Leslie Howard

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Leslie Howard (birthname: Leslie Howard Steiner, 3 April 1893 – 1 June 1943) was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and roles in Berkeley Square (1933), Of Human Bondage (1934), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), The Petrified Forest (1936), Pygmalion (1938), Intermezzo (1939) and Pimpernel Smith (1941).

Howard's Second World War activities included acting and filmmaking. He was reputedly involved with British or Allied Intelligence, which may have led to his precipitous death in 1943 when his airliner was shot down, sparking modern conspiracy theories regarding his death.

Early life

Howard was born to a British mother, Lillian and a Hungarian father, Ferdinand Steiner, in Forest Hill, London, UK, and educated at Alleyn's School, London. There was some Jewish background on both sides of his family. Like many others around the time of the First World War, the family used the name Stainer as less German-sounding. He worked as a bank clerk before enlisting at the outbreak of the First World War. He served in the British Army as a subaltern in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, but suffered shell shock, which led to him relinquishing his commission in May 1916.

Theatre career

Howard began acting on the London stage in 1917 but had his greatest theatrical success in the United States on Broadway, gaining prominence in plays such as Aren't We All? (1923), Outward Bound (1924), and The Green Hat (1925) before becoming an undisputed Broadway star in Her Cardboard Lover (1927). His success as time traveller Peter Standish in Berkeley Square (1929) resulted in a call to Hollywood the following year, where he also later repeated the Standish role in a 1933 film version of the play.

The stage, however, continued to be an important part of his career. Howard usually served as either producer or director of the Broadway productions in which he starred, frequently juggling acting, producing, and directing duties in the same production.Howard was also a playwright, starring in the Broadway productions of his plays Murray Hill (1927) and Out of a Blue Sky (1930); he also wrote, but did not act in Elizabeth Sleeps Out (1936).

In the theatre, Howard was always better known for his acting, enjoying triumphs in The Animal Kingdom (1932) and The Petrified Forest (1935) (repeating both roles on film in 1932 and 1936, respectively). But he had the bad timing to open on Broadway in William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1936) just a few weeks after John Gielgud had had a resounding success in a rival Broadway production of the same play that was far more successful with both critics and audiences. Howard’s production lasted 39 performances before it closed, becoming Howard’s final stage role.

Film career

In 1920 Howard and his friend, Adrian Brunel, founded the short-lived company Minerva Films in London; Howard was producer and actor, and Brunel the story editor Early films include four written by A.A.Milne, including The Bump, starring Aubrey Smith ; Twice Two; Five Pound Reward; and Bookworms. Some of these films survive in the archives of the British Film Institute.

Following his move to Hollywood, Howard often played stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen, such as in the film version of Berkeley Square (1933), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He played the title character in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) and later Professor Henry Higgins in the film version of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (1938), which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He appeared in the film version of Outward Bound (1930), but in a different role from the one he had portrayed in the Broadway cast.

Howard co-starred with Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest (1936) and it was Howard who reportedly insisted that Humphrey Bogart appear in the film as gangster Duke Mantee. Howard and Bogart had previously appeared in the play together on Broadway and became lifelong friends; the Bogarts named their daughter Leslie after him. After the film's release, Friz Freleng, as a parody, made the short-length cartoon She Was an Acrobat's Daughter (1937) that portrays a cinema audience watching The Petrified Florist, starring Bette Savis and Lester Coward.

Howard had earlier co-starred with Davis in the film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's book Of Human Bondage (1934) and later in the romantic comedy It's Love I'm After (1937) (also co-starring Olivia de Havilland). Howard starred with Ingrid Bergman in Intermezzo (1939) and Norma Shearer in a film version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1936).

Howard is perhaps best remembered for his role as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939), but he was uncomfortable with Hollywood and returned to England to help with the Second World War effort. He starred in a number of Second World War films including 49th Parallel (1941), Pimpernel Smith (1941), and The First of the Few (1942, known in the U.S. as Spitfire), the latter two of which he also directed and co-produced

Death

Howard died in 1943 when flying to Bristol, UK, from Lisbon, Portugal, on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines/BOAC Flight 777. The aircraft, "G-AGBB" a Douglas DC-3, was shot down by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88C6 maritime fighter aircraft over the Bay of Biscay.Howard was among the 17 fatalities, including four ex-KLM flight crew.

