Remembering Arthur O'Connell On His Birthday

[Arthur O'Connell and James Stewart in
Anatomy of a Murder, 1959]

The year 1955 was very good for Arthur O'Connell (29 March 1908 - 18 May 1981). He appeared in Picnic, for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also had parts in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and Bus Stop.

He was one of those great character actors who always turned in a stellar performance. My favorite was as Parnell Emmett McCarthy, the washed up, alcoholic attorney who saved the day for Jimmy Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) for which he received his second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Happy Birthday, Arthur O'Connell.

Arthur O'Connell's Obituary, The New York Times, 19 May 1981


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Remembering Thelma Ritter On Her Birthday

[Thelma Ritter, 1955]

To me, Thelma Ritter (14 February 1902 - 5 February 1969) was the best character actor ever to appear on film. I loved her and believed everything she ever said. Co-incidentally, or is it, Ritter appeared in all my favorite films:

• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• Call Northside 777 (1948)
• All About Eve (1950) - Nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
• The Mating Season (1951) - Nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
• Rear Window (1954)
• Pillow Talk (1959) - Nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
• How the West Was Won (1962)
• Move Over, Darling (1963)
• Boeing Boeing (1965)

Just to name a few.

Ritter also delivered what I believe is the best comeback line ever to be uttered on film. In All About Eve when Gary Merrill asks Ritter on his way out of town to direct a movie in Hollywood, "What do you want me to tell Tyrone Power," Ritter responds, "Just give him my phone number. I'll tell him myself."

Oh, how I love you Thelma Ritter. Happy Birthday.

Programming Note

[Leslie Howard and Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind (1939)]

Gone With The Wind to air on TCM Thursday, February 9, at 9:00 PM PST [Please check your local listings]

Leslie Howard: On & Off Screen

Leslie Howard: On & Off Screen

Recently, Tom Hamilton, Writer, Producer and Director of the documentary films Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn and The Mystery of Flight 777, the story of the ill-fated flight of the IBIS in which Leslie Howard met his death, made some of his Leslie Howard memorabilia available for purchase online at LeslieHowardMemories. [Items are still available for sale.] Of course, I had to purchase a few items—more than a few really—and Tom was kind enough to forward me a copy of Leslie Howard: On & Off Screen. [To see a write up of the original screening of the film by The Cinema Museum, click here.]

Programming Note

[Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931)]

A Free Soul to air on TCM Sunday, January 15, 2017, at 9:00 AM PST [Please check your local listings]

Happy New Year!

[Leslie and Ronald Howard at Marion Davies’ circus party 1937
(from LeslieHowardForever.tumbler.com)]

Hello, everyone!

I hope you have all had a very happy holiday season and are looking forward to ringing in a new year we all hope will bring peace and prosperity to everyone. I have been absent for the last two months but will be back in the new year with new posts and pages on my blog.

Well, I'm not sure if this Marion Davies' circus party where Leslie and his son, Ronald, were celebrating was held on New Year's Eve, but I am going to use it to wish you all a very Happy New Year!


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Programming Note

[Leslie Howard and Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind (1939)]

Gone With The Wind to air on SundanceTV Thursday, November 24, at 10:00 AM PST [Please check your local listings]

Leslie Howard, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and Olivia de Havilland star in the top grossing movie of all time, Gone With The Wind. Produced by David O. Selznick, Directed by Victor Fleming and Screenplay by Sidney Howard, this film was delayed for two years while Selznick negotiated with MGM for Clark Gable and conducted an extensive "American Idol" type search for Scarlett O'Hara.

Top Awards:

Best Picture - Selznick International Pictures
Best Director - Victor Fleming
Best Actress - Vivien Leigh
Best Adapted Screenplay - Sidney Howard
Best Supporting Actress - Hattie McDaniel

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Remembering Jack Elam On His Birthday

[Jack Elam]

I just love character actors. And today would have been the 96th birthday (if I did the math right, and his year of birth is disputed) of one of my favorite character actors, Jack Elam (13 November 1920 - 20 October 2003).

Born William Scott Elam in Miami, Arizona, Elam appeared in 73 movies and 41 television series. Elam played the scheming, no-account, dastardly bad guy better than anyone. It is no coincidence that one of his best performances was in one of my favorite films, Rawhide, starring Tyrone Power. But Elam could also play the funny man which he did with greater frequency in the later years of his career.

Happy Birthday, Jack Elam.

Jack Elam's Obituary, The Guardian, 28 October 2003

Remembering Martin Balsam On His Birthday

[Martin Balsam in Psycho, 1960]

Martin Balsam (4 November 1919 - 13 February 1996) was one of those great character actors I loved watching. You know the kind. They seem to appear in all your favorite films, the ones you have on DVD and have watched so many times you know the dialogue word for word.

