, then lick it off. You were good at that. Are you still good at that, you twittering vagina? Still good with the tongue, are you Lili? I'll bet you are. Man or woman, no fucking problem.

'A penny for your thoughts, Cap'n.'

The sweet bird of youth interrupted my bitter musings. 'They'll need to be worth a lot more than that if we're to save this sinking ship, my sweet.'

'How's your drink?'

My free hand instinctively hunted around under the sunlounge for the Zubrowka. 'Still got half a bottle.'

'You're slowing up.'

'Slowing up or slowing down, it's age, you know. It gets harder when you're ...'

Christ! What did I say that for? Was it some sort of Freudian slip?

'Go on,' she said, like she hadn't even noticed.

'Well, let's just say that some things get harder, others don't. Come and sit beside me. Help me finish this stubborn bottle.'

'Don't be so tough on yourself,' she said as she lowered herself onto the sunlounge. 'It'll come back.'

'Of course you would think that,' I said. 'At fifteen you can afford to wait. What am I talking about? At fifteen it just doesn't happen in the first place.'

'Forget it. Think about something else. What are you doing out here, anyway?'

'What am I ever doing out here? I'm lazing under my favourite almond tree with the glorious green Caribbean at my feet, the most marvellous view in the world, and the most singular libation in my hand, and the smallest companion a man ever had at his beck and call. What more could a fellow want?'

'Is that what I am? Your small companion? You make me sound like a dog.'

'Ah, Woodsie, you don't know how a man longs for a small companion. It's the kindest thing anyone has probably ever said to you.'

'I don't know about that.'

'No, and neither do I, because I have no idea what anyone else has ever said to you. But I can't imagine anything kinder. Or more heartfelt. Come here.'

I reached out between the lounges, taking care not to spill my drink, and she took my hand. I pulled her over, pulled her right on top of me, the coconut oil on my chest making her slip all over it. 'Someone will see,' she said, although not convincingly.

I adjusted to the extra weight, taking the pressure off an old 'war wound', which was my wishful thinking for a couple of fractured vertebrae sustained by Captain Blood in a battle with a Spanish galleon on a Hollywood backlot. 'Who's to see? Earl's gone. There's no one in the house, and we're too high.'

'When did Earl go?'

'Didn't he say goodbye to you?'

'Doesn't matter,' she shrugged. 'I'm glad he's gone. I didn't like the way he talked to me. Like I was some schoolgirl or something.'

'Oh, honey, maybe if you hadn't called him a doorstop. He's just a bit old-fashioned.'

'Why do you need him, anyway? You can write yourself. Why do you need him?'

'Well, sometimes you just need someone else to put a bit of discipline into what you write. You know me. Discipline's not my strong suit. But that's what a ghost writer can do.'

'Yeah ... Earl the ghost.'

'Well he won't be haunting you anymore,' I said before draining my glass. She refilled it and took a sip for herself. I watched her swill it from cheek to cheek as she closed one eye to consider. 'Drinking at your age. You'll get me arrested.'

'Drinking is the least of the ways you've led me astray, Cap'n,' she warbled through vodka, a trickle running down her chin. She swallowed, considered some more, and then nodded. 'That one's okay.'

'Thank you, loyal taster.'

'A pleasure to be of service, your swordship.'

I stopped wriggling against her chest. Another Freudian slip or not, that remark was uncalled for. I was having such a good time with her on top of me like that and she had to spoil it. I took an irritable swig and sat up. She slipped right off me and onto the grass. 'Hey ...' she said.

'Sorry,' I lied. 'I have to get back to work.'

'Work? What work? Earl's gone, hasn't he? I thought you were finished.'

'Thinking is work. Thinking is the most profitable work of all, believe me. And right now, if I don't think how to make some profit, then it's goodbye to all that.'

'All what?'

'All that,' I said, waving my arm in the general direction of the house behind. 'It's a literary reference. Oh, I forgot. You don't read, do you?'

She jumped to her feet and stood there defiantly. 'That's not fair. I read.'

'Fan magazines don't count. Be a honey and leave me alone to think for a bit, will you.'

