Leslie Howard (actor)

For other people named Leslie Howard, see Leslie Howard (disambiguation).

Leslie Howard
Howard as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939)
Born	Leslie Howard Steiner (1893-04-03)3 April 1893 Forest Hill, London, England, United Kingdom
Died	At sea over Bay of Biscay
Occupation	Actor, director, producer
Years active	1917–1943
Spouse(s)	Ruth Evelyn Martin (1916–1943; his death; 2 children)
Children	Ronald Howard (1918–1996) Leslie Ruth Howard (1924–2013)

Leslie Howard (born Leslie Howard Steiner, 3 April 1893 – 1 June 1943) was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Probably best remembered for playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939), he also appeared in 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).

Howard's Second World War activities included acting and filmmaking. He was active in anti-German propaganda and reputedly involved with British or Allied Intelligence, which may have led to his death in 1943 when an airliner on which he was a passenger was shot down over the Bay of Biscay, sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death.

Early life

Howard was born Leslie Howard Steiner to a British mother, Lilian (née Blumberg), and a Hungarian-Jewish father, Ferdinand Steiner, in Forest Hill, London, England. Lilian had been raised as a Christian, but was also of partial Jewish ancestry—her paternal grandfather Ludwig Blumberg, a Jewish merchant originally from East Prussia, had married into the English upper-middle classes. Howard was educated at Alleyn's School, London. Like many others around the time of the First World War, the family changed their name, using "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 his 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, in plays such as Aren't We All? (1923), Outward Bound (1924), and The Green Hat (1925). He became an undisputed Broadway star in Her Cardboard Lover (1927). After his success as time traveller Peter Standish in Berkeley Square (1929), he launched his Hollywood career by repeating the Standish role in the 1933 film version.

The stage, however, continued to be an important part of his career. Howard frequently juggled acting, producing, and directing duties in the Broadway productions in which he starred. Howard was also a dramatist, and starred in the Broadway production of his play, Murray Hill (1927). He played Matt Denant in John Galsworthy's 1927 Broadway production Escape. His stage triumphs continued with The Animal Kingdom (1932) and The Petrified Forest (1935). He later repeated both roles in the film versions.

In the same period, he had the misfortune to open on Broadway in William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1936) just a few weeks after John Gielgud launched a rival production of the same play that was far more successful with both critics and audiences. Howard's production, his final stage role, lasted for only 39 performances before closing.

Howard was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.

Film career

Scott Sunderland, Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller in Pygmalion (1938), which Howard co-directed

In 1920 Howard and his friend Adrian Brunel founded the short-lived company British Comedy Films (later 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 C. 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. He appeared in the film version of Outward Bound (1930), though in a different role than the one he portrayed on Broadway. He had second billing under Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1933), which also featured Lionel Barrymore and future Gone With the Wind rival Clark Gable six years prior to their Civil War masterpiece. He starred 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).

Howard co-starred with Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest (1936) and reportedly insisted that Humphrey Bogart play gangster Duke Mantee, repeating his role in the stage production. It re-launched Bogart's screen career, and the two men became lifelong friends; Bogart and Lauren Bacall later named their daughter "Leslie Howard Bogart" after him.

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). He played Professor Henry Higgins in the film version of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (1938), with Wendy Hiller as Eliza, which earned Howard another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. 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), his last American film, 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. His friend and The First of the Few co-star, David Niven said Howard was "...not what he seemed. He had the kind of distraught air that would make people want to mother him. Actually, he was about as naïve as General Motors. Busy little brain, always going."

In 1944, after his death, British exhibitors voted him the second most popular local star at the box office.

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  Poster for A Free Soul (1931)

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  Leslie Howard and Ann Harding in The Animal Kingdom (1932)

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  Leslie Howard and Myrna Loy in The Animal Kingdom

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  Poster for Of Human Bondage (1934)

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  Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer in Romeo and Juliet (1936)

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  With John Barrymore and Basil Rathbone in Romeo and Juliet (1936)

• Spitfire-1943-Howard-John.jpg

  Leslie Howard and Rosamund John in The First of the Few (1942)

Personal life

Howard married Ruth Evelyn Martin in 1916 and they had two children. His son Ronald Howard (1918–1996) became an actor and portrayed the title character in the television series Sherlock Holmes (1954).

