Leslie Howard
in the film Of Human Bondage (1934)
Birth name	Leslie Howard Steiner
Born	April 3, 1893(1893-04-03) Forest Hill, London, England, United Kingdom
Died	June 1, 1943 (aged 50) Bay of Biscay
Years active	1917 - 1942
Spouse(s)	Ruth Evelyn Martin (1916-1943)
Awards Academy Awards Nominated: Best Actor 1933 Berkeley Square 1938 Pygmalion

Leslie Howard (April 3, 1893 - June 1, 1943) was an English stage and Academy Award nominated film actor. He is best known by international audiences as Ashley Wilkes in the movie Gone with the Wind. He was an accomplished actor whose film roles included Professor Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1938), The Petrified Forest (1936) and Intermezzo (1939). Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The 1934 film Of Human Bondage was the first film adaptation of the 1915 novel of the same name by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. ... is the 93rd day of the year (94th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... View from the top of Forest Hill. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... is the 152nd day of the year (153rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Map of the Bay of Biscay. ... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ... The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the awards given to actors working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... Berkeley Square is the title of a 1933 film which tells the story of a young American who is transported back to London in the time of the American Revolution and meets his ancestors. ... Pygmalion (1938) is a British film based on George Bernard Shaws play of the same name, and adapted by him for the screen. ... is the 93rd day of the year (94th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 152nd day of the year (153rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the English as an ethnic group and nation. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... For other uses, see Actor (disambiguation). ... Ashley Wilkes is a fictional character in the Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and the later film of the same name. ... Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel of the same name. ... George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856–2 November 1950) was an Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist. ... Pygmalion (1938) is a British film based on George Bernard Shaws play of the same name, and adapted by him for the screen. ... The Petrified Forest (1936) is a predecessor to film noir, with an original screenplay by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon derived from the play by Robert E. Sherwood. ... Intermezzo (aka Intermezzo: A Love Story) is a 1939 film made in the USA by producer David O. Selznick and director Gregory Ratoff. ...

Early life

He was born Leslie Howard Steiner to a Hungarian Jewish father, Ferdinand Steiner, and an English Jewish mother, Lillian Blumberg, in Forest Hill, London and educated at Dulwich College, London. (In later years, Howard usually listed his birth name as Stainer despite clear records of the correct spelling.) He worked as a bank clerk before enlisting at the outbreak of World War I. He served with the Northumberland Fusiliers, but suffered severe shell shock, which led to his return to England. The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... This article is about the English as an ethnic group and nation. ... View from the top of Forest Hill. ... Dulwich New College buildings. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... THE ROYAL NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS Nomenclature One of Englands premier county regiments, the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers can trace its ancestory back to the year 1674. ... The military term combat stress reaction (CSR) comprises the range of adverse behaviours in reaction to the stress of combat and combat related activities. ...

Theatre career

Howard began acting on stage in London in 1917. but had his greatest success on Broadway, gaining fame in plays like Aren't We All? (1923), Outward Bound (1924), and The Green Hat (1925) before becoming an undisputed Broadway star in Her Cardboard Lover (1927). His enormous success as time traveler Peter Standish in Berkeley Square in 1929 was his greatest triumph in the theatre and resulted in a call to Hollywood the following year, but the stage continued to be an important part of his career. He usually served as either producer or director of the Broadway productions he starred in (frequently performing both duties) and was also a playwright, starring in the New York productions of his plays Murray Hill (1927) and Out of a Blue Sky (1930). Howard also wrote, but did not act in the 1936 play Elizabeth Sleeps Out. For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ... Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert in a publicity photo for the 1985 Broadway revival Arent We All? is a play by Frederick Lonsdale. ... Year 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Outward Bound (OB) is an international, non-profit, independent educational organization with approximately 40 schools around the world and 100,000 participants per year. ... For the rap album, see 1924 (album). ... Year 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ... Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Berkeley Square is a play written by John Balderston. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Murray Hill may refer to one of the following places: Murray Hill, Kentucky Murray Hill, Manhattan, a residential neighborhood in New York City Murray Hill, Queens, a different locality in New York City Murray Hill, New Jersey Murray Hill, Pennsylvania Murray Hill, Christmas Island, the highest point on Christmas Island... Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Howard was always better known for his acting, enjoying triumphs in The Animal Kingdom (1932) and The Petrified Forest (1935), immortalizing both roles on film. But he had the bad timing to open in Hamlet on Broadway in 1936 just a few weeks after John Gielgud had had a resounding success in a rival production of Shakespeare’s play that was far more successful with both critics and audiences. Howard’s production lasted 39 performances in New York before it was withdrawn. It proved to be Howard’s final stage role. Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1932 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Petrified Forest (1936) is a predecessor to film noir, with an original screenplay by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon derived from the play by Robert E. Sherwood. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ... The American actor Edwin Booth as Hamlet, seated in a curule chair, c. ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000), known as Sir John Gielgud, was an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Academy Award-winning British theatre and film actor. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ...