She stalked off across the lawn. 'Get your own goddamn drink ... honey.'

I allowed myself a quiet chuckle. Well, there'll be no honey tonight. At least that was something I didn't have to think about for the rest of the afternoon. A night without fear of failure, one night's reprieve. How had it come to this? This was one thing I didn't spill to Earl the ghost. In like ... in like Rin-Tin-Tin. Who was I kidding? Bet it never happened to the damn dog.

I took a deep breath and a slow sip and watched a ketch round the rocky headland, pointing high into the wind. Home at last. Perhaps it was time to bring the Zaca home, too. I could get a crew to sail it to Jamaica, wouldn't have to go to Majorca to get it. I hadn't been sailing for weeks, working all the damn time, and I missed it. Sailing ... the only pursuit worthy of the quester. Swimming, diving, they're all very well. Larking about in a speedboat has its place. But I really missed the salt on my face and the solid teak deck under my feet. The slap of two masts filled with wet sail. The slap of bare arse below decks. I hadn't heard that in ... I looked at the ketch and imagined the slap of its own canvas. It looked about a 50-footer. Not even half the size of the Zaca. They'd have to sail it straight from Majorca, not stop anywhere in the US or it would get seized. What Lili didn't have, the IRS wanted. Jamaica, the Zaca, that was just about all that was left, and unless America invaded Jamaica and Majorca, they wouldn't get them. They'd seize me too if I turned up in the States. An exile from my own country. The land of my choosing. So much tax had I spilled into their coffers over the years, I told them I was willing to forget it if they were, but they wanted blood. Blood from a stone. That's what I was, a Flynn-stone. I thought about getting Jamaican citizenship. What would that be, British? I could get British. I had enough British relatives to swing it. Not so many on mother's side. In fact, with the old Bounty mutineer on mother's side, maybe it wouldn't be so easy. They tend to hold a grudge, the Brits. On father's side they were mostly Irish, if you went back far enough. But Ireland was Ireland now, not part of the union. I sighed and wondered if I could get my old Australian citizenship back. It had been nearly twenty years since I'd given it up, longer since I'd been anywhere near the place. Christ, that would really be admitting it's all over. Hello, folks, I'm back. Things have all turned to shit for me, so I'm back.

I rolled my hips to relieve the pressure on my back. It felt like more than just the back this time. Could be the kidneys. They'd warned me about my kidneys. And my liver, for that matter. A Swiss doctor told me once I had a couple of days to live because of the state of my liver. Smiled when he said it, too. I guess it was his idea of breaking the news gently. I swigged down some vodka to make the pain go away and stuck an imaginary finger in the air at Dr Smiley. How much did I owe the goddamn IRS anyway? It seemed like it was a different figure every time I asked anyone. Barry was my manager, why couldn't he give me a straight answer? Who was I kidding? Barry, my manager? Barry Mahon couldn't manage a brothel on a barracks square. But that wasn't fair. Barry didn't want the job. It was forced on him. If he wasn't such a damned good pal to have around, a good drinker with a good sense of humour, I could have let him go when I no longer had any need for a pilot. Any need? Ha! Any use, was the truth of the matter. When the plane gets taken from you what's the point of having a pilot? Anyway, that wasn't fair, the crack about the brothel and the barracks. Should really take that back. Barry had always done a damn fine job of organising the parties on the Zaca, and that was as close as you'd care to get to a brothel on a barracks square.

What would the Zaca be worth these days? Half a million ten years ago, so what now? X plus renovation, plus inflation, plus reputation, minus depreciation. Barry, just put figures to all that and report back, there's a good chap. Would it get more in Spain or in the States or somewhere else? Spain? Who was I kidding? Who had the kind of money I needed in Spain? Franco's the only one with the money, and I'd be damned if I would sell the Zaca to that butcher. He wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. Can't take it to the States, even to sell it. Could sell it in Jamaica. A buyer wouldn't mind coming down to Jamaica to give it the once over. Better still, Cuba. All those high rollers. Gangsters and film stars. Damn the film stars. Not selling the Zaca to any of those cocksuckers. The gangsters were almost as bad. Cocksuckers with guns. But a lot of money passed through Havana. A hundred and twenty feet of schooner parked in the harbour could get some drunken bum excited, some Texas oilman or Chicago meatpacker with a fat wallet and a thin grasp on reality. A few of the old parties on board would get the whole damn town excited. A roll of the dice in the casino at the Seville followed by a roll in the hammock on the most beautiful damn schooner in the world. The best damn schooner in the world ...

