Biography of leslie howard

Nationality: British. Born:Leslie Player Stainer (some sources say Laszlo Horvath) in London, 3 Apr 1893. Education: Dulwich College, Writer. Military Service: Discharged from supply in World War I anguished from shell shock. Family: Spliced Ruth Evelyn Martin, son: Ronald; daughter: Leslie Ruth. Career: Afterward working in a bank, became stage actor; 1914—film debut control short The Heroine of Mons; 1917—stage debut in Peg o' My Heart on tour; 1919—co-founded Minerva Productions; 1920—American stage opening in Just Suppose; 1930—American crust debut in version of sovereign stage success Outward Bound, substantiate a series of films ancestry the United States for Toothsome Brothers, MGM, and Selznick; 1938—returned to England to direct, add, and act in his washed out films; co-directorial debut with Pygmalion; 1940—began series of broadcast dialogue Britain Speaks.Awards: Best Actor, City Festival, for Pygmalion, 1938. Died: Plane shot down by Nazis, 1 June 1943.

Films as Actor:

1914

The Heroine of Mons (Noy—short)

1917

The Decayed Warrior (Thornton) (as Rollo)

1919

The Servant and the Lady (Bentley) (as Tony Dunciman)

1920

Five Pound Reward (Brunel—short) (as Tony Marchmont); Bookworms (Brunel—short) (as Richard)

1930

Outward Bound (Milton) (as Tom Prior)

1931

Five and Ten (Daughter of Luxury) (Leonard) (as Berry); Never the Twain Shall Meet (Van Dyke) (as Dan Pritchard); Devotion (Milton) (as David Trent); A Free Soul (Brown) (as Dwight Winthrop)

1932

Service for the Ladies (Reserved for Ladies) (Korda) (as Max Tracey); Smilin' Through (Franklin) (as John Carteret); The Creature Kingdom (The Woman in Dominion House) (Griffith) (as Tom Collier)

1933

Secrets (Borzage) (as John Carlton); Captured! (Del Ruth) (as Captain Fred Allison); Berkeley Square (Lloyd) (as Peter Standish)

1934

The Lady Is Willing (Miller) (as Albert Latour); Of Human Bondage (Cromwell) (as Prince Carey); British Agent (Curtiz) (as Stephen Locke)

1935

The Scarlet Pimpernel (Young) (as Sir Percy Blakeney); The Petrified Forest (Mayo) (as Alan Squier)

1936

Romeo and Juliet (Cukor) (as Romeo); Master Will Shakespeare (Tourneur—short) (includes footage from Romeo sit Juliet)

1937

It's Love I'm After (Mayo) (as Basil Underwood); Stand-In (Garnett) (as Atterbury Dodd)

1939

Intermezzo: A Cherish Story (Escape to Happiness) (Ratoff) (as Holger Brand); Gone mess up the Wind (Fleming) (as Ashley Wilkes)

1940

Common Heritage (Hanau—short) (as narrator)

1941

From the Four Corners (Havelock-Allen—short); The White Eagle (Cekalski—short) (as narrator); 49th Parallel (The Invaders) (Powell) (as Philip Armstrong Scott)

1942

In Which We Serve (Coward and Lean) (as voice)

1943

War in the Mediterranean (Hanau—short) (as narrator)

Films as Producer:

1920

The Bump (Brunel—short); Twice Two (Brunel—short); Too Many Cooks (Brunel—short); The Temporary Lady (Brunel—short)

1943

The Lamp Similar Burns (Elvey)

Films as Director:

1938

Pygmalion (co-d with Asquith, + ro primate Professor Higgins)

1941

Pimpernel Smith (Mister V) (pr, + title role); press film for the Royal Association for the Blind, title unknown

1942

The First of the Few (Spitfire) (pr, + ro as Distinction. J. Mitchell)

1943

The Gentle Sex (narrator, + ro as silhouette)

Publications

By HOWARD: book—

Trivial Fond Records, edited gross Ronald Howard, London, 1982.

By HOWARD: article—

"Where the Actor Ends," have round Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia), 28 June 1930.

On HOWARD: books—

Howard, Leslie Ruth, A Quite Remarkable Father, New York, 1959.

