Leslie Howard (actor)
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- For the Australian pianist, see Leslie Howard (musician).
| Leslie Howard | |
 Pygmalion with Wendy Hiller (1938) |
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| Birth name | Leslie Howard Stainer |
| Born | April 3, 1893 Forest Hill, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | June 1, 1943, age 50 Bay of Biscay |
Leslie Howard (April 3, 1893 - June 1, 1943) was an English stage and film actor. He is best known by international audiences as Ashley Wilkes in the movie Gone with the Wind. However he was an acomplished actor whose film roles included Professor Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1938), The Petrified Forest (1936) and Intermezzo (1939).
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[edit] Early Life
He was born Leslie Howard Stainer to a Hungarian Jewish father and an English Jewish mother in Forest Hill, London and educated at Dulwich College, London. He worked as a bank clerk before enlisting at the outbreak of World War I. He suffered severe shell shock, which led to his return to England.
[edit] Film career
After starting as a stage actor, Howard often played stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen in films such as Berkeley Square (1933), for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. He played The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1934 and in 1938 played Professor Higgins in Pygmalion, which earned him another Oscar nomination.
In 1936, he appeared in The Petrified Forest. It was Howard who reportedly insisted that Humphrey Bogart appear in the film as gangster Duke Mantee. They had previously appeared in the play together on Broadway and became lifelong friends; the Bogarts named their daughter Leslie after him.
The Petrified Forest was one of several films in which Howard appeared with Bette Davis. They also appeared together in the film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage and the 1937 romantic comedy It's Love I'm After (also starring Olivia de Havilland). Howard also starrred with Ingrid Bergman, in the 1939 film Intermezzo and Norma Shearer in the 1936 film version of Romeo and Juliet .
Howard is perhaps best remembered for his role as Ashley Wilkes in the epic Gone with the Wind (1939), but he was uncomfortable with Hollywood and returned to Britain to help with the World War II war effort. He directed and starred in a number of World War II films, including The First of the Few (which he also produced and directed) and the Forty-Ninth Parallel with Laurence Olivier.
[edit] Death
Howard died in 1943 when, returning from Lisbon, the aircraft he was travelling in was shot down by a German fighter plane over the Bay of Biscay. It has been rumoured (but not confirmed) that Howard was engaged in secret war work at the time, and that the Germans believed the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who had been in Algiers, to be on board. Howard's manager, Alfred Chenhalls, physically resembled Churchill, while Howard was tall and thin, like Churchill's bodyguard, Walter H. Thompson.
[edit] Personal life
Howard was married to Ruth Martin in 1916 and they had two children. His son Ronald also became an actor, and wrote one of the few biographies written about Leslie Howard: In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard ISBN 0-312-41161-8). Leslie Howard's younger brother, Arthur, was also an actor, primarily in British comedies.
[edit] Selected Film Roles
- The First of the Few (1942) - R.J. Mitchell
- 49th Parallel (1941) - Philip Armstrong Scott
- Pimpernel Smith (1941) - Professor Horatio Smith
- Gone with the Wind (1939) - Ashley Wilkes
- Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939) - Holger Brandt
- Pygmalion (1938) - Professor Henry Higgins
- It's Love I'm After (1937) - Basil Underwood
- Romeo and Juliet (1936) - Romeo
- The Petrified Forest (1936) - Alan Squier
- The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) - Sir Percy Blakeney/The Scarlet Pimpernel
- Of Human Bondage (1934) - Philip Carey
- Berkeley Square (1933) - Peter Standish
- Secrets (1933) - John Carlton
- Smilin' Through (1932) .... Sir John Carteret
- A Free Soul (1931) .... Dwight Winthrop, Jan's Fiancee
