BBC Report About Leslie Howard's Death

[BBC Report of Leslie Howard's Death]

On Saturday, July 30, I posted on Facebook the 2014 BBC report on Leslie Howard's Death in which Estel Eforgan (Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor) and Tom Hamilton (Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave A Damn) were interviewed.

I did not post on Monday or Tuesday so that I could devote all my time over the last week to an extensive update to my page: About the Ibis and Its Fateful Flight • Tuesday, June 1, 1943. The page is still not completely finished. I will be adding Estel Eforgan's and Ronald Howard's analyses as time permits. One of the advantages of a blog is that pages can be constantly updated with additional information as it is found and I will be updating the Ibis page until I have found every bit of info I can. I have found conflicting information and some new information that I had not seen before and will be investigating the sources of that information as well.

The page includes information about the plane itself, the shoot down and corresponding newspaper articles, the theories about why the plane was targeted, and the passengers and crew. It contains pictures of the plane, the airfield in Portela and the monument at Cadeira, Spain.

I hope that you will take the time to read it and draw your own conclusions.

• Eforgan, Estel. Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor. London: Vallentine Mitchell Publishers, 2010. ISBN 978-0-85303-941-9.
• Howard, Ronald. In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard. London: St. Martin's Press, 1984. ISBN 0-312-41161-8.
• Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave A Damn at the Internet Movie Database
• Leslie Howard The Man Who Gave A Damn Website

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Leslie Howard, The Early Years - Part Five

Leslie Ruth Howard, Leslie Howard's daughter, recounts in her book, A Quite Remarkable Father, that Leslie and Ruth then spent some time together at Mayfield, in Sussex. Leslie's regiment had moved there in preparation to deploy to France for the buildup prior to the Battle of the Somme. Ms Howard states that her father shipped out to France and was there for a time, returning at least once on leave. She remembers in detail a story told to her of how her grandmother, while walking down a London street with her mother and not expecting her father back from the Front, heard a voice call out to Ruth. Turning to look, her grandmother saw a khaki figure covered in mud and told her daughter-in-law, "I think that soldier called to you, Ruth dear." Ruth recognized Leslie and ran to him (much like Melanie runs to Ashley in Gone With The Wind) and embraced him while crying out, "Oh darling! Never mind my suit–thank God you're home!"

Ms Howard goes on to state that after returning to France, it seems Leslie's nerves gave out and Leslie was sent home with "a case of severe shell shock." According to Estel Eforgan in her book, Leslie relinquished his commission on May 18, 1916, having no record of ever seeing action in France. She states that "from the few records that are left, April and May 1916 were relatively quiet times." However, one of the largest and longest battles, the Battle of Verdun, was being waged in northeastern France and since Ms Eforgan can produce no record at all it may be possible the records are incomplete and that Mr. Howard saw action there. Leslie Ruth must have remembered her father's service in WWI based on stories she heard from her family and it is hard for me to imagine her parents and her grandmother fabricating a story of Leslie's war service for the benefit of a child. She later recounted that her father suffered from night terrors especially when traveling in sleeping compartments on trains because of his experience during the war. We will never know for sure. However, because his life was eventually cut short by the German Luftwaffe during WWII, what does it matter? He fought in the war, even if as a civilian, and he died because of it.

Although Leslie and Ruth were living with his family during his recovery, Leslie knew that he must find a way to support the two of them if he wanted to be independent of his father. Ruth was working for the War Office but her pay would not support the two of them. Frank wanted him to return to clerking for Cox, but that suggestion fell on deaf ears. Lilian suggested Leslie try the theatre, she was convinced his future lay there, and so Leslie knocked on the doors of agent after agent after agent day after day after day until finally he knocked on the door of Mr. Ackerman May.

[Leslie Howard, 1924]

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Leslie Howard, The Early Years - Part Three

Leslie Howard had been interested in writing from a very early age. His mother encouraged him by making a small "den" for him in their attic. Leslie spent hours working on his plays, one of which was performed at his school for Christmas, in Latin mind you. His stories appeared in The Penny Weekly and various other magazines. His parents argued for hours over this activity, with his mother as supporter and his father seeing it as a waste of his time.

Howard either decided to leave school or his father withdrew him, but either way, he left Dulwich College and records show he took a job as a junior clerk in the purser's office of a steamboat running on the Thames River. Apparently, he wasn't there long, if at all, because within a short time he is listed as a clerk at Cox and Co.'s bank, a job his father arranged for him. During this time his mother continued to encourage him to write plays. The two of them, along with a couple of friends, had formed their own production company, the Upper Norwood Dramatic Club, based out of their house. The Club held several public performances during the years leading up to WWI. Several of the plays were written by and starred Leslie along with his mother, Lilian, and even his younger sister, Dorice.

People who remember Leslie at this time report that he was reserved with strangers but very confident and companionable amongst friends, which may have been a result of his elegant good looks. An actress he worked with remembered him as a "fresh-faced boy with a charming smile." [from Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor by Estel Eforgan]

Leslie was still working at the bank when the war started and like many young men of his time was caught up by the romance and glamour of it all. Leslie was not suited for banking. He had difficulty making the books balance and it was all just so monotonous. What better way to escape than by joining the army. After his initial training, Howard was accepted as a second lieutenant in the Northamptonshire Imperial Yeomanry, a mounted territorial regiment. Little did he know then that war was neither romantic nor glamorous.

[Leslie Howard Steiner in uniform, c. 1915]

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Too Tall for Leslie

Rehearsals began for The Animal Kingdom in November 1931. The play was to appear at the Broadhurst Theatre beginning in January, 1932. Leslie, the co-producer, was set to play Tom Collier and Bill Gargan had secured the part of his butler friend, "Red" Regan.

Katharine Hepburn had been cast in the part of Daisy Sage, Tom Collier's bohemian girlfriend. Hepburn only lasted through six days of rehearsal, though. According to Hepburn's biography, Me: Stories of My Life, she blamed Howard for her demise stating that she was too tall for him and that he was afraid she would run away with the play. In fact, Hepburn was at least three inches shorter than Howard and anyone who has studied Howard would know that he wouldn't care who emerged as the bigger star. As a matter of fact, the play's co-producer, Gilbert Miller, and the playwright, Philip Barry, thought Hepburn all wrong for the part. Even Bill Gargan noted that she was too inexperienced for the role which called for a passive femininity. A year later her performance in The Lake was panned by all the New York critics. Dorothy Parker wrote in The New Yorker that "she ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." [from Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor by Estel Eforgan]

Katharine didn't seem to hold a grudge though, as seen in the photo below.

[Leslie Howard and Katharine Hepburn
leaving a private screening at Jessie Lasky's
beach home in Santa Monica, May 12, 1933]

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Violette Cunnington

Leslie Howard and his companion, Violette Cunnington, who died of a sudden illness approximately six months before his own death.

In her book, Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor, Estel Eforgan reports that according to the sculptor, Oscar Nemon, who was working on a statue of Howard at the time of his death, he had been asked by Howard to "provide figures for a memorial garden to Violette." In a footnote, Eforgan reports that Nemon's unpublished memoirs include the following comments regarding Violette's death: "he [Leslie] was inconsolable and wrote her a 10,000 word letter which finished, 'Violette, I shall be with you soon.'" Howard was not a man who wanted to die, but did he have a premonition about his own death?

[Leslie Howard and Violette Cunnington]

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