A Most Unappreciated Man

[Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind, 1939]

Leslie Howard definitely did not want the role of Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind (1939). Howard thought Ashley to be "a dreadful milk-sop, totally spineless and negative." He found the character "unsure and vacillating, uncertain as a moth fluttering between lamps—the done-to instead of the doing man, torn between the opposing polarities of two
equalling determined women...He only saw Ashley as the man he neither respected, nor wanted to be."(2)

You may not believe in fate or destiny, but the part of Ashley Wilkes seems to have been written in Leslie Howard's stars. When David O. Selznick asked Howard to play the part, he delayed giving his answer. Howard hoped that something else would come up—an offer for a play on Broadway, another movie, anything so that he could avoid playing "the abominable Ashley," as he called him. But no offers were made. Leslie wrote home to his wife: "Today I am taking a color test for Ashley for George Cukor, but I am not committed yet. I am not keen about it, I'll never read the book, but I've read the script—miles of it—and I don't know what they're all talking about or what's wrong with them—most of all Ashley. However, money is the mission here, and who am I to refuse it?"(1) And so it was that Howard agreed to take on the role, a role of which he later said, "If you sneeze, you miss me."(2)

Howard told David Selznick that he didn't think he could do much with the role. Selznick's reply, "Don't do anything, Leslie. Just be yourself,"(2) a response very likely to have rubbed salt in Howard's wound.

Leslie Howard had a rare quality as an actor, and especially rare for an actor who had begun his career just when sound films were replacing silent movies. Silent movies called for actors to be very physical in their roles, using exaggerated facial and bodily expressions in order to telegraph their unspoken dialogue and thoughts to the audience. Many actors' careers were ruined with the advent of talkies, and it wasn't merely the tone of their voices or previously unheard accents that made them unfit. Silent screen actors worked in a different environment, one where the director shouted commands at them as the cameras rolled. Many could not master the new medium which called for a quieter, more reflective, more nuanced style of communication with their audiences. Leslie Howard, however, had that ability to show what he was thinking without uttering a word. He conveyed sensitivity and understanding without even speaking. To me, this is the reason that, although Howard thought nothing of the part of Ashley Wilkes, his performance of Ashley was brilliant. Howard conveyed to audiences the frustration a man feels when he is stuck between duty and desire, a feeling I am sure was not unknown to him personally. Howard's dislike for Ashley Wilkes the man may actually be what created sympathy with audiences. We can all relate to that feeling of hating ourselves at times. And who hasn't had to keep on going when faced with what seems to be a lost cause—maybe a relationship, a job, our health. Leslie Howard, in his belief that Ashley was a total failure of a man, allowed his audience to not only see and feel that pain, but to have compassion for the man who keeps going on in spite of it.


Howard, Leslie Ruth. A Quite Remarkable Father: The Biography of Leslie Howard. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1959.
Howard, Ronald. In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard. London: St. Martin's Press, 1984. ISBN 0-312-41161-8.

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