They certainly didn’t expect six German fighter planes to surround them, peppering the Ibis with their machine guns. The metamorphosis of a nervous, inhibited, agoraphobic individual who had other ambitions altogether into a quite successful actor. In my own experience I have proved that the cinema public is as ready to patronize the work of Bernard Shaw, the music of William Walton and film technique at its most subtle.

(Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)Leslie Howard, too well knwon to American movie fans to need an introduction, is pictured with another famous Englishman, Noel Coward, actor, author, playwright, in 1938. I hate the damn part. Having performed in Petrified Forest on stage he was then cast in the film version but when he heard that the studio were intending to cast Edward G Robinson in the role that Humphrey Bogart had played on stage he wired Jack Warner saying that if you have Robinson you don't have me. One German communication wrongly labelled him as an aircraft manufacturer presumably confusing him with his character in Maybe the Nazis thought getting rid of a high-profile propagandist would make good copy? In 1936 attended as keynote speaker an American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) reception to promote Talking Book machines. I wanted to write. Got into a blackout automobile accident in the winter of 1939.

Now well into his forties, he returned to the UK, working with the Ministry of Information and generally helping as much as he could. And gradually the miracle took place. She was Gabriel Pascal's assistant. I'm not nearly beautiful or young enough for Ashley, and it makes me sick being fixed up to look attractive. He had affairs with several of the biggest female stars of the time, including Bankhead, Myrna Loy and Merle Oberon. This is essential in the film art, and the actor agrees, but he can hardly be blamed, can he, for returning to his first love? When Leslie Howard went back to England, she followed him. Four people are thought to have jumped out of the damaged plane, one wearing a parachute which quickly burned up.

The aircraft itself plummeted towards the sea. I never expected to give up the stage, but never again do I plan to be on it exclusively. Britain, with her great gifts and strange inconsistencies had helped populate five continents and shown that the white man and the colored man can live in peace together. Howard in fact often despaired of movie acting in America, describing the all-powerful studios as sweat shops killing the best in actors and his own films as drivel.But although he turned down the role of Greta Garbo’s lover in Towards the end of the Thirties, Hollywood became all-consumed with the hunt for a perfect cast for Margaret Mitchell's Civil War bestseller, Although many other actors screen-tested, Howard was always first choice for gentlemanly Southerner Ashley Wilkes, original and only love of the fiery Scarlett O'Hara who found her passion to be unrequited.

Educated at Dulwich College where he excelled at at polo, tennis and cricket. All the great actors have been and are exhibitionists. On February 24th 1920, he changed his name from Leslie Howard Steiner to Leslie Howard, by deed poll, which was enrolled in the Central Office of the Supreme Court of Judicature on March 3rd 1920. (Metro-Goldwin-Mayer Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)David Trent (Leslie Howard) and Shirley Mortimer (Ann Harding) gaze into each other's eyes in the 1931 romantic comedy Of Human Bondage, poster, l-r: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis on window card, 1934.

They are the ideal actors. Disclosed in 1944, Leslie Howard left an estate totaling $251,000. There were millions of fellows about my age all looking for the same thing. Login to add information, pictures and relationships, join in discussions and get credit for your contributions. I retired at 70 (from Mechanical Engineering). The second had damaged a wing, but they’d got through it.There were a couple of interesting figures who joined Howard. Any actor hates to leave the stage, for there he is supreme, the most important individual. After his debut in 'Peg 'O My Heart' in 1917 he became popular on the stages of London and Broadway with plays such as 'Outward Bound' and 'Berkley Square' which he re enacted on the screen.