Film career

Bette Davis and Howard in Of Human Bondage (1934)

Howard often played stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen in films such as the movie version of his great stage success Berkeley Square (1933), for which he was nominated for a Academy Award for Best Actor. He played The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1934 and in 1938 played Professor Higgins in Pygmalion, which earned him another Oscar nomination. He appeared in the film version of Outward Bound but in a different role from the one he'd portrayed in the Broadway cast. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... For the singer, see Betty Davis, for the meteorologist, see Betty Davis (meteorologist). ... The 1934 film Of Human Bondage was the first film adaptation of the 1915 novel of the same name by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. ... Stiff Upper Lip is a 2000 hard rock album by Australian band AC/DC. The album was recorded at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia and mastered at Sterling Sound in New York City. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Official language None; English is de facto Capital London Capitals coordinates 51° 30 N, 0° 10 W Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831... Berkeley Square is the title of a 1933 film which tells the story of a young American who is transported back to London in the time of the American Revolution and meets his ancestors. ... The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the awards given to actors working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... The 1934 film of The Scarlet Pimpernel was produced by Alexander Korda, directed by Harold Young and starred Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. ... Pygmalion (1938) is a British film based on George Bernard Shaws play of the same name, and adapted by him for the screen. ...

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 (1936) is a predecessor to film noir, with an original screenplay by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon derived from the play by Robert E. Sherwood. ... Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an American actor. ... For other uses, see Gangster (disambiguation). ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ...

The Petrified Forest was one of several films in which Howard costarred 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 starred with Ingrid Bergman in the 1939 film Intermezzo and Norma Shearer in the 1936 film version of Romeo and Juliet. For the singer, see Betty Davis, for the meteorologist, see Betty Davis (meteorologist). ... W. Somerset Maugham as photographed in 1934 by Carl Van Vechten. ... The 1934 film Of Human Bondage was the first film adaptation of the 1915 novel of the same name by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. ... Olivia Mary de Havilland (born July 1, 1916) is a two-time Academy Award winning actress in American motion pictures and is the last surviving principal cast member from Gone with the Wind. ...   (pronounced in Swedish, but usually in English, IPA notation) (August 29, 1915 – August 29, 1982) was a three-time Academy Award-winning and two-time Emmy Award-winning Swedish actress. ... Intermezzo (aka Intermezzo: A Love Story) is a 1939 film made in the USA by producer David O. Selznick and director Gregory Ratoff. ... Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 (some sources indicate 1900) – June 12, 1983) was an Academy Award-winning Canadian-American actress. ... The 1936 movie adaptation of Shakespeares play, Romeo and Juliet was directed by George Cukor, with a screenplay written by Talbot Jennings. ...

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 Forty-Ninth Parallel with Laurence Olivier. In the "Forty-Ninth Parallel" Howard played a typecast English eccentric who is wounded while capturing a Nazi; ironicaly Howard would be killed by the Nazis. Ashley Wilkes is a fictional character in the Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and the later film of the same name. ... Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel of the same name. ... ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The First of the Few, (known as Spitfire in the United States), is a 1942 British film, starring and directed by Leslie Howard, and co-starring David Niven. ... Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) is the third collaboration by the British-based filmmakers Powell & Pressburger. ... Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM, (IPA: ; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English actor, director, and producer. ... The word typecasting (past participle typecast) can mean more than one thing: typecasting (programming) typecasting (acting) in acting This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Death

