In January 1959, Castro and his Cuban revolutionaries captured Havana and overthrew the Batista regime in Cuba. Errol Flynn had just completed a long trip to Ciba as a "reporter" and had met with Castro. Upon his departure in Canada, he was a panelist on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news panel show "Front Page Challenge", where he defended Castro and the revolutionaries, as well as himself from charges that he had invented his adventures on the island and had never actually met ol' Fidel (photos exist of Flynn's meeting with Castro). He was asked some tough questions, such as charges against Castro that his forces had conducted summary executions of political opponents (which was true, and on a large scale), to which Flynn gave a poor answer, saying he had asked Castro about this, and Castro had promised justice for any minor infractions that would have had to have been chalked up to the chaos of war (in short, a pretty bullshit answer).
This segment was filmed on January 13, the week after Castro's victory in Havana. I wonder if this might have been the last recorded image of Errol on TV. In the clip, he looks much older than his actual 50 years, and his health was very poor. He died in October of that year.
The photo above is from Flynn's appearance on the Jack Paar show a bit earlier, on January 1, 1959. It isn't clear if a a copy of this episode of the show is available today. There are a couple of shortened clips of Flynn's CBC interview on YouTube, but the complete segment of the show can be accessed online via the CBC archive at:
http://archives.cbc.ca/
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