Biographie

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.

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 supposed to be shooting. There sat Howard, yanking at the string, plaintively indignant about the absence of director Garnett.

Humphrey Bogart was so grateful at Howard's insistence that he repeat his stage performance in the film of La Forêt pétrifiée (1936), the role that proved to be his big break in movies, that he named his daughter Leslie in Howard's honor.

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.".

[Describing one of his Autant en emporte le vent (1939) costumes]: I look like that sissy doorman at the Beverly Wilshire, a fine thing at my age.

I hate the damn part. I'm not nearly beautiful or young enough for Ashley, and it makes me sick being fixed up to look attractive.

I feel the pressure from other people coming at me. When shots don't fall for one person I think it is a domino effect.

What the actor is in private life, he is to a large extent on the stage, because he cannot conceal himself and his true personality from his audience.

Britain's destiny, on the other hand, has been to uphold tolerance in religion, thought, speech, and race--the mainspring of democracy. We have still far to travel on the road to true democracy, but only the Germans have made no progress in this direction. 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. We have also taken the Roman ideal of just administration, the Greek ideal of democracy and freedom of art, and the French tradition of the family unit, along with the Norse courage and loyalty and the Christian faith. Like all people, we have made some mistakes and have committed some crimes during our history, but we can say that we have built something worthy of our defense. We can look at our record without shame.