Leslie Howard
British actor (1893–1943) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Leslie Howard Steiner (3 April 1893 – 1 June 1943) was an English actor, director and producer.[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.
Leslie Howard | |
|---|---|
 Howard as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) | |
| Born | Leslie Howard Steiner 3 April 1893 Upper Norwood, London, England |
| Died | 1 June 1943 (aged 50) At sea off the coast of Galicia (Spain), near Cedeira |
| Cause of death | Aircraft shootdown |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1913–1943 |
| Known for | Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934); Professor Higgins in Pygmalion (1938); Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) |
| Spouse | Ruth Evelyn Martin (m. 1916) |
| Children | 2, including Ronald Howard |
Active in both Britain and Hollywood, Howard played Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939). He had roles in many other films, often playing the quintessential Englishman, including Berkeley Square (1933), Of Human Bondage (1934), The Scarlet Pimpernel (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 World War II 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]