(1893-1943)
British-born Leslie Stainer, who changed his last name to Howard, made his first U.S. appearance in Just Suppose (1920). He appeared on stage and in motion pictures in England, but by the mid-1920s he was performing more frequently in America. Howard's most significant Broadway appearances of the 1920s were in Outward Bound (1924), The Green Hat (1925), Her Cardboard Lover (1927), Escape (1927), Berkeley Square (1929), and Candle Light (1929). After 1930, he starred in three important productions, Robert E. Sherwood's The Animal Kingdom* (1932) and The Petrified Forest* (1935), and Hamlet (1936), which he produced. Admired for his sensitive, intellectual acting, Howard acted in films frequently from the dawn of sound, notably repeating his role of the disillusioned poet in the 1936 screen version of The Petrified Forest. On screen, Howard directed and starred in Intermezzo (1939), which introduced Ingrid Bergman* to American audiences, and Of Human Bondage (1934), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Pygmalion (1938), and Gone with the Wind(1939). Howard died in a plane crash while serving in the British military during World War II.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.