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 (he himself once said that he "didn't chase women but … couldn't always be bothered to run away"), 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, towards the end of his life, with the full knowledge of his wife, he did take a mistress, Violette Cunnington. The actress, who appeared under the stage name of Suzanne Clair, in "Pimpernel" Smith and First of the Few in minor roles, acted as his secretary, but died in 1942 of pneumonia in her early 30s, six months before Howard's death. In his will, Howard had left her his Beverly Hills house. His home in England was Stowe Maries, a 16th-century six-bedroom farmhouse on the edge of Westcott village near Dorking, Surrey.

Howard's will revealed an estate of $251,000, or £62,761 (the equivalent of £NaN as of 2024).

There were also rumours of affairs with Norma Shearer and Myrna Loy (during filming of The Animal Kingdom).

An English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Howard was placed at 45 Farquhar Road, Upper Norwood, London in 2013.

Death

Further information: BOAC Flight 777

BOAC Flight 777 was shot down over the Bay of Biscay.

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. By 1942, however, the Germans considered the region an "extremely sensitive war zone." On two occasions, 15 November 1942, and 19 April 1943, the camouflaged airliner had been attacked by Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters (a single aircraft and six Bf 110s, respectively) while en route; each time, the pilots escaped via evasive tactics. On 1 June 1943, "G-AGBB" again came under attack by a schwarm of eight V/KG40 Ju 88C6 maritime 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 maritime fighters were operating beyond their 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. 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.

In the book Soldaten, the pilot of the German fighter plane discusses the event:

Dock: Whatever crossed our path was shot down. Once we even shot down – there were all sorts of bigwigs in it: seventeen people, a crew of four and fourteen passengers; they came from LONDON. There was a famous English film-star in it too, HOWARD. The English radio announced it in the evening. Those civil aircraft pilots know something about flying! We stood the aircraft on its head, with the fourteen passengers. They must all have hung on the ceiling! (Laughs) It flew at about 3200m. Such a silly dog, instead of flying straight ahead when he saw us, he started to take evasive action. Then we got him. Then we let him have it all right! He wanted to get away from us by putting on speed. Then he started to bank. Then first one of us was after him, and then another. All we had to do was to press the button, quietly and calmly. (laughs)

Heil: Did it crash?
Dock: Of course it did.
Heil: And did any of them get out?

Dock: No. They were all dead. Those fools don't try to make a forced landing, even if they can see that it's all up with them.

— Harald Welzer, Soldaten

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 shot down, 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 Praa Sands, near Penzance. In the aftermath of these two actions, all BOAC flights from Lisbon were subsequently re-routed and operated only under the cover of 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.

The tragedy rendered Howard the first cast member from Gone With The Wind to die.

Theories regarding the air attack

A long-standing hypothesis states that the Germans believed that UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was on board the flight. Churchill, in his autobiography, expressed sorrow that a mistake about his activities might have cost Howard his life. The BBC television series "Churchill‘s Bodyguard" (original broadcast 2006) suggested that (Abwehr) German intelligence agents had learned of Churchill's proposed departure and route. Churchill's bodyguard, Detective Inspector Walter H. Thompson later wrote that Churchill, at times, seemed clairvoyant about threats to his safety, and, acting on a premonition, changed his departure to the following day.

Speculation by historians also centred on whether British code breakers had decrypted top secret Enigma messages outlining the assassination plan, and Churchill may have wanted to protect the code breaking operation so the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht would not suspect that their Enigma machines were compromised. German spies (who commonly watched the airfields of neutral countries), may then have mistaken Howard and his manager, as they boarded their aircraft, for Churchill and his bodyguard, as Howard's manager Alfred Chenhalls physically resembled Churchill, while Howard was tall and thin, like Thompson. Although the overwhelming majority of published documentation of the case repudiates this theory, it remains a possibility. The timing of Howard's takeoff and the flight path were similar to Churchill's flight, making it easy for the Germans to have mistaken the two flights.

