Captured!

[Leslie Howard in Captured! 1933]

In March 1933 Leslie Howard was filming Captured! for Warner Brothers. The film co-starred Howard's friend, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Howard had met Fairbanks during the summer of 1925 when the two happened to be crossing the Atlantic aboard the RMS Majestic at the same time. Fairbanks was just fifteen years old and hadn't yet made his first film.

Leslie Howard Begins His Love of Horses

[Leslie Howard]

Leslie Howard had a very active imagination and used it to begin writing plays and stories at a young age. He wrote his first play, in Latin, by the time he was 13 years old. Young Leslie's drama was presented at the Christmas pageant at his school. His mother encouraged her son, but his

Don't Expect A Happy Ending

The Petrified Forest (1936), which will be shown this Friday on TCM, was a product of Warner Bros. Warner's was frequently on the cutting edge of what movie audiences wanted to see. They produced the first talkies, the first horror films in color, and Warners was the studio to later become known for film noir, a movement in film that reflected society's angst and conflicts and is shot in low light and shadows, with pessimistic stories about shady characters and not so happy endings.

The Petrified Forest is considered by movie historians to be a precursor to film noir. The film itself is named after an area in the Arizona desert known for its fossilized trees, conjuring up a picture of the death and

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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