- published: 05 Jan 2014
- views: 115
Eric William Flynn (13 December 1939 — 4 March 2002) was a Chinese born British film and stage actor and singer.
Flynn was born on December 13 1939 on Hainan, where his father was a Customs officer for the Hong Kong government. After the outbreak of war and the Japanese invasion of China, his family spent several years interned in a Japanese prisoner of war camp (50 years later he would play a British prisoner in Stephen Spielberg's film Empire of The Sun, set in a Japanese prison of war camp in China). He returned to Britain at the age of 13, and was educated at Chatham House School, Ramsgate. He then gained a scholarship to Rada, where he met his first wife Fern.
Flynn had many television roles. He appeared as Alan-A-Dale in A Challenge for Robin Hood in 1967, as Leo Ryan in the Doctor Who story The Wheel in Space in 1968, as Ivanhoe in a 1970 TV mini series, and as Major Tom Graham in series five of Freewheelers in 1971.
He was also an established musical theatre actor appearing in shows such as Evita, Annie Get Your Gun,The Sound Of Music, My Fair Lady, A Little Night Music, and Copacabana, starring alongside the likes of Lauren Becall, Maria Freidman, and Suzi Quatro. He originated the role of Bobby in Stephen Sondheim's Company.