The BOAC DC-3 Ibis had been operating on a scheduled Lisbon–Whitchurch route throughout 1942–1943 that did not pass over what would commonly be referred to as a war zone. Nonetheless, on two occasions, 15 November 1942, and 19 April 1943, the camouflaged airliner had been attacked by a schwarm of V/KG40 Ju 88 fighters (six and eight, respectively) while en route; each time, the pilots escaped via evasive tactics.On 1 June 1943, "G-AGBB" again came under attack by eight Ju-88 fighters. The DC-3's last radio message indicated it was being fired upon at longitude 09.37 West, latitude 46.54 North.

According to German documents, the DC-3 was shot down at longitude 10.15 West, latitude 46.07 North, some 500 miles (800 km) from Bordeaux, France, and 200 miles (320 km) northwest of A Coruña, Spain. Luftwaffe records indicate that the Ju-88 Staffel was operating beyond its normal patrol area to intercept and shoot down the aircraft. Bloody Biscay: The Story of the Luftwaffe's Only Long Range Maritime Fighter Unit, V Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40, and Its Adversaries 1942-1944 (Chris Goss, 2001) quotes First Oberleutnant Herbert Hintze, Staffel Führer of 14 Staffeln and based in Bordeaux, that his Staffel shot down the DC-3 because it was recognised as an enemy aircraft, unaware that it was an unarmed civilian airliner. Hintze further states that his pilots were angry that the Luftwaffe leaders had not informed them of a scheduled flight between Lisbon and the UK, and that had they known, they could easily have escorted the DC-3 to Bordeaux and captured it and all aboard. The German pilots photographed the wreckage floating in the Bay of Biscay and after the war, copies of these captured photographs were sent to Howard's family.

The following day, a search of the Bay of Biscay was undertaken by "N/461", a Short Sunderland flying boat from No. 461 RAAF Squadron. Near the same coordinates where the DC-3 was downed, the Sunderland was attacked by eight Ju 88s and after a furious battle, managed to shoot down three of the attackers, scoring an additional three "possibles," before crash-landing at Penzance. In the aftermath of these two actions, all BOAC flights from Lisbon were subsequently re-routed and operated only under the cover of the darkness.

The news of Howard's death was published in the same issue of The Times that reported the "death" of Major William Martin, the red herring used for the ruse involved in Operation Mincemeat.

Theories surrounding Howard's death

A long-standing hypothesis states that the Germans believed that UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had been in Algiers, was on board the flight. Churchill himself can be blamed for the spread of the theory; in his autobiography, he expresses sorrow that a mistake about his activities might have cost Howard his life. In the BBC television series Churchill‘s Bodyguard (original broadcast 2006), it is suggested that (Abwehr) German intelligence agents were in contact with members of the merchant navy in Britain and had been informed of Churchill’s departure and route. German spies watching the airfields of neutral countries may have mistaken Howard and his manager, as they boarded their aircraft, for Churchill and his bodyguard. Howard's manager Alfred Chenhalls physically resembled Churchill, while Howard was tall and thin, like Churchill's bodyguard, Detective Inspector Walter H. Thompson. Churchill’s bodyguard noted that Thompson had written that Winston Churchill at times seemed clairvoyant about suspected threats to his safety, and acting on a premonition, he changed his departure to the following day. The crux of the theory posited that Churchill had asked one of his men to tamper with an engine on his aircraft, giving him an excuse not to travel at that time. Speculation by historians has also centred on whether the British code breakers had decrypted several top secret Enigma messages that detailed the assassination plan. Churchill wanted to protect any information that had been uncovered by the code breakers so that the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht would not suspect that their Enigma machines were compromised. Although the overwhelming majority of published documentation of the case, repudiates this theory, it remains a possibility. Coincidentally, the timing of Howard's takeoff and the flight path was similar to Churchill's, making it easy for the Germans to mistake the two flights.

