That Kiss

That kiss was a magical thing,
My heart did fly and the angels did sing
Oh oh oh....

~ That Kiss by Tiffany Alvord

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Subscribe to Leslie Howard by Email

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]

Subscribe to Leslie Howard by Email

We're All A Lot of Saps

"Well, let me tell you something. You're a forgetful old fool. Any woman's worth everything that any man has to give: anguish, ecstasy, faith, jealousy, love, hatred, life or death. Don't you see that's the whole excuse for our existence. It's what makes the whole thing possible and tolerable. When you get to my age you'll learn better sense." ~ Alan Squier, The Petrified Forest, 1936

Leslie Howard and Charley Grapewin
in The Petrified Forest, 1936

Subscribe to Leslie Howard by Email

Romance Made Real

Following is a letter that appeared in the "How Readers Rate Them" column in the January, 1936, issue of Motion Picture magazine. (You'll notice that in those days the reader's name and address appeared at the bottom of the letter.) The writer, Mary T. Pyle, won $1 for her submission.

[Leslie Howard in
Intermezzo: A Love Story, 1939]

Subscribe to Leslie Howard by Email

One Woman

"I love all women; I love womankind. In the love of a good woman you have everything, all the wonders of the ages, the brown skinned girls who inflame your senses with the play; the cool, yellow-haired women who entice and escape you; the gentle ones who serve you; the slender ones who torment you; the mothers who bore and suckled you--all women whom God created out of the teeming fullness of the earth are yours in the love of one woman."

   ~ Leslie Howard

Leslie Howard and Bette Davis

in The Petrified Forest, 1936

Subscribe to Leslie Howard by Email

Remembering Joseph Cotten On His Birthday

Joseph Cotten (15 May 1905 - 6 February 1994) was one of my favorite actors. Between 1930 and 1981 he had a successful radio, stage, film and television career. He also co-wrote the screenplay for Journey Into Fear (1943). In 1934, Cotten had the good fortune to meet and become friends with Orson Welles, who helped launch his film career.

Cotten appeared on Broadway as C. K. Dexter Haven in the original production of The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn. He expected to recreate the role in the film version but found once he got to Hollywood that the role had been given to Cary Grant. At that point, Cotten made good use of his friendship with Welles by securing a role in Citizen Kane (1941). Although Citizen Kane did not do well at the box office due in large part to William Randolph Hearst's refusal to allow any of his newspapers to advertise it, Cotten did go on to play lead roles in Welles' productions of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Journey Into Fear (1943) and The Third Man (1949).

My favorite movies came later. And there are so many: Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) where he played a ruthless serial killer (also Hitch's favorite film), Gaslight (1944) with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, the WWII tearjerker Since You Went Away (1944) with Claudette Colbert and Jennifer Jones, Love Letters (1945) again with Jennifer Jones and one of my favorite character actors, Cecil Kellaway, and one of my all-time, absolute favorite movies, Niagara (1953) with Marilyn Monroe. And who can forget Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).

 Happy Birthday, Joseph Cotten.

Joseph Cotten's Obituary, The New York Times, February 7, 1994

[Joseph Cotten, 1957]

Subscribe to Leslie Howard by Email