Leslie Howard Biography

A doctor suggested he tried amateur dramatics to calm his nerves and, within a few years, his name was appearing on billboards, both for stage productions in London, and the other side of the Atlantic in New York.

He was known as the quintessential Englishman, though his parents were Hungarian Jews. Tall, intelligent and sensitive, for most of his roles there was little acting to do, he just had to play himself. To many women he was the ideal husband and they adored him.

Howard's first great success was in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' (1934) playing Sir Percy Blakeney. Blakeney is apparently the perfect English society fop but, secretly disguised as the Pimpernel, he is a hero, embarking on daring missions to rescue French aristocrats and intellectuals, from the hungry blade of Madame Guillotine.

But his best known role must be that of Ashley Wilkes, the disillusioned and honourable gentleman from the American south, in 'Gone With The Wind'.

During World War II, Howard worked hard for the war effort, directing films, making radio broadcasts and writing articles. He twisted the Pimpernel story to make ‘Pimpernel Smith’, which he also produced and directed.

The hero, Professor Smith, is an archaeologist who rescues artists and intellectuals from Nazi Germany. The film suggests that Howard’s identification with the struggle against fascism was more about ideals than politics. His final film, 'The Gentler Sex' (1943) illustrated his great respect for woman, and admiration for their work in the war effort.

Howard died in 1943 when the plane he was returning to England from Lisbon on was shot down by a German fighter over the Bay of Biscay. It had been rumoured 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. However several accounts question this theory.

The truth, revealed in several publications such as Bloody Biscay, 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 - have become the more accepted reason for the Luftwaffe attack.