Howard, Leslie
HOWARD, LESLIE
HOWARD, LESLIE (Leslie Steiner ; 1893–1943), British actor. Born in London of Hungarian Jewish parents, Howard started as a bank clerk and made his first appearance on the stage in 1918. He subsequently acted in many plays in London and New York and started film work in 1930. On the screen he came to typify British upper-class urbanity. His most famous role was in Gone With the Wind (1939), where he played Ashley Wilkes: few filmgoers unfamiliar with Howard's background could have guessed that this archetypal Southern gentleman was played by an actor of Hungarian Jewish background. Howard also starred in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1933), Pygmalion (1938), and Pimpernel Smith (1941). He was killed when the plane in which he was flying from Lisbon in 1943 was shot down by the Germans.
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