Leslie Howard

Stardust – TCM’s Star of the Month

By Ed Garea

“I can't think of anything more exciting than trying to be an actor.”

During World War II such British film stars as Dirk Bogarde, Richard Todd and Alec Guinness were among those who distinguished themselves on the battlefield.

But there were others who served Britain by fighting the enemy through the art of propaganda. This was the case with Leslie Howard, the British matinee idol killed in 1943 when he was shot down by the Luftwaffe in circumstances that remain mysterious to this day.

As an actor he was best-known for the film Gone with the Wind (1939), in which he played Ashley Wilkes, the gallant plantation owner (and a character Howard intensely disliked playing) who is pursued by Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) before she marries Rhett Butler (Clark Gable).

Playing disillusioned intellectuals and gallant gentlemen wasn’t exactly a stretch for Howard, having been educated privately at the exclusive Alleyn’s School in London. Born Leslie Howard Steiner on April 3, 1893 in Crystal Palace, London, his father’s side of the family were Jewish immigrants from Hungary who Anglicized their name to "Stainer" during the First World War to sound more English (although Howard's name remained Steiner in official documents, such as his military records). 

During the First World War, Howard suffered shell-shock, which led to his relinquishing his commission only a few weeks before the battle of the Somme began in 1916.

When he returned to England he decided to become an actor as a form of therapy for his extreme shyness and shell-shock and soon found himself on the West End stage. In March 1920, Howard abandoned the use of the name Steiner, opting to be known by the name of Howard. In the 1920s he achieved his greatest theatrical success in the United States, becoming a bonafide Broadway star in the 1927 play, Her Cardboard Lover. After his success as time traveler Peter Standish in 1929’s Berkeley Square, he began his Hollywood career for Warner Bros. in the film Outward Bound. However, he found the experience distasteful and vowed never to return to Hollywood, a promise, fortunately, he did not keep.  

Though he became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, he always returned periodically to the theater, starring in such productions as The Animal Kingdom (1932, which he also directed and co-produced) and The Petrified Forest (1935, with Humphrey Bogart).

Never one to be deterred, Howard returned to Hollywood, starring in Never The Twain Shall Meet (MGM, 1932). He would find his true vocation as the personification of the elegant gentleman in such films as The Animal Kingdom and The Scarlet Pimpernel. His performance opposite Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage cemented his standing as one of the most popular stars of the 1930s. In 1936 he teamed again with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart for the film version of The Petrified Forest.

After finishing Gone with the Wind Howard decided he must return to Britain to do his bit, and he offered his services to the British government, who accepted. Their first assignment for Howard was to make broadcasts to neutral America in order to persuade them to join the war effort.

Howard also made programs for the British audience, working with the novelist JB Priestley on the BBC radio series Britain Speaks and joining with Noel Coward to make National Savings documentaries for the Ministry of Information, the theme of which was to remind the British of the values of decency, tolerance and freedom they were fighting for and Hitler was fighting against.

Howard also directed and starred in a number of morale films, including Pimpernel Smith (1941, a reworking of the Scarlet Pimpernel story set in Vichy France), The First of the Few (1942, the story of RJ Mitchell, the inventor of the Spitfire), and The Gentle Sex (1943, narrating the stories of seven British girls who decide to "do their bit" and serve during World War II). Pimpernel Smith in particular so ridiculed the Nazis that it was said to have infuriated Goebbels, not least because Howard was well known in Germany and Gone with the Wind was Hitler’s favorite film.

On June 1, 1943 Howard boarded Flight 777 at Lisbon airport, a civilian DC-3 heading for Bristol, England. A squadron of Junkers 88 fighter-bombers shadowed them, and even though the airliner was known to be a civilian plane on a scheduled flight, shot it down over the Bay of Biscay.

The reasons remain unknown to this day. Was it a mistake? The most persistent rumor had it that the Luftwaffe had targeted the plane because they believed that Churchill was on it. (The British prime minister was indeed supposed to be returning to the UK from Lisbon that day, on a later flight.) Another theory is that the English Secret Service intercepted Luftwaffe plans to attack the civilian plane, but did not warn the airline in order to avoid arousing German suspicions that their Enigma coding machines had been cracked. Yet another had it that Howard had been targeted and killed in order to demoralize Britain. 