Two books focusing on the final flight, Flight 777 (Ian Colvin, 1957), and In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard (Ronald Howard, 1984), concluded that the Germans deliberately shot down Howard's DC-3 to assassinate him, and demoralize Britain. Howard had been travelling through Spain and Portugal lecturing on film, but also meeting with local propagandists and shoring up support for the Allies. The British Film Yearbook for 1945 described Leslie Howard's work as "one of the most valuable facets of British propaganda".

The Germans could have suspected even more surreptitious activities, since Portugal, like Switzerland, was a crossroads for internationals, and spies, from both sides. British historian James Oglethorpe, investigated Howard's connection to the secret services. Ronald Howard's book explores the written German orders to the Ju 88 squadron, in great detail, as well as British communiqués that verify intelligence reports indicating a deliberate attack on Howard. These accounts indicate that the Germans were aware of Churchill's real whereabouts at the time and were not so naive as to believe he would be travelling alone on board an unescorted, unarmed civilian aircraft, which Churchill also acknowledged as improbable. 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 Leslie Howard's films, and believed Howard to be the most dangerous British propagandist.

Most of the 13 passengers were either British executives with corporate ties to Portugal, or lower-ranking British government civil servants. There were also two or three children of British military personnel. The bumped passengers were the teenage sons of Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt: George and William Cecil, who had been recalled to London from their Swiss boarding school. Being bumped by Howard saved their lives. William Cecil is best associated with his ownership and preservation of his grandfather George Washington Vanderbilt's Biltmore estate in North Carolina. William Cecil described a story in which he met a woman, several months after his return to London, who said she had secret war information, and used his mother's phone to put in a call to the British Air Ministry. She told them that she had a message from Leslie Howard.

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, Conchita Montenegro, Howard had contacts with Ricardo Giménez Arnau, a young diplomat in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 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 allowed it to proceed to protect the fact that the British had broken the German Enigma code. Former CIA agent Joseph B. Smith recalled that, in 1957, he was briefed by the National Security Agency on the need for secrecy and that Leslie Howard's death had been brought up. The NSA claimed that Howard knew his aircraft was to be attacked by German fighters and sacrificed himself to protect the British code-breakers.

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". There is a monument in San Andrés de Teixido, Spain, dedicated to the victims of the crash. Howard's aircraft was shot down over the sea north of this village.

Biographies

Howard did not publish an autobiography, although a compilation of his writings, Trivial Fond Records, edited and with occasional comments by his son Ronald, was published in 1982. This book includes insights on his family life, first impressions of America and Americans when he first moved to the United States to act on Broadway, and his views on democracy in the years prior to and during the Second World War.

Howard's son and daughter each published memoirs of their father: In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard (1984) by Ronald Howard, and A Quite Remarkable Father: A Biography of Leslie Howard (1959) by Leslie Ruth Howard.

Estel Eforgan's Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor is a full-length book biography published in 2010.

Leslie Howard: A Quite Remarkable Life, a film documentary biography produced by Thomas Hamilton of Repo Films, was shown privately at the NFB Mediatheque, Toronto, Canada in September 2009 for contributors and supporters of the film. Subsequently re-edited and retitled "Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn", the documentary was officially launched on 2 September 2011 in an event held at Leslie Howard's former home "Stowe Maries" in Dorking, and reported on BBC South News the same day. Lengthy rights negotiations with Warners then delayed further screenings until May 2012, although the situation now appears to have been resolved and Repo Films now intends to enter the film into various International Film Festivals.