Howard died in 1943 when, he was returning to England from Lisbon on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines/BOAC Flight 777. The aircraft was shot down by a German Junkers Ju 88 over the Bay of Biscay.^[1] It has been rumoured that Howard was engaged in secret war work at the time, and that Germany 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. However, this story has been completely discredited. Churchill himself seems to have been to blame for the spread of it; in his autobiography, he expresses sorrow that a mistake about his activities might have cost Howard his life. For other uses, see Lisbon (disambiguation). ... KLM Tailfins KLM (in full: Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, literally Royal Aviation Company; usual English: Royal Dutch Airlines) is a subsidiary of Air France-KLM. Before its merger with Air France, KLM was the national airline of the Netherlands. ... BOAC Flight 777, a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation civilian airline flight on 1 June 1943 from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal to an airport at Whitchurch near Bristol, United Kingdom, was attacked by eight German Junkers Ju 88s and crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing several notable passengers... The Junkers Ju 88 was a WW2 Luftwaffe twin-engine multi-role aircraft. ... Map of the Bay of Biscay. ... The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is, in practice, the political leader of the United Kingdom. ... Churchill redirects here. ... “Alger” redirects here. ... Detective Inspector Walter H. Thompson (died 1979) was the bodyguard of Winston Churchill for eighteen years between 1921 and 1945, being recalled from retirement running two grocers shops by a telegram on 22 August 1939 reading Meet me Croydon airport 4. ...

The truth, revealed in several exhaustively detailed books such as Bloody Biscay (which comes to a slightly different conclusion), Flight 777 by Ian Colvin, and In Search of My Father by Howard's actor son Ronald, is that the Germans were almost certainly out to shoot down the plane in order to kill Howard himself. His intelligence-gathering activities (while ostensibly on "entertainer goodwill" tours), as well as the chance to demoralize Britain with the loss of one of its most outspokenly patriotic figures, were behind the Luftwaffe attack. Ronald Howard's book, in particular, explores in great detail written German orders to the Staffel assigned to intercept the airliner, as well as communiques on the British side which verify intelligence reports of the time indicating a deliberate attack on Howard. It also makes clear that the Germans were well aware of Churchill's whereabouts at the time and were not so naïve as to believe the British Prime Minister would be traveling alone aboard an unescorted and unarmed civilian airliner when both the secrecy and air power of the British government were at his command.

Howard was traveling through Spain and Portugal, ostensibly lecturing on film, but also meeting with local propagandists and shoring up support for the Allied cause. The Germans in all probability suspected even more surreptitious activities. (German agents were active throughout Spain and Portugal, which, like Switzerland but even more accessible to Allied citizens, was a crossroads for persons from both sides of the conflict.) Ronald Howard, Leslie's son, was of the conviction that the orders to liquidate Leslie came from Goebbels, who had been ridiculed in one of Howard's films and who believed Howard to be the most dangerous propagandist in the British service.

Howard was flying from Portela (Lisbon), Portugal back home to England on a regularly scheduled flight that did not pass over what would commonly be referred to as a war zone. The Luftwaffe records indicate that the Staffel was sent beyond its normal patrol area to intercept and shoot down the airliner, even though this flight had never before been disrupted. There were about fourteen other passengers, most of them either British executives with corporate ties in Portugal, or various British comparatively lower echelon government functionaries. There were also two or three children, the offspring of British military personnel. The DC-3 was attacked by eight German JU-88s, despite the fact that Luftwaffe patrols in the nearest normal vicinity usually consisted of single planes. According to German documents, the plane was shot down at longitude 10.15 West, latitude 46.07 North, some 500 miles from Bordeaux, France. (The DC-3's last radio message indicated it was being fired upon at longitude 09.37 West, latitude 46.54 North.) The German pilots photographed the wreckage floating in the Bay of Biscay. After the war, copies of these captured photos were sent to Howard's family. The Junkers Ju 88 was a WW2 Luftwaffe twin-engine multi-role aircraft. ...

Christopher Goss's book Bloody Biscay, however, quotes Oberleutnant Herbert Hintze, Staffel Führer of 14 Staffel, based in Bordeaux, France, as remarking that his Staffel shot down the DC-3 merely because the plane was recognized as an enemy aircraft, unaware that it was an unarmed civilian plane. Hintze states that his fellow Staffel pilots were angry that the Luftwaffe had not informed them of a scheduled flight between Lisbon and the UK, and that had they known, they could easily have escorted the plane to Bordeaux and captured it and all aboard. Bordeaux (Bordèu in Gascon) is a France. ...

