Leslie Howard
Howard gave his life to saving the ‘great gifts and strange inconsistencies’ of Britain’s unique democracy.
1916-1943
King George VI 1936-1952
Howard gave his life to saving the ‘great gifts and strange inconsistencies’ of Britain’s unique democracy.
1916-1943
King George VI 1936-1952
This post is number 4 in the series Holocaust Resistance
Leslie Howard Steiner (1893-1943) was born in London, to an English mother and a Jewish father who had emigrated from Hungary. Howard became the quintessential British matinee-idol, languid, slightly detached, but with a sense of something more beneath: a curious case of art imitating life.
AFTER leaving his cavalry regiment in 1916 suffering from shell-shock, Leslie Howard turned to acting, starring as Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1934, and most famously as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind.
That same year, however, war broke out and Howard pledged himself to Britain’s cause, broadcasting searing criticisms of Nazism across occupied Europe and in wavering America.
Germany, he believed, had made ‘no progress’ towards democracy, whereas Britain had blended Roman government, Greek democracy and freedom of art, French traditions of the family, a certain Viking courage, and Christian faith, into something worthy of defence.*
Howard was flying home from Portugal on 1st June 1943 when his plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay by the Luftwaffe.
Exactly what this ‘British cultural ambassador’ to Franco’s Spain had been doing remains a mystery, but like the muddle-headed professor he played in Pimpernel Smith (apparently infuriating Goebbels), there was always more to Howard than met the eye.
Next in series: Britain’s Destiny
For the direct quotation, see Britain’s Destiny here on this website. For a fuller biography of Leslie Howard, including his movies, see Lifetime TV.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
How did actor Leslie Howard help Britain’s war effort against the Nazis?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Howard fought in the First World War. He suffered from shell-shock. His doctor advised amateur dramatics.