Filmography

Year	Country	Title	Credited as
			Director	Producer	Actor	Role
1914	UK	The Heroine of Mons			Yes	cast member
1917	UK	The Happy Warrior			Yes	Rollo
1919	UK	The Lackey and the Lady			Yes	Tony Dunciman
1920	UK	Twice Two		Yes
	UK	The Temporary Lady		Yes
	UK	The Bump		Yes
	UK	Bookworms		Yes	Yes	Richard
	UK	Reward		Yes	Yes	Tony Marchmont
1921	UK	Too Many Crooks		Yes
1930	US	Outward Bound			Yes	Tom Prior
1931	US	Five and Ten			Yes	Bertram "Berry" Rhodes
	US	Devotion			Yes	David Trent
	US	A Free Soul			Yes	Dwight Winthrop
	US	Never the Twain Shall Meet			Yes	Dan Pritchard
1932	UK	Service for Ladies			Yes	Max Tracey
	US	Smilin' Through			Yes	Sir John Carteret
	US	The Animal Kingdom			Yes	Tom Collier
1933	US	Berkeley Square			Yes	Peter Standish
	US	Captured!			Yes	Captain Fred Allison
	US	Secrets			Yes	John Carlton
1934	US	British Agent			Yes	Stephen "Steve" Locke
	UK	The Lady Is Willing			Yes	Albert Latour
	US	Of Human Bondage			Yes	Philip Carey
1935	UK	The Scarlet Pimpernel			Yes	Sir Percy Blakeney
1936	US	The Petrified Forest			Yes	Alan Squier
	US	Romeo and Juliet			Yes	Romeo
1937	US	Stand-In			Yes	Atterbury Dodd
	US	It's Love I'm After			Yes	Basil Underwood
1938	UK	Pygmalion	Yes	Yes	Yes	Professor Henry Higgins
1939	US	Intermezzo		Yes	Yes	Holger Brandt
	US	Gone with the Wind			Yes	Ashley Wilkes
1941	UK	"Pimpernel" Smith	Yes	Yes	Yes	Professor Horatio Smith
	UK	Common Heritage			Yes	Himself
	UK	49th Parallel			Yes	Philip Armstrong Scott
	UK	From the Four Corners			Yes	A passer-by
	UK	The White Eagle			Yes	narrator
1942	UK	In Which We Serve			Yes	voice
	UK	The First of the Few	Yes	Yes	Yes	R.J. Mitchell
	UK	National Savings Trailer: Noel Coward and Leslie Howard			Yes	on-screen participant
	UK	Mr. Leslie Howard "by request"			Yes	presenter
1943	UK	War in the Mediterranean			Yes	voice
	UK	The Gentle Sex	Yes	Yes	Yes	"Observations of a mere man" (voice)
	UK	The Lamp Still Burns		Yes

Theatre credits

Date	Title	Role	Notes
November 1, 1920–January 1921	Just Suppose	Hon. Sir Calverton Shipley	Henry Miller's Theatre, New York
October 10–October 1921	The Wren	Dick Ashley	Gaiety Theatre, New York
December 22, 1921–February 1922	Danger	Percy Sturgess	39th Street Theatre, New York
March 14–June 1922	The Truth About Blayds	Oliver Blayds-Conway	Booth Theatre, New York
August 24–September 1922	A Serpent's Tooth	Jerry Middleton	Little Theatre, New York
November 14–December 1922	The Romantic Age	Gervase Mallory	Little Theatre, New York
December 25, 1922–January 1923	The Lady Cristilinda	Martini	Broadhurst Theatre, New York
February 20–April 1923	Anything Might Happen	Hal Turner	Comedy Theatre, New York
May 21–June 1923	Aren't We All?	Hon. William Tatham	Gaiety Theatre, New York
January 7–May 1924	Outward Bound	Henry	Ritz Theatre, New York
August 25–December 1924	The Werewolf	Paolo Moreira	49th Street Theatre, New York
January 13–February 1925	Shall We Join the Ladies?	Mr. Preen	Empire Theatre, New York
January 13–February 1925	Isabel	Peter Graham	Empire Theatre, New York
September 15, 1925–February 1926	The Green Hat	Napier Harpenden	Broadhurst Theatre, New York
March 21–August 1927	Her Cardboard Lover	Andre Sallicel	Empire Theatre, New York
September 29–October 1927	Murray Hill	Wrigley	Author Bijou Theatre, New York
October 26, 1927–March 1928	Escape	Matt Denant	Booth Theatre, New York
September 30, 1929–January 1930	Candle Light	Josef	Empire Theatre, New York
November 4, 1929–May 1930	Berkeley Square	Peter Standish	Co-producer, co-director Lyceum Theatre, New York
February 8–February 1930	Out of a Blue Sky	—	Author, director Booth Theatre, New York
January 12–June 1932	The Animal Kingdom	Tom Collier	Co-producer Broadhurst Theatre, New York
March 31–April 1932	We Are No Longer Children	—	Co-director Booth Theatre, New York
January 7–June 1935	The Petrified Forest	Alan Squier	Co-producer Broadhurst Theatre, New York
April 20–May 1936	Elizabeth Sleeps Out	—	Author Comedy Theatre, New York
November 10–December 1936	Hamlet	Hamlet	Director, producer Imperial Theatre, New York