Personal life

Howard's will revealed an estate of £62,761.^[2] He was married to Ruth Martin in 1916. They had two children. His son Ronald also became an actor, noted for portraying Sherlock Holmes in a 1954 half-hour television series, and wrote one of the few biographies of Leslie Howard: In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard ISBN 0-312-41161-8). His daughter, Leslie Ruth Howard, also wrote a biography entitled, A Quite Remarkable Father. Ronald Howard (7 April 1918 – 19 December 1996) was an English actor and writer, best known in the U.S. for starring in a weekly Sherlock Holmes television series in 1954, which was produced by Sheldon Reynolds. ... A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ... Sherlock Holmes The first and only American television series of Sherlock Holmes adventures aired in syndication in the fall of 1954. ...

Leslie Howard's younger brother, Arthur, was also an actor, primarily in British comedies. His sister Irene Howard was a costume designer. For other people with this name, see Arthur Howard (disambiguation) Arthur Howard (born 18 January 1910 d. ... Irene Mary Stainer Howard (17 June 1903 – December 1981) was a distinguished English costume designer of Hungarian descent. ...

Howard, widely known as a ladies' man,^[3] is reported to have had an affair with Merle Oberon while filming The Scarlet Pimpernel, as well as with Tallulah Bankhead when they appeared onstage in Her Cardboard Lover. Merle Oberon (February 19, 1911 – November 23, 1979), born Estelle Merle OBrien Thompson, was an Academy Award-nominated Anglo-Indian film actress. ... The 1934 film of The Scarlet Pimpernel was produced by Alexander Korda, directed by Harold Young and starred Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. ... Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress, talk-show host and bonne vivante. ...

Selected filmography

• Outward Bound (1930) - Tom Prior
• A Free Soul (1931) - Dwight Winthrop, Jan's Fiancee
• Reserved for Ladies (1932) - Max Tracey
• Smilin' Through (1932) - Sir John Carteret
• Secrets (1933) - John Carlton
• Berkeley Square (1933) - Peter Standish
• Of Human Bondage (1934) - Philip Carey
• The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) - Sir Percy Blakeney/The Scarlet Pimpernel
• The Petrified Forest (1936) - Alan Squier
• Romeo and Juliet (1936) - Romeo
• It's Love I'm After (1937) - Basil Underwood
• Pygmalion (1938) - Professor Henry Higgins
• Intermezzo (1939) - Holger Brandt
• Gone with the Wind (1939) - Ashley Wilkes
• Pimpernel Smith (1941) - Professor Horatio Smith
• Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) - Philip Armstrong Scott
• The First of the Few (1942) - R.J. Mitchell

Outward Bound is a 1924 play by Sutton Vane. ... A Free Soul is a 1931 film which tells the story of an alcoholic defense attorney who must defend his daughters ex-boyfriend on a charge of murdering the mobster she had started a relationship with, a mobster whom her father had gotten an acquittal on a murder charge. ... Reserved for Ladies (aka Service for Ladies) is a 1932 film based on the novel The Head Waiter by Ernest Vajda. ... Smilin Through is a 1932 film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. ... Secrets is a 1933 film starring Mary Pickford in her last role. ... Berkeley Square is the title of a 1933 film which tells the story of a young American who is transported back to London in the time of the American Revolution and meets his ancestors. ... The 1934 film Of Human Bondage was the first film adaptation of the 1915 novel of the same name by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. ... The 1934 film of The Scarlet Pimpernel was produced by Alexander Korda, directed by Harold Young and starred Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. ... The Petrified Forest (1936) is a predecessor to film noir, with an original screenplay by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon derived from the play by Robert E. Sherwood. ... The 1936 movie adaptation of Shakespeares play, Romeo and Juliet was directed by George Cukor, with a screenplay written by Talbot Jennings. ... Pygmalion (1938) is a British film based on George Bernard Shaws play of the same name, and adapted by him for the screen. ... Intermezzo (aka Intermezzo: A Love Story) is a 1939 film made in the USA by producer David O. Selznick and director Gregory Ratoff. ... Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel of the same name. ... Pimpernel Smith is a 1941 propaganda film, directed by and starring Leslie Howard, which updates the Scarlet Pimpernel story from Revolutionary France to World War II Europe. ... Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941) is the third collaboration by the British-based filmmakers Powell & Pressburger. ... The First of the Few, (known as Spitfire in the United States), is a 1942 British film, starring and directed by Leslie Howard, and co-starring David Niven. ...

References

This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Leslie Howard (actor)

• Leslie Howard at the Internet Movie Database
• Leslie Howard biography and credits at the BFI's Screenonline
• Leslie Howard at the TCM Movie Database
• Leslie Howard at the Internet Broadway Database