Leslie Howard | |
|---|---|
 Howard as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, 1939 | |
| Born | Leslie Howard Steiner 3 April 1893 Forest Hill, London, England |
| Died | 1 June 1943 (aged 50) At sea off the coast of Galicia, Spain, near Cedeira |
| Cause of death | Aircraft shot down |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1913–1943 |
| Known for |
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| Spouse |
Ruth Evelyn Martin (m. 1916) |
| Children | 2, including Ronald |
Leslie Howard Steiner (3 April 1893 – 1 June 1943) was an English actor, director, producer and writer.[1] He wrote many stories and articles for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair and was one of the biggest box-office draws and movie idols of the 1930s.
Active in both Britain and Hollywood, Howard played Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939). He had roles in many other films, including Berkeley Square (1933), Of Human Bondage, The Scarlet Pimpernel (both 1934), The Petrified Forest (1936), Pygmalion (1938), Intermezzo (1939), "Pimpernel" Smith (1941), and The First of the Few (1942). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Berkeley Square and Pygmalion.
Howard's Second World War activities included acting and filmmaking. He helped to make anti-German propaganda and shore up support for the Allies; two years after his death, the British Film Yearbook described Howard's work as "one of the most valuable facets of British propaganda". He was rumoured to have been involved with British or Allied Intelligence, sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death in 1943 when the Luftwaffe shot down BOAC Flight 777 over the Atlantic (off the coast of Cedeira, A Coruña), on which he was a passenger.[2]
- ^ Obituary, Variety, 9 June 1943.
- ^ "Patrick Gerassi, la conexión viguesa de Leslie Howard". La Voz de Galicia (in European Spanish). 4 June 2009. Retrieved 27 August 2018.