Leslie Howard (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.

Biography

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 £2.52 million as of 2015).

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.

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