Sean Leslie Flynn (
1941-
1970) was the son of swashbuckling actor
Errol Flynn and
Lili Damita who disappeared during the
Vietnam War.
He started out in his father’s footsteps, acting in a dozen movies of the low brow adventure variety, including one called
The Son of Captain Blood, a sequel to his father’s classic
Captain Blood. But restlessness got the best of him, and he headed off to
Vietnam to work as a freelance photographer and journalist for
UPI and
Time magazine.
He and his friend and fellow journalist
Dana Stone heard reports of
Viet Cong activity in
Cambodia, so on
April 6, 1970, they rented a pair of red
Honda motorbikes and headed towards the border. They were never heard from again, other than shadowy rumors of a pair of tall, bearded prisoners of the
Khmer Rouge. According to a declassified
CIA report, Flynn and Stone were captured by the Viet Cong and held captive for six months, then turned over to the Khmer Rouge. In
1971, they were clubbed to death, perhaps because the Khmer Rouge believed they were CIA spies.
The romantic legend of Flynn disappearing in the jungle has captivated people over the last 30 years, and Flynn or a fictionalized version of him has appeared in a number of novels and plays. A con-artist named
Derek Acorah, who calls himself a "
spirit medium", claimed to have communicated with Flynn during a program on the
E! channel called "
Hollywood Spirituality."