Vague Leslie

[Leslie Howard in John Galsworthy's Escape, Booth Theatre,
New York, 26 October 1927 - March 1928, 173 Performances]

By 1927 Leslie Howard had become very well known as one of Broadway's best comedic actors. But it wasn't until his appearance as Matt Denant in John Galsworthy's Escape that he was fully accepted as a dramatic actor. And his reviews were the best of his ten-year career:

"One of the fine performances of our day in the theatre is
contributed by Leslie Howard...Now and then this flawless and charming comedian takes time off to remind us all (and assure himself perhaps) that he is also an actor equipped to scale the heights. I hear a good deal from time to time about the decay of the art of acting in our day but for my own part I ask nothing finer than the honest, sensitive and beautiful performance which Leslie Howard gave last night on the stage of the Booth Theatre. I have not often seen anything better." Alexander Woollcott

"Leslie Howard gives a performance which, as if for nothing else on earth, he seems to have been born...he never had a finer part to play nor played it finer." Gilbert Gabriel, The Sun, October 27, 1927

"Mr. Howard goes through it superbly, sheared utterly of those engaging mannerisms which have made him so popular as a comedian. He plays easily and expertly, and gives such a mounting crescendo of fatigue that both he and the audience seemed likely to collapse from the plain sleeplessness of his sweaty, heavy-lidded exhaustion. The rest is no less effective, and makes it peer of the best performances in town." John Anderson, New York Evening Post, October 27, 1927

One thing Howard may not have been known so well for at that time, however, was his compulsive tardiness. But it would soon become legendary:

"The scene [John Galsworthy's Escape] in which she [Frieda Inescort] appeared was a bedroom in a hotel on the moors. The fugitive is discovered by the lady, hiding under her bed. As was bound to happen with vague Leslie, when the curtain went up one night on the bedroom, he was in his dressing room. Frightful sawing noises were heard off stage, as the carpenter cut a hole in the scenery so that he [Leslie] could crawl under the bed while Miss Inescort bravely shrieked her lines to the audience." A Quite Remarkable Father, pg. 144

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