Assumptions...

You know what they say about “assume”, making an ass out of “u” and “me”…..nothing has held more truth than that!

Assumptions and Murphy’s Law go hand in hand, and I have learned to start listening to both.

It happens every day in life with the little things, and sometimes can affect decisions that can have tremendous impact on your life.

The story of signing Jay Wolpert to write the script for A Century of November falls in this category. I assumed that the book, once I sent it to the agent at Paradigm, would be tossed or would never find its way into Jay’s hands. Nothing against Jay’s agent, I simply believed that any material not represented by an agent, lawyer or manager would get to someone like Jay, regardless of its virtue.

Thanks to some friendly persuasion by Nick, I eventually wrote a little note, slipped it inside a copy of the book, and fired it down to Paradigm….the rest is history, as they say.

Even after that lesson, I continue to fall back into the same thought patterns.

In my research regarding Flynn’s last days, I have been looking for individuals to interview, who may have spent time with the ailing actor during the last week of his life here in Vancouver. The trouble is that it was fifty years ago, and many of the people involved in the story are either dead or extremely old.

While trying to acquire all of the details about Flynn, I managed to get to know something of the other people who were with him at this time.

There was George Caldough, who hosted Flynn and was poised to purchase the actor’s yacht. My research has turned up that Caldough died of a heart attack at age 50 back in 1978.

There is Beverly Aadland, who was Flynn’s 17 year old protégé. He died in her arms in the West end apartment of Dr. Grant Gould. She is still alive, but is very private and doesn’t necessarily want to be bothered again (she has recently been interviewed for an Australian documentary entitled “Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn”, and is in talks with HBO regarding a film based on her romance with the actor).

Then there is Dr. Grant Gould. He tried to save Errol, but to no avail. It was his apartment that Flynn died in. What are the chances that he is still alive? My extensive research over many years turned up nothing. Until now.

I believed that he too was also gone. I dug some more. I have an article to write. It needs some credibility. I made some calls. I Googled again. I struck gold.

To my delight, Dr. Gould is alive and well and still practises medicine, despite being semi-retired. Not only that, he is the answer to many a question I’ve had about the true details regarding Flynn’s death.

My new mantra, from now on, needs to consider looking at all sides and exhaust all possibilities before jumping to conclusions. True success will come from turning over every single rock.