Assumptions... Murphy’s Law… Intuition… Instinct… and Errol Flynn Part 1

Remembering moments that help you and the people around you grow as human beings…

Assumptions... Murphy’s Law… Intuition… Instinct… all go hand in hand, they can be challenging to differentiate between one another. Learning, making mistakes, feeling, practicing and moving on.

There is truth in the what it is said about the word “assume”, making an ass out of “u” and “me”...

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

The story of signing Jay Wolpert to write the script for A Century of November falls in this category.

Patrick assumed that the novel he sent to the agent at Paradigm, would be tossed or would never find its way into Jay’s hands. Patrick simply believed that any material not represented by an agent, lawyer or manager would ever get to someone like Jay, regardless of its virtue.

Thanks to some friendly persuasion by Nick, Patrick eventually wrote a little note, slipped it inside a copy of the novel, and sent it to Paradigm…

The rest as they say has become history…

Even after that lesson, Patrick continued to fall back into the same thought patterns.

Patrick’s research on another passion project regarding Errol Flynn’s last days, was looking for individuals to interview, who may have spent time with the ailing actor during the last week of his life 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, Patrick managed to get to know something of the other people who were with Flynn at this time.

There was George Caldough, who hosted Flynn and was poised to purchase the actor’s yacht. Patrick’s research 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 protege. He died in her arms in a 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?

Patrick’s extensive research over many years turned up nothing. Until now…

Patrick believed that Dr. Grant Gould was also gone. Patrick dug some more and wanted to write an article, with credibility. More research, phone calls and finally struck gold.

To Patrick’s delight, Dr. Gould was still alive and well and still practices medicine, despite being semi-retired and he is the answer to many questions Patrick’s had about the true details regarding Flynn’s death.

From this point forward Patrick’s new mantra, was to consider looking at all sides, exhaust all possibilities, before jumping to conclusions.

True success will come from turning over every single rock.

To be concluded…