References

Bibliography

• Burns, Jimmy. Papa Spy: Love, Faith and Betrayal in Wartime Spain. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7475-9520-5.
• Churchill, Winston S. The Hinge of Fate. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1950.
• Colvin Ian. Admiral Canaris: Chief of Intelligence. London: Colvin Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-4067-5821-4.
• Colvin Ian. Flight 777: The Mystery Of Leslie Howard. London: Evans Brothers, 1957.
• Covington, Howard E., Jr. Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an American Icon. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2006. ISBN 978-0-471-75818-1.
• Eforgan, Estel. Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor. London: Vallentine Mitchell Publishers, 2010. ISBN 978-0-85303-941-9.
• Goss, Chris. Bloody Biscay: The Story of the Luftwaffe's Only Long Range Maritime Fighter Unit, V Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40, and Its Adversaries 1942–1944. London: Crécy Publishing, 2001. ISBN 0-947554-87-4.
• Howard, Leslie, ed. with Ronald Howard. Trivial Fond Records. London: William Kimber & Co Ltd, 1982. ISBN 978-0-7183-0418-8.
• Howard, Leslie Ruth. A Quite Remarkable Father: A Biography of Leslie Howard. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1959.
• Howard, Ronald. In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard. London: St. Martin's Press, 1984. ISBN 0-312-41161-8.
• Macdonald, Bill. The True Intrepid: Sir William Stephenson and the Unknown Agents. Vancouver, BC: Raincoast Books 2002, ISBN 1-55192-418-8.
• Noble, Peter, ed. British Film Yearbook for 1945. London: The British Broadcasting Corporation, 1945.
• Rey Ximena, José. El Vuolo de Ibis [The Flight of the Ibis] (Spanish). Madrid: Facta Ediciones SL, 2008. ISBN 978-84-934875-1-5.
• Rosevink, Ben and Lt Col Herbert Hintze. "Flight 777" .FlyPast, Issue #120, July 1991.
• Sklar, Robert. City Boys: Cagney, Bogart, Garfield. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-691-04795-2].
• Smith, Joseph B. Portrait of a Cold Warrior. New York: Random House, 1976. ISBN 978-0-399-11788-6.
• Southall, Ivan. They Shall Not Pass Unseen. London: Angus and Robertson, 1956.
• Stevenson, William. A Man Called Intrepid: The Incredible World War II Narrative of the Hero Whose Spy Network and Secret Diplomacy Changed the Course of History. Guilford, Delaware: Lyons Press, 1976, reissued in 2000. ISBN 1-58574-154-X.
• Verrier, Anthony. Assassination in Algiers: Churchill, Roosevelt, De Gaulle, and the Murder of Admiral Darlan. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1st edition, 1991. ISBN 978-0-393-02828-7.

External links

• Leslie Howard at the Internet Movie Database
• Leslie Howard at the Internet Broadway Database
• Leslie Howard biography and credits at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Leslie Howard at the TCM Movie Database
• Van Neste, Dan."Leslie Howard: Unmasking the Pimpernel"
• Leslie Howard at Virtual History
• Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave A Damn (2015) by Repo Films