By the time Belinda met him, Flynn had gone through three wives and several fortunes. He was forty-six but looked twenty years older. The famous mustache was grizzled; the handsome face, with its chiseled bones and sculpted nose, had grown jowly and lined from vodka, drugs, and cynicism. His face formed a road map of his life. In four years he’d be dead, falling victim to a long list of ailments that would have killed other men much earlier. But most men weren’t Flynn.

He’d swashbuckled his way across the screen for two decades, fighting villains, winning wars, and saving damsels. Captain Blood, Robin Hood, Don Juan-Flynn had played them all. Sometimes, if the mood struck him, he’d even played them well.

Long before he came to Hollywood, Errol Flynn had taken part in adventures every bit as dangerous as those he’d played on screen. He’d been an explorer, a sailor, a gold prospector. He’d traded for slaves in New Guinea. The scar on his heel came from a shot fired by a party of headhunters, another scar on his abdomen from a scuffle with a rickshaw driver in India. At least that’s what he said. With Flynn, no one could ever be sure.

Always, there were women. They couldn’t get enough of him, and Flynn felt the same about them. He especially liked them young. The younger the better. Looking into a fresh young face and plunging into a fresh young body gave him the illusion of recovering his lost innocence. It also brought him trouble.

In 1942 he was put on trial for statutory rape. Although the girls were willing, California law made it illegal to have sexual intercourse with anyone under the age of eighteen, willing or not. Nine women served on the jury, however, and Flynn was acquitted. Afterward, he perpetuated the myth of his prowess even as he hated becoming a phallic joke.

The trial didn’t end his fascination with young girls, and even though he was forty-six, alcoholic, and dissipated, they still found him irresistible.