Claim: Leslie Howard performed on Broadway.

Leslie Howard -LRB- born Leslie Howard Steiner , 3 April 18931 June 1943 -RRB- was an English stage and film actor , director and producer . Howard also wrote many stories and articles for The New York Times , The New Yorker and Vanity Fair . Howard was one of the biggest box-office draws and movie idols of the 1930s but is probably best remembered for playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind -LRB- 1939 -RRB- . Howard had movie roles in many other notable films , including : Berkeley Square -LRB- 1933 -RRB- , Of Human Bondage -LRB- 1934 -RRB- , The Scarlet Pimpernel -LRB- 1934 -RRB- , The Petrified Forest -LRB- 1936 -RRB- , Pygmalion -LRB- 1938 -RRB- , Intermezzo -LRB- 1939 -RRB- , `` Pimpernel '' Smith -LRB- 1941 -RRB- and The First of the Few -LRB- 1942 -RRB- , receiving two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor .   Howard 's Second World War activities included acting and filmmaking . He was active in anti-German propaganda and rumoured to have been involved with British or Allied Intelligence , sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death in 1943 at the hands of the German Luftwaffe when the British airliner on which he was a passenger was shot down over the Bay of Biscay .