JB Priestley spoke for many that night when he said, on a broadcast for the BBC, that “The war has claimed another casualty. The stage and screen have lost an unselfish artist, and millions of us have lost a friend.” 

On the personal side, Howard married Ruth Evelyn Martin (1895-1980) in March, 1916 and they had two children, Ronald "Winkie" and Leslie Ruth "Doodie." Howard was not the most faithful husband, saying that while he didn’t chase women, he couldn’t always be bothered to run away. In reality he was a well-known and unrepentant philanderer, who usually scored with his leading lady. Among those rumored to have kept him company in bed were Tallulah Bankhead, Marion Davies, Conchita Montenegro, Merle Oberon, Katharine Hepburn, Mary Pickford and Marlene Dietrich.

In her autobiography Myrna Loy recalled that during the filming of The Animal Kingdom, when her future husband Arthur Hornblow was in New York on business, Howard came to her house to convince her to run away with him. Myrna tactfully talked him out of his passion. “I mean, it could have been a real scrambola – if I’d allowed it to be,” she wrote.       

But Howard's most serious affair began in 1938 when he met the 27-year old Violette Cunnington while filming Pygmalion. Cunnington, of French nationality, was the secretary for Gabriel Pascal, the film’s producer. Soon she became Howard’s secretary – and lover. When Howard came to California Cunnington was with him and the pair secretly lived together while Howard was filming Gone with the Wind and Intermezzo: A Love Story. When his wife and daughter joined him in Hollywood before production ended on both films, Howard’s arrangement with Cunnington became rather uncomfortable, as he arranged separate quarters for her.

When he left the United States for England in 1939, Cunnington soon followed. She later appeared in minor roles in “Pimpernel” Smith and The First of the Few under the stage name of Suzanne Clair. Her death from pneumonia at the age of 42 in 1942 devastated the actor.

In the documentary, Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn (2016), airing this month of TCM, his daughter was asked why his wife Ruth put up with his dalliances. She said her mother came right out and asked him if he wanted a divorce. “Oh no, not a divorce,” he replied. “I’d have to marry someone.” His daughter added that her mother was his “safety net. “He relied on her in many ways,” she said. Late one night Ruth took a phone message for her husband that Cunnington had died of pneumonia, but rather than disturb his sleep she stayed awake until he woke up and told him then. “My mother was very good like that,” his daughter said.

THE FILMS

June 4

8:00 pm: The excellent documentary, Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn. 

9:45 pm: Gone with the Wind, with Howard as Ashely Wilkes. Howard reportedly accepted the role on condition he didn’t have to read the interminable book. 

3:30 am: The Petrified Forest, with Howard and Bogart repeating their stage roles as the disillusioned intellectual Alan Squires and the killer Duke Mantee, respectively. Bette Davis co-stars as the idealistic waitress Gabrielle Maple. There is the famous story about the film where Howard wired Warner Bros, that he would not star in the film unless Bogart, who starred with him in the play on Broadway, was brought in to play the role of Duke Mantee. Bogart and Howard became firm friends, and many years after Howard’s death Bogart named his daughter Leslie in tribute to the man who Bogart said made it possible for him to become a star.

June 11

6:30 pm: Never the Twain Shall Meet, a 1931 film starring Howard as lawyer bored with his job and bored with chasing his “ice box” tease of a girl friend, Maisie (Karen Morley). When he suddenly becomes guardian of a young South Seas woman named Tamea (Conchita Montenegro), he brings her home and with the help of Maisie, tries to teach her the ways of civilization. But instead he falls in love with Tamea and runs away to the islands with her, where he finds the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

8:00 pm: One of Howard’s best roles, that of Professor Henry Higgins in 1938’s Pygmalion, taking a bet that he can’t teach Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) how to be a society lady. The film was remade in 1964 as the musical My Fair Lady.

9:45 pm: Of Human Bondage (1934) adapted from Somerset Maugham’s novel about clubfooted medical student Philip Carey (Howard) and his ill-fated romance with the slatternly waitress Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis). The film made a star out of Davis and she was nominated for Best Actress for her performance.

