cover image My Days with Errol Flynn: The Autobiography of Stuntman Buster Wiles: With a Special Appendix, the Flynn Controversy

My Days with Errol Flynn: The Autobiography of Stuntman Buster Wiles: With a Special Appendix, the Flynn Controversy

Buster Wiles. Roundtable Publishing, $21.95 (264pp) ISBN 978-0-915677-36-8

An inaccurate title misrepresents the tripartite nature of this curious biographical amalgam. Only a quarter of of the tale actually covers Wiles's experiences with the actor, while nearly half is devoted to his own, Flynn-less life story. The last fourth of the book is an unrelated appendix in which Donati ( The Flynn Controversy ) attempts to refute Charles Higham's charges in Errol Flynn: The Untold Story that the actor was anti-Semitic, homosexual and a Nazi spy. Though one chafes at having been duped by the title of this book, Wiles proves to be an irrepressible character and yarn spinner, and his accounts of his vagabond youth as a roustabout, bootlegger and gambler, as well as his time as a Hollywood stuntman and philanderer, are winning and action-packed. His actual ``days with Errol Flynn'' center around the three-and-a-half years during which the two shared the star's home between divorces and remarriages. Wiles's memories of Flynn are exactly what one would expect from a drinking buddy and kindred spirit. Photos. (Jan . )