Teen Hoped to Bear Errol Flynn’s Child

Los Angeles Times file photo Errol Flynn and Beverly Aadland in a photo published Oct. 15, 1959.

Oct. 28, 1959: Jack Smith interviews Errol Flynn’s teenage girlfriend Beverly Aadland (whom Smith describes as the actor’s “last playmate”)  and her attorney Melvin Belli. Aadland says that most of her clothing is inaccessible because it’s under Flynn’s name. She says she isn’t pregnant but wishes she were.  I assume The Times used “protege” in headlines because it’s shorter than “girlfriend,” but it’s really silly, as several writers have noted.

Comments

[Chris Morales]

In a more genteel era, people were used to using euphemisms in order to retain civility. Today civility is unknown to most, and derided by all but a few. "Protege" was a polite way of noting that this young (underage) woman was the girlfriend of a 50-year-old man. I wonder what term the journalists of the era would have used for a teen-aged male companion of a 50-year-old woman?