A Little Romance

I have often asked myself what it was about Leslie Howard that got me to notice him and why I stay so hooked.

If I believed in reincarnation I would surmise that I had met him in a previous life because he is very personal to me. We all have those people we see up on the big screen, or even the small screen, that we feel a connection to. Well, I feel that connection to him.

But then again, it may be the roles he played. Maybe I just like men who are walking tragedies. You know, those men who need the love of a good woman, with me being the good woman. Hmmm, is that it?

I think more likely, though, it is the way he loved the women in his films. You can see that he adored women, he exalted women. The way he held his female stars, especially while dancing, shows how tender and caring he was. And when he kissed a woman, he held her so close he sometimes lost his balance while enveloping her. You can see him balance himself against the wall as he falls forward while kissing Vivien Leigh in the Paddock Scene in Gone With The Wind. And the way he seems to naturally hold and kiss the hands of all his female actors--it's so gentle, so loving.

Leslie Howard once said, "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." But where some people associate Leslie Howard with his roles, I associate him with the feeling he conveys, the need and the availability for love and connection. He may have been a man always falling in love, not realizing what he was getting in to, in the movies and out, but he was always falling in love. But as Hilary Lynn noted in Photoplay, August, 1933, Howard exhibits "more of a frail tenderness, of worshipful adoration, than of engulfing passion." Lynn goes on to say that "Howard's screen wooing indicates clearly that it's the woman herself who matters to him--not the fact of being in love, nor the fleeting pleasure of making love." Leslie Howard always conveyed, in comedy or drama, that women made the world livable and women made living worthwhile. I kind of like that.

[Leslie Howard, c. 1934]

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