No. I was not going to sell the Zaca to a Texas oilman. She was all I had left from the good old days, and even if I had nothing else in the world, the Zaca would be enough. I'd go back to living on her. I'd spent years doing just that, I could do it again. Roaming the seven seas in an alcoholic fog. Floating over the surface of life. The unimaginable below, the unreachable above and the next drink shimmering on the horizon. Yes, wouldn't mind doing that again. Call out the riot squad, sir, and lock up your daughters, madam, Flynn's back in. Mr Taxman, get off your assets and take a running jump off a high liability, you're not getting the Zaca.

But what else? I couldn't avoid the States forever. If I wanted to make another comeback, that's the only place to do it. Where else, England, Italy? Waste of time. Tried it. Nothing in it. No point. Hollywood or bust. Zanuck had given me a couple of chances and there would be someone else to give me another. But only in Hollywood. They were even talking about Academy Awards just a year ago, after The Sun Also Rises and then the Barrymore part. The sun rose then, and it would rise again. I'd heard there was a new play about Barrymore in the works. I was now the definitive Barrymore, knew the man better than anyone in the last years of his glorious existence. I could play him as a tribute and no one could give him a better tribute than I. That would mean Broadway, of course, not Hollywood. New York was fine. But it was still in the States, and unless I got the IRS off my back ...

Didn't they understand I had a lifestyle to support? King Farouk, Ali Khan, Prince Rainier ... pals like that didn't come cheap. I had to find money. There was always the Alhambra. I only had a half share, but it had to be worth something. Why did I ever let Victor Malenkoff talk me into that deal? 'Fleen, eet's Havana, we can't meess.' Yeah, sure, Maestro. It's a goddamn movie house, not a casino. What's not to miss with a goddamn movie house? A half share in a casino, now that'd be worth something. George Raft knew what he was doing when he got into the Capri. George Raft used to take advice from Bugsy Siegel, and who did I have to give me advice? Al Blum. Al fucking Blum. Shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Christ, Al Blum was always dead from the heart down. Skimmed the coffers, cooked the books, and fell off the twig when the taxman came calling. Thanks again, Al. I'll take Barry Mahon any day. Trust beats experience every time.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Errol, Fidel and the Cuban Rebel Girls by Boyd Anderson. Copyright © 2010 Boyd Anderson. Excerpted by permission of University of Queensland Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Cover,
Title Page,
Havana, 15 October 1959,
1: People don't get killed in movies.,
2: A higher high concept than boy meets girl.,
3: Every New York hoodlum, his dick is in Cuba.,
4: Introducing the American Correspondent.,
5: The importance of being Ernesto.,
6: I could feel it on the back of my neck.,
7: Not the way to make a movie.,
8: A dozen yanquis with a camera in Santiago.,
9: A part with something to say.,
10: If anyone can make us famous, it is you.,
11: Such a man is el commandante.,
12: And now you expect me to buy a ticket.,
13: Here is your war.,
14: You can't teach a Cuban about music.,
15: In the revolucion, everything changes.,
16: I guess there's more to this war stuff than I thought.,
17: El bailarin, el heroe.,
18: The Christmas Day massacre.,
19: Dying is easy.,
20: I catch myself acting out my life like a goddamn script.,
21: But we are men of good faith.,
22: Audacia, that's what it is in Spanish.,
23: Castro takes Havana.,
24: A revolutionary guided by love.,
25: An odd sense of pointless prescience.,
26: Castro, he doesn't like to lose.,
27: Front page challenge.,
28: Tell him it was just a game.,
29: Last hurrah of the golden years.,
Los Angeles, 27 December 1959,
CUBAN REBEL GIRLS,
Acknowledgements,
Copyright,