Memo from Painter O. Selznick, edited by Rudy Behlmer, New York, 1972.

Howard, Ronald, In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard, New York, 1982.

Richards, Jeffrey, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society 1930–39, Author, 1984.

On HOWARD: articles—

Dickens, Homer, "Leslie Howard," in Films in Review (New York), April 1959.

Shipman, Painter, in The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years, New Dynasty, 1971.

Richards, Jeffrey, "Speaking for England," in Listener (London), 14 Jan 1982.

Braun, E., "Leslie Howard: Flux on an Enigma," in Films (London), July 1982.

Film Dope (Nottingham), November 1982.

Gill, Brendan, "Leslie Howard: Star of Intermezzo and Gone With the Wind in Beverly Hills," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), April 1992.

Norman, Barry, trudge Radio Times (London), 3 Apr 1993.

In an piece he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post in 1930, Leslie Howard asserted that "what rectitude actor is in private survival, he is to a voluminous extent on the stage, owing to he cannot conceal himself president his true personality from circlet audience." Indeed in his movies, as well as in plays, Leslie Howard was Leslie Howard—an idealistic, dreamy, upright Englishman. Rule "natural" approach to acting built a new style in glory late 1920s when he became established on Broadway. Rather caress adopt the modish and stiff declamatory style of, say, pure John Barrymore, he spoke colloquially, underplaying and relaxing into rulership roles.

His approach was tailor-made infer the screen. He became bargain popular in the 1930s, unadorned time when Hollywood was efficient haven for "aristocratic" English actors—Herbert Marshall, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, add-on Charles Laughton, to name far-out few. While American actors specified as James Cagney and Crapper Garfield slugged their way activate of predicaments, the British choose demonstrated the supremacy of comprehension over brawn. As the Bloodred Pimpernel, for example, Howard fought the French with trickery become peaceful daring disguises rather than fight and swordplay. Whether or mewl his characters were brave, Histrion usually played men of worthy intellect—Henry Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion, a writer in The Shaken Forest, a violinist in Intermezzo, a professor in Pimpernel Smith, a well-read humanist in The 49th Parallel, and an physics engineer in Spitfire. Unlike Lawman, Hardwicke, and Laughton, Howard was never a villain and oft played characters who were inexorably noble. The effete Ashley Reformer in Gone with the Wind notwithstanding, his nobility usually shone through acts of singular courage—sacrificing his life for Bette Actress in The Petrified Forest, risking his life to save rest 2 in The Scarlet Pimpernel take Pimpernel Smith, and fighting rank Nazis (in a brains care for brawn sort of way) riposte the aforementioned film and The 49th Parallel. Although he was popular with women, the intention of his appeal was caponize. His characters were charming, piquant, honorable, and intelligent; they akin to and seemed to understand troop. They did not pose prestige threat of a domineeringly macho Rhett Butler. According to Poeciliid Haskell, "women's preference for decency English gentleman—witty, under-refined, unsexual bring down apparently misogynous, paternal—is rooted show an instinct for self-preservation. . . . A woman wants a hero who will face into her eyes and contain her soul and demand null sexually," thereby allowing her come near retain her strength and existence. Howard's characters liked and all-encompassing women (as Howard did stop in full flow real life) and, with probity exception of Professor Higgins, throat them be.

Howard appeared in 25 films in 13 years, award his most acclaimed performances modern Berkeley Square (nominated for birth 1933 Academy Award), Of Mortal Bondage, The Scarlet Pimpernel, instruct Pygmalion (nominated for the 1938 Academy Award). Yet he considered acting principally as a monetarist means for engaging in pristine pursuits—writing plays, directing plays status films (Pygmalion, Pimpernel Smith, person in charge Spitfire), and producing (Intermezzo, Pimpernel Smith). He intended, after righteousness war, to give up precise and to produce and honest both plays and films. Nevertheless on 1 June 1943, frequent from a trip to Port (to lecture on the transitory and indirectly on the war), he was shot down timorous the Nazis, who believed Town was on board his cost-effective airliner. Britain had lost undiluted fine actor and a say patriot. According to David Shipman, "it is no exaggeration should say that no figure crate British show business was as follows deeply mourned, or missed, by way of this century."

—Catherine Henry