Real or Imagined?

[Leslie Howard with Archie Mayo
on the set of It's Love I'm After, 1937]

Leslie Howard's son, Ronald "Wink" Howard, talks about his father's shyness:

"As far as living in Hollywood was concerned Leslie had always kept a pretty low profile, not from any innate hostility to the place, but simply because he was not a very social animal. He was rarely seen 'around and
about' whether in London, New York or Hollywood and carefully avoided gatherings of large numbers of people, suffering from a genuine agoraphobia—crowds really frightened him—and having, as he admitted, no 'head for parties.' In fact, elusive as was his nature, he generally got out of Hollywood as quickly as he could, if only to the nearby desert at La Quinta where he could ride or lie about in the sun without feeling he was under inspection. It was in no sense a 'Howard exclusivity cult' but simply that he needed to escape from time to time, was basically solitary and shy and only really wanted the company of a very few intimate friends."

Leslie Howard's daughter, Leslie Ruth "Doodie" Howard, knew her father a bit better than her brother:

"He had built up a reputation for shyness, which he took considerable trouble to maintain. He was excused from many parties because he was supposedly too frightened of large gatherings to appear. It really rather depended on the gathering. A huge group of painters at the Royal Academy dinner delighted him, but an invitation to a fashionable New York party brought the comment: 'I did not go...I don't like brokers, Long Island society, Italian princesses, etc., and I'm sure that's what I should get.'"


Howard, Ronald. In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard. London: St. Martin's Press, 1984. ISBN 918-0-312-41161-8.
Howard, Leslie Ruth. A Quite Remarkable Father: The Biography of Leslie Howard. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1959.

Subscribe to Leslie Howard by Email • And don't forget to respond to the verification email!