Leslie Howard

Leslie's father, Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner, was born on April 28th 1862 in Szigetvar, Hungary, to Cacilie Bodansky and Berthold Samuel Steiner, who were both Jewish, and subjects of Austria. Leslie's mother, Lilian (née Bloomberg), was English. Lilian's own paternal grandfather, Ludwig Alexander George Blumberg, was a German Jewish immigrant, while Lilian's other grandparents were all of English origin.

He made his first movie in 1914 (The Heroine of Mons (1914)). He became known as the perfect Englishman (slim, tall, intellectual and sensitive), a part that he played in many movies, and a part women would dream about.

Leslie Howard Steiner was born in London, to Lilian (Blumberg) and Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner. His father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and his English mother was of German Jewish, and mostly English, descent. Leslie went to Dulwich College. After school, he worked as a bank clerk until the outbreak of World War I, when he went into the army. In 1917, diagnosed as shell-shocked, he was invalided out and advised to take up acting as therapy. In a few years, his name was famous on the stages of London and New York.

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.

Father of Leslie Ruth Dale-Harris (1924-2013). At 17 years old, she married Robert Dale-Harris, a chartered accountant. They lived in Toronto, Canada, with three children. In 1960 she published a biography of her father, "A Quite Remarkable Father".

His first sound movie came in 1930, Outward Bound (1930), an adaptation of the stage play in which he starred.

In Never the Twain Shall Meet (1931) and Smilin' Through (1932), he played the Englishman role to the hilt.

Was in five Oscar Best Picture nominees: Smilin' Through (1932), Romeo and Juliet (1936), Pygmalion (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939) and 49th Parallel (1941), and a narrator in another, In Which We Serve (1942). Only Gone with the Wind won in the category.

His screen persona could perhaps best be summed up by his role as Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), a foppish member of society.

It was Howard who insisted that Humphrey Bogart get the role of Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role that Bogart had played in the stage production. As he became more successful, he also became quite picky about which roles he would do, and usually performed in only two films a year.

According to a story in the "Southeast Missourian" newspaper, Howard could be a difficult man to track down, wandering off the set between takes. One day Tay Garnett, while directing Stand-In (1937), finally had several men look for him when he could not be found; they found him and, with the gentleness due a star, tied him up, clapping leg irons on him. Garnett put him on "probation", but gave Howard a cowbell and ordered him to bong the bell when on a stroll. It wasn't long before a scene was ready for shooting, but, again, no Howard. Soon enough they heard the cowbell, though, in a distant corner of the sound stage up in the catwalks. Converging on the sound, they found only the bell with a string attached. They traced the string over rafters back to the lighted set where "Stand-In" was suppose to be shooting. There sat Howard, yanking at the string, plaintively indignant about the absence of director Garnett.

Leslie was in a relationship with Violette Cunnington from 1938 until her death in 1942 of cerebral meningitis.

In 1939, he played the character that will always be associated with him, that of Ashley Wilkes, the honor-bound disillusioned intellectual Southern gentleman in Gone with the Wind (1939). However, war clouds were gathering over England, and he devoted all his energy on behalf of the war effort. He directed films, wrote articles and made radio broadcasts.

Father of actor Ronald Howard, who appeared with him in 'Pimpernel' Smith (1941).

Died while a passenger on board British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Flight #777-A, a Douglas Aircraft DC-3 named "Ibis", with four crew members and 13 other passengers, on a flight from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal, to Whitchurch Airport near Bristol, England, on June 1, 1943 when it was attacked and shot down by eight German Junkers Ju 88 fighter planes of KG 40 off the north coast of Spain. It crashed into the Bay of Biscay killing all 17 on board.

Disclosed in 1944, Leslie Howard left an estate totaling $251,000. The majority was held in trust to his widow, son and daughter. Howard had also left a Beverly Hills home to his secretary, Violette Cunnington (with whom he was rumored to be having an affair), but she had died six months before his own death.

His death was mentioned in the World War II film Bright Victory (1951).

In the parallel universe featured in Quest for Love (1971), Howard was still alive and still acting in 1971 as World War II never occurred.

In June 2018, he was honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month.