11:15 pm: Romeo and Juliet (1936). This adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous play is OK if you can get past the fact that Howard and Norma Shearer are far too old to play the teenage lovers.

1:30 am: The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934). Howard is memorable as the London fop Percy Blakeney, who as the Scarlet Pimpernel secretly makes repeated daring trips to France in a variety of disguises to save aristocrats from the guillotine. Merle Oberon is his French wife who has no idea of her husband’s moonlighting. It’s not shown very often, which makes it must viewing, or recording.

3:15 am: A Free Soul. Howard has a small role in this 1931 drama as Dwight Winthrop, whom Norma Shearer has thrown over to romance gangster Clark Gable. See our review of it here.

June 18 

8:00 pm: Berkeley Square (1933). Howard is Peter Standish, a young American who unexpectedly inherits a house in Berkeley Square, London and is magically transported back to London in 1784. He finds he has a hard time adjusting because of his unfamiliarity with 18th century customs. People also begin to be afraid of him, as he frequently speaks of things which have not yet taken place. He meets and falls in love with Helen (Heather Angel), but his disillusionment with London causes her to urge him to return ahead to his time.

9:30 pm: Secrets (UA, 1933). In the 1860s, Mary Marlowe (Mary Pickford) runs away with clerk John Carlton (Howard) as he heads West to make his fortune. They endure hard times before making a success that sees John prosper in politics as we follow the family’s fortunes.

11:15 pm: The Animal Kingdom (1932). Tom Collier (Howard) publishes off-the-beaten-path type of book and loves his open-minded mistress, artist Daisy Sage (Ann Harding). But while Daisy is away Tom falls in love with, and marries, socialite Cee Henry (Myrna Loy), a move he later regrets. As he becomes an established member of the upper class, Cee convinces him to publish books solely for profit and give up his other ideals. When Daisy criticizes his transformation, he’s forced to choose between the two. Read our essay on it here.

12:45 am: It’s Love I’m After (1937). Howard and Bette Davis are squabbling Shakespearean actors who plan to marry before Olivia de Havilland falls in love with him and threatens to break up the couple. 

2:30 am: Smilin’ Through (1932). On the day of his wedding, Sir John Carteret's (Howard) fiancée, Moonyeen (Shearer), is killed by jealous rival Jeremy (March), leaving him devastated. Carteret spends years in seclusion, communing with Moonyeen’s spirit, until he learns that her niece, Kathleen (also Shearer), has become an orphan. He adopts and raises the child as his own but is alarmed when, as a young woman, she falls in love with the son of Moonyeen's murderer.

June 25

6:30 pm: Outward Bound (1930). A group of strangers find themselves aboard an unmanned ship, surrounded by fog and uncertain of their destination. They slowly discover that they are dead and en route to their final judgment. The studio remade it in 1944 as Between Two Worlds.

8:00 pm: The 49^th Parallel (1941). Six Nazi sailors are trapped in Canada after their U-boat is sunk. They seek to evade capture by making it across the border to the neutral United States. Howard is among those pursuing them. From the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

10:15 pm: Spitfire (aka The First of the Few, 1942). The story of famed British aviator R.J. Mitchell (Howard). While vacationing in early Nazi Germany Mitchell watches a group of German gliders and realizes that German air technology is rapidly advancing. Despite serious illness he sets out to develop a new British warplane.

12:30 am: Captured (1933). During World War I British Captain Allison (Howard) is captured by the Germans and taken to a prison camp, where he spends his time yearning for wife Monica (Margaret Lindsay). When his best friend, Lt. Digby (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), happens to be imprisoned in the same camp, Allison is greatly relieved. But what he doesn’t know is that before being shipped off, Digby was having an affair with Monica.

2:00 am: British Agent (1934). British consul-general (Leslie Howard) falls in love with Lenin's secretary (Kay Francis) during the Russian Revolution. Slight, but turgid.

3:30 am: Five and Ten (1931): Based on the novel by Fannie Hurst, a dime-store heiress (Marion Davies) falls for a New York society architect (Leslie Howard) despite the fact that he's engaged to another woman.