SAN FRANCISCO -- The children of Errol Flynn have filed a $25 million libel suit against author Charles Higham, charging that his book on their father 'besmirched' the family by asserting that the famous movie star was a homosexual and Nazi sympathizer.
Attorney Melvin Belli filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court Friday, asking for money on behalf of Rory and Deidre Flynn.
They charged Higham with libel in his book 'Errol Flynn, the Untold Story.'
Belli said the law against relatives of a deceased person suing for libel should be ignored in this case because the family was 'besmirched' as much as Flynn by the allegations.
'While being a homosexual of itself may not be defamatory and particularly in some cities such as San Francisco, nevertheless, to characterize one as a child of a homosexual is defamatory ...' the suit said.
The law suit also said Flynn's children were defamed by being called the children of a Nazi spy -- 'the most despicable epitaph that can be applied in the English language.'
The suit called Higham 'a skilled and practiced character assassin' who used the law preventing libel suits of relatives of a deceased person to defame the family without any threat of legal action.
Higham was also called an 'amateurish, parapetetic unscrupulous writer with gross imagination given to extravagent charges, deceit and defamation of deceased persons as his modus operendi of authorship.'
