Patrice Wymore, Errol Flynn’s Widow, Dies In Jamaica

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Actress Patrice Wymore, the third and final wife of screen legend Errol Flynn, died after a long illness, at her home in Portland, Jamaica on Saturday.

She was believed to be 84 years old, though conflicting sources list her age as 87 at her time of passing. Wymore was raised in Miltonvale, Kansas, in a showbiz family that toured the vaudeville circuit.

She eventually made it to Broadway in the 1940s, where her beauty and singing talent landed her roles in such musicals as “Hold It!” and “All For Love”.

But Broadway was just a stepping stone to Hollywood for the ambitious young actress, and Wymore was soon signed to a studio contract with Warner brothers.

She made her film debut in 1950, in a singing role opposite “Doris Day” and Gordon McRae in Tea For Two, and met Errol Flynn that same year, in Mexico, during the filming of “Rocky Mountain”.

Though the swashbuckling Flynn was already an established star – and 17 years her senior – the two were married soon after, in a glamorous ceremony in Monaco.

The two would go on to live for years on Flynn’s 23’ yacht, Zaca, before finally settling down on Flynn’s 2,000-acre ranch in the foothills of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, where their daughter, Arnella, was born in 1953.

But the married life didn’t end Wymore’s screen career – she continued to appear in films throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, including “She's Working Her Way Through College” (1952) and “The Sad Horse” (1959).

Wymore even kept working after Flynn’s untimely death, in productions of in 1959 in such films as “Ocean's Eleven” (1960) and “Chamber of Horrors” (1966) and with roles on TV shows "Perry Mason", "77 Sunset Strip", "The Monkees" and "F Troop".

Wymore retired from acting for good in 1967, retiring to her Castle Comfort residence in Jamaica, where she expired on Saturday.

Though her daughter Arnella passed in 1998, Wymore is survived by her grandson, screen writer and actor, Luke Flynn.