I hadn't heard the story about Errol Flynn's genital warts until I came across it in The Dependent Magazine. They found it, in turn, from How Come I'm Dead, the 1985 autobiography of Vancouver coroner Glen McDonald.
Glen McGregor reports on his blog that he's seen a copy of Flynn's 1959 autopsy in which it's noted that Flynn did suffer from human papillomavirus, aka genital warts. But the story about his warts being cut off as souvenirs isn't included in the report. So it's not clear how much truth there is to the tale. We'll just have to take McDonald's word for it.
The autopsy concludes that the movie star's death was due to a number of factors associated with his flamboyant lifestyle, including heart disease, diverticulosis, and cirrhosis of the liver. However, during the final moments of the examination, MacDonald and Chief Pathologist Tom Harmon make another interesting discovery: a number of sizeable venereal warts on the end of Flynn's penis.
"Tom seemed fascinated," MacDonald will recall, "[and said] 'Look, I'm going to be lecturing at the Institute of Pathology and I just thought it might be of interest if I could remove these things and fix them in formaldehyde and use them as a visual aid.' 'No way!' I said. 'We're not going to do that. I don't want anything done that isn't relevant to the case because we're really in the limelight tonight. We're on the hot seat. How can we send Mr. Flynn back to his wife with part of his bloody endowment missing?'
However, when McDonald returns to the obervation room after a brief absence, he discovers that the venereal warts have disappeared.
"The first thing I noticed was that the VD warts had gone – vanished from the end of Mr. Flynn's penis," McDonald will continue. "Then I spotted a jar of formaldehyde on a shelf that looked suspiciously like it might contain VD warts. It did[...] I sighed and asked the Doc, 'Did you have to remove those bloody warts … Did Errol Flynn expire because he had warts on his dong?' Tom looked sheepish but we were both laughing at the utter silliness of the whole thing. 'Put them back,' I said, 'Right now!' Maybe the Doc had never seen warts of that enormity. Maybe he wanted a souvenir. I never did figure out why the temptation had been too great … So the bloody warts were fished out of the formaldehyde jar and, using the good offices of scotch tape, Doc Harmon and I stuck them back where they belonged. Everything was back to normal. And I was relieved to learn later, talking with the Chief Coroner in Los Angeles, that a further autopsy was performed and the results concurred in every respect with what we had found. The scotch tape was never mentioned."
The Nelms Memorial Funeral Home forgot to embalm the body of Norman Holman. So when everyone showed up for his open-casket memorial service, they found him rotting in the casket. Adding insult to injury, the air conditioning chose that time to quit working, thereby accelerating the process of decomposition. According to the attorney of Holman's family, "There was dirt underneath his fingernails and people were dry heaving and gagging there at the church." Link waaytv.com
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 24, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Death
Won't everyone just guffaw when your hysterical suicide attempt proves to be a prank! Don't be surprised if some angry relative whips out a real gun and finishes the job.
A big theme of NOTW is the persistence of belief in witches in foreign countries, right down to the present. Hardly a week goes by without a report of some poor soul being put to death for occult suspicions.
How far back in the history of the USA are such beliefs--among the non-immigrant population?
The ceremony of bone pointing is a common ritual for bringing sickness among the [Australian] Arunta. The pointing bone or pointing stick is usually about nine inches in length, pointed at one end, and tipped with a lump of resin at the other. The stick is endowed with magical power by being 'sung over,' that is, curses are muttered over it, such as 'may your heart be rent asunder' and 'may your head and throat be split open.' On the evening of the day on which the bone has been 'sung' the wizard creeps stealthily in the shadows until he can see the victim's face clearly by the firelight. He then points the bone in the victim's direction and utters in a low tone the curses with which the stick was endowed earlier in the day. The victim is supposed to sicken and die within a month at the most. Two men may cooperate in the pointing operation. Spears may also be endowed with magic by 'singing' over them. A person who knows that he has been injured, even slightly, with a spear thus prepared will be likely to waste away through fear unless counter magic can be brought to his aid.
--from "Primitive Theories of Disease" by Spencer L. Rogers in Ciba Symposia (April 1942)
In 2004 Native Australians who disagreed with his policies ritually cursed Australian Prime Minister, John Howard by pointing a bone at him. He is still alive as of 2012.
Watch them in a prayer duel to the death! Mixed Martial Arts ain't got nuthin' on them!
As Dowie was an enemy of all religions but his own, it is not surprising he had no use for Islam — although the extent of his animus remains a point of controversy among various Muslim sects even today.
In the summer of 1903, this brought a well-publicized challenge to an Islamic prayer duel to the death, or Mubahila, from the Indian subcontinent: "Whether the God of Muhammadans or the God of Dowie is the true God, may be settled...he should choose me as his opponent and pray to God that of us two, whoever is the liar may perish first.... I am an old man of 66 years and Dr. Dowie is eleven years younger; therefore on grounds of age he need not have any apprehension.... If the self-made deity of Dr. Dowie has any power, he shall certainly allow him to appear against me and procure my destruction in his lifetime." Dowie's Punjabi challenger, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was a remarkably well-matched opponent: he too had founded his own sect, Ahmadiyya, and believed himself a reincarnated prophet — in his case, Hazrat Eisa Ibne Maryam (a.k.a. Jesus Christ).
Whether the Almighty took any interest in their contest, its rules leave no doubt about the winner: in short order Dowie was deposed (amid rumors of sexual and financial malfeasance); suffered a stroke; and, in 1907, died — a year before Ahmad.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.