Several exhaustively researched books focus on the final flight, including: Flight 777 (Ian Colvin, 1957), and In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard (Ronald Howard, Leslie's son, 1984), conclude that the Germans were almost certainly out to shoot down the DC-3 in order to kill Howard himself.[10]Howard had been traveling through Spain and Portugal, ostensibly lecturing on film, but also meeting with local propagandists and shoring up support for the Allied cause. The Germans in all probability suspected even more surreptitious activities since German agents were active throughout Spain and Portugal, which, like Switzerland, was a crossroads for persons from both sides of the conflict, but even more accessible to Allied citizens. James Oglethorpe, a British historian specialising in the Second World War, has investigated Leslie's connection to the secret services.Ronald Howard's book, in particular, explores in great detail written German orders to the Ju 88 Staffel based in France, assigned to intercept the aircraft, as well as communiqués on the British side that verify intelligence reports of the time indicating a deliberate attack on Howard. These accounts also indicate that the Germans were aware of Churchill's whereabouts at the time and were not so naïve as to believe he would be travelling alone on board an unescorted and unarmed civilian aircraft, which Churchill also acknowledged as improbable. Howard and Chenhalls were not originally booked on the flight, and used their priority status to have passengers removed from the fully booked airliner. Of the 13 travellers on board, most of them were either British executives with corporate ties to Portugal, or comparatively lower-ranked British government civil servants. There were also two or three children of British military personnel.

While ostensibly on "entertainer goodwill" tours at the behest of the British Council, Howard's intelligence-gathering activities had attracted German interest. The chance to demoralise Britain with the loss of one of its most outspokenly patriotic figures, may have been behind the Luftwaffe attack. Ronald Howard was convinced the order to shoot down Howard's airliner came directly from Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany, who had been ridiculed in one of Howard's films and who believed Howard to be the most dangerous British propagandist. A 2008 book by Spanish writer José Rey Ximena claims that Howard was on a top-secret mission for Churchill to dissuade Francisco Franco, Spain's authoritarian dictator and head of state, from joining the Axis powers. Via an old girlfriend, Howard had contacts with Ricardo Giménez-Arnau, who at the time was a young and very humble diplomat in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Conchita Montenegro. Further circumstantial background evidence is revealed in Jimmy Burns's 2009 biography of his father, spymaster Tom Burns. According to author William Stevenson in A Man called Intrepid, his biography of Sir William Samuel Stephenson (no relation), the senior representative of British Intelligence for the western hemisphere during the Second World War,Stephenson postulated that the Germans knew about Howard's mission and ordered the aircraft shot down. Stephenson further claimed that Churchill knew in advance of the German intention to shoot down the aircraft, but decided to allow it to proceed to protect the fact that the British had broken the German Enigma code.

The 2010 biography by Estel Eforgan, Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor examines currently available evidence and concludes that Howard was not a specific target, corroborating the claims by German sources that the shootdown was "an error in judgement".

Personal life

Howard married Ruth Martin in 1916 and they had two children. His son Ronald Howard (1918–1996) [24] also became an actor and is noted for portraying the title character in a television series Sherlock Holmes (1954) in addition to his biography of his father. Howard's daughter, Leslie Ruth Howard (born 18 October 1924 USA), also wrote a biography, A Quite Remarkable Father.

Arthur, Howard's younger brother, was also an actor, primarily in British comedies. A sister, Irene, was a costume designer. Another sister, Doris Stainer, founded a small school, Hurst Lodge, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, UK, and remained its headmistress for some years.

Widely known as a ladies' man, Howard is reported to have had an affair with Tallulah Bankhead when they appeared on stage (in the UK) in Her Cardboard Lover (1927); Merle Oberon while filming The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) and Conchita Montenegro, with whom he had appeared in the film Never the Twain Shall Meet (1931). However, with the full knowledge of his wife, he did take a mistress towards the end of his life, Violette Cunningham. She acted as his secretary, and died of pneumonia in her early thirties, the year before Howard's death. In his will, Howard left her his Beverly Hills house.

Howard's will revealed an estate of $251,000, or £62,761 (in 1943 pounds sterling).

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