Leslie Howard

Leslie Howard Steiner 3 April 1893 1 June 1943 was an English actor director and producer He wrote many stories and articles for The New York Times The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and was one of the biggest boxoffice draws and movie idols of the 1930s Active in both Britain and Hollywood Howard played Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind 1939 He had roles in many other films often playing the quintessential Englishman including Berkeley Square 1933 Of Human Bondage 1934 The Scarlet Pimpernel 1934 The Petrified Forest 1936 Pygmalion 1938 Intermezzo 1939 Pimpernel Smith 1941 and The First of the Few 1942 He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Berkeley Square and Pygmalion Howards World War II activities included acting and filmmaking He helped to make antiGerman propaganda and shore up support for the Alliestwo years after his death the British Film Yearbook described Howards work as one of the most valuable facets of British propaganda He was rumoured to have been involved with British or Allied Intelligence sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death in 1943 when the Luftwaffe shot down BOAC Flight 777 over the Atlantic off the coast of Cedeira A Coruña on which he was a passenger Description above from the Wikipedia article Leslie Howard licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia