Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor

299 Pages·2013·126.83 MB·English

by  Estel Eforgan

EforgenPB7:PB.qxd 19/10/2012 12:16 Page 1
Leslie Howard’s career as a Hollywood star and his ambitions for L
the British film industry are well known. His films, Gone With the S
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Wind, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Petrified Forest, Pygmalion, o
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Pimpernel Smith and The First of the Few are substantial pieces d
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of cinema history. But behind the charm was a perceptive and i di
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determined man. An ambivalent identity and a penetrating o
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intelligence gave him the confidence to inform world opinion at the H
time of the Second World War. He struggled with the establishment
back in England to get the British film industry restarted in 1940, o
and aimed at giving a lead in democratic values and unity. He w
worked secretly and alone to develop British propaganda in
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America, and to help SOE and the Free French in Britain. His work
then is almost unknown, and startlingly unexpected. r
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Leslie
Estel Eforgan’s biography of Leslie Howard is a bonanza for Modernist T
Studies … One of the many great achievements of this biography is h
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Eforgan’s judicious examination of the myths and evidence surrounding

Howard’s death and analysis of his wartime political activism off and on L
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the screen.
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Confronting the most cataclysmic event of the twentieth century, Leslie t

Howard’s film and career should be considered a major text in modern A
cultural production. Estel Eforgan’s biography will be its primary resource. c
Howard
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Review in Modernism/Modernity, by Phyllis Lassner, r
Northwestern University
Estel Eforgan has written an excellent book about Howard’s work as
propagandist during World War II. … Eforgan’s research in government E
archives will be of great value to persons hoping to separate fact from
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speculation concerning wartime espionage; she includes many archival
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documents relating to Howard’s wartime work as propagandist.
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Estel Eforgan, as Jeffrey Richards notes in his graceful foreword, has
provided a fine account of an unusual film type. L
The Lost Actor
Review in The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, E
by David Culbert, Louisiana State University F
O
ESTEL EFORGAN completed her BSc. in Psychology, MSc. in Social Research
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Methods and Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies. She is a
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researcher and has worked at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.
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VALLENTINE MITCHELL ISBN 978 0 85303 915 0 N
Middlesex House 920 NE 58th Avenue
ESTEL EFORGAN
29/45 High Street Suite 300
Edgware, Middlesex Portland, OR 97213-3786
HA8 7UU, UK USA
VALLENTINE
www.vmbooks.com
MITCHELL
VALLENTINE
MITCHELL
LESLIE HOWARD: THE LOST ACTOR

Leslie Howard
The Lost Actor
ESTELEFORGAN
VALLENTINE MITCHELL
LONDON • PORTLAND, OR
Second edition published in 2013 by Vallentine Mitchell
Middlesex House, 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300
29/45 High Street, Edgware, Portland, Oregon,
Middlesex HA8 7UU, UK 97213-3786 USA
Estel Eforgan
Eforgan, Estel.
Leslie Howard : the lost actor. — New ed.~
1. Howard, Leslie, 1893-1943. 2. Motion picture actors and
actresses—Great Britain—Biography. 3. World War,
1939-1945—Secret service. 4. World War, 1939-1945—
Propaganda.
I. Title
791.4’3’028’092-dc23
Good News Digital Books, Stevenage, Hertfordshire
To my father, Michael Eforgan,
British Army, Jewish Brigade, 1944–46.
And to my uncle, Barnett Miller,
Lancashire Fusiliers, 1942–46.

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Foreword by Jeffrey Richards xiii
Preface to the Second Edition xvii
1.1893–1914: An Englishman 1
2.1914–1916: A Small Adventure 17
3.1917–1920: Early Film and Theatre 30
4.1921–1931:Broadway 47
5.1931–1939: Film Star 79
6.1935–1943: Leslie Howard – Secret Agent 127
7.August 1939–June 1941: Pimpernel Smith 140
8.July 1940–April 1942: Propaganda 170
9.1942–1943: The Gentle Sex 194
10.April 1943: Last Trip 217
11.June 1943: Lost Actor 231
Leslie Howard’s Theatre and Film Work 246
Bibliography 251
Index 259

Illustrations
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE SECOND EDITION PREFACE
P1.The blue plaque at Leslie’s Surrey home, Stowe Maries.
P2.The plaque on the Cedeira Monument.
P3.Nemon’s heavily stylized art deco busts of Leslie and Violette, now
vanished.
P4.A later model of Leslie by Nemon.
P5.The Cedeira monument to Flight 777, showing the name plaque.
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
1.Denization papers of Ludwig Alexander Blumberg and others,
1834.
2.General Sir Herbert Edward Blumberg, RMLI, Leslie’s cousin.
3.Leslie’s High Street, circa 1890, showing the Crystal Palace.
4.Leslie’s first published story.
5.From The Strand Magazine, February, 1912.
6.Contemporary recruiting poster of The Inns of Court Regiment,
nicknamed ‘The Devil’s Own’.
7.List of training subjects for officers.
8.Shooting practice at the Berkhamstead camp.
9.The Proud Cavalry Officer: The uniform worn by Leslie in 1914.
10.The disillusioned reality, two years later. Cartoons of Bruce
Bairnsfather.
11.Leslie’s medical assessment, January 1916.
12.Inns of Court Regiment Records.
13.Inns of Court Regiment Records. Key to notes.
14.The Title: C. Aubrey Smith embodying cragginess. And of course,
perfect honour.
15.The Title: Nigel Playfair as a blackmailer.
16.‘Miss Goss’.
17.Leslie looking dishevelled after coping with Tallulah on and off
stage.
18.Leslie, God forgive him, at least advertising products he used himself.