Balsam was the ardent detective, Milton Arbogast, in Psycho (1960) whose agonizing fall down those stairs went on forever. He was the calm and controlled Juror #1 in 12 Angry Men (1957). The way Balsam stood up after the jury had taken one more of those secret votes, you just knew Henry Fonda had finally turned the jury. His portrayal of O.J. Berman in Breakfast at Tiffany's always sticks in my mind, "She's a phoney. But she's a real phoney." Balsam played the sympathetic but ineffectual cop, Police Chief Mark Dutton, in Cape Fear (1962). And when he sneezed that last time in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Walter Matthau realized he had gotten his man...well, what can I say?

Happy Birthday, Martin Balsam.

Martin Balsam's Obituary, The New York Times, 14 February 1996

Programming Note

[Leslie Howard and Kay Francis in British Agent, 1934]

British Agent (1934) to air on TCM Friday, October 28, 10:45 AM EST, 7:45 AM PST [Please check your local listings]

British Agent is a film based on the autobiography of R. H. Bruce Lockhart, a member of the British Secret Service. Lockhart's book, Memoirs of a British Agent, was also said to have inspired one of the

A Very Surprising Man

[Leslie Howard as Peter Standish in Berkeley Square, 1933]

When I first decided to start my Leslie Howard Fan Page on Facebook I had only intended to post some pictures. But in my search for new photos my natural curiosity was piqued and I wanted to know the stories behind the images. This launched me on an almost compulsive search for information about Leslie Howard—The Man. I soon realized that I needed a blog to contain all the information I was discovering and that is how LeslieHowardSteiner.blogspot.com came into being.

Murray Hill

[Leslie Howard pictured in Film Weekly, September 30, 1932]

Most people remember Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes from Gone With The Wind (1939) or as Sir Percy Blakeney from The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935). What most people don't know is that Howard was also a writer and had many articles and stories published in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and many trade magazines. Howard's first published story appeared in The Penny Weekly when he was in his early teens. But Howard didn't limit himself to stories for magazines. He was also a playwright. Two of the first plays he produced, staged and appeared in were of his own composition: The True Artist—of which little is known—and Deception—the story of a private detective on his quest to track down stolen jewels.

Remembering James Whitmore On His Birthday

[The Next Voice You Hear Trailer, 1950]

James Whitmore's (1 October 1921 - 6 February 2009) career spanned radio, stage, film and television. He is one of only a handful of performers to have won three of the four EGOT honors. His 1999 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor - Drama Series came for his appearance as Raymond Oz in The Practice. Whitmore won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Battleground in 1949, probably my favorite WWII movie. He was also nominated in the same category by the Academy Awards but lost out to Walter Huston for his role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). And Whitmore won a Tony for Best Newcomer in 1948's Command Decision.

But my absolute favorite James Whitmore performance was as Joe Smith, average man, in The Next Voice You Hear (1950) co-starring Nancy Davis, soon to be Nancy Reagan. In it, Whitmore hears a voice on the radio claiming to be God who speaks to humanity for several wonderful but terrifying days. I watch the movie at least once a year.

Happy Birthday, James Whitmore.

James Whitmore's Obituary, The New York Times, 7 February 2009

Berkeley Square

[Leslie Howard as Peter Standish in
Berkeley Square, Lyric Theatre, London]

After years of disappointments on Broadway, Leslie Howard finally had a string of successes. It had been ten years since Howard made the decision to "try" acting and he was finally seeing the rewards. Howard had received rave reviews for The Green Hat and Her Cardboard Lover and was now an actor in demand. He got his first chance to star in a purely dramatic role in Escape, touted (due to a misunderstanding) as the last play John Galsworthy would ever write.

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.

Programming Note

[Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage, 1934]

Of Human Bondage (1934), directed by John Cromwell and produced by Pandro S. Berman and RKO Radio Pictures, stars Leslie Howard in the finest screen performance of his career up to that time and Bette Davis in her breakout role. Of Human Bondage is based on the 1915 novel of W. Somerset Maugham, a novel which has never been out of print since

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

Leslie Howard's Rules of Theatre Etiquette

[Leslie Howard as Oliver Blayds-Conway in The Truth About Blayds
by A. A. Milne, Booth Theatre, New York, March 14 to June 1922,
108 Performances]

Leslie Howard's Rules of Theatre Etiquette:

1. Don't ask the box office man if it's a good play.
2. Don't have any faith in dramatic critics, the star system, press agents, photographs in the newspapers, or articles by actors.
3. Don't try to buy tickets for a play an hour before the performance.

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

My Chronology of Leslie Howard's Life

[Leslie Howard with his children, Doodie and Wink,
at their home Stowe Maries, at Dorking in Surrey c. 1939]

I have now been working on my "Chronology of Leslie Howard's Life" for months and have just made it halfway through his professional life—to 1930, where his movie career now begins. This is monumental for me. I cannot tell you how difficult it has been to put the pieces of Howard's life together in a meaningful sequence. I have outlined the reasons this is so arduous in a note which can only be viewed by clicking the link in the Chronology, or by clicking here. I am not going to rehash all those reasons in this post, but I will talk about the most primary among them.