I just watched this movie and wanted to see in what other movies Leslie Howard played and then I noticed that he died 1 of June 1943 at Bay of Biscay. Then I remembered that in the movie he said something like "I was born in the year 1901 and was too soon for the great war and too late for the new Order". By saing too soon did it mean that he didn't take part. It would be a little ironic (if "the great war" meant WW1) for him to die at WW2.
shareMirton,
The Great War was WWI, as it was called before WWII began In 1939. WWI ended in 1918, so Leslie Howard would have been only 17 and too young to be conscripted by the time it ended.
Howard died in a non-combat air crash and was never found. His flight may have been shot down, I'm not sure. A similar fate also befell Glenn Miller and I believe Carole Lombard (a great film comedienne and wife of Clarke Gable).
Howard is perhaps best known for playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, but also created the film role of the Scarlet Pimpernell and was the original film Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmaillion. If you enjoyed The Petrified Forest, you might like Leslie Howard in a similar role in the great Of Human Bondage, which I think was Bette Davis's brilliant debut.
B.B.
WWI ended in 1918, so Leslie Howard would have been only 17 and too young to be conscripted by the time it ended.
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Carole Lombard's plane wasn't shot down, though. Her plane crashed on a mountain about 35 miles west of Las Vegas.
Leslie Howard is greatly responsible for Humphrey Bogart's success. He had done Petrified Forest on Broadway with Bogart and refused to do the movie without him. Bogart and Bacall named their daughter Leslie in his honor.
If you like Leslie Howard, you MUST see him in The Scarlet Pimpernel. God, he's great in that. He was a truly great actor.
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