PORTRAIT OF ACTOR LESLIE HOWARD
signed Antony / Beauchamp lower centre; titled LESLIE / HOWARD on the reverse
pencil, charcoal and white chalk on paper
55.5 x 38cm; 22 x 15in
60.5 x 42cm; 23 3/4 x 15 1/2in (framed)

Property from a Private Collection, London

Provenance
Robin Duff, last Laird of Moldrum (1915-1990)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Artist and photographer Antony Beauchamp, son of the artist Ernest Entwistle and society photographer Vivienne Entwhistle, was an official war artist in Burma. In 1949 he married the actress Sarah Churchill, daughter of Sir Winston Churchill and moved to Los Angeles where he photographed many of Hollywood's stars including Marilyn Monroe, Vivien Leigh, Audrey Hepburn and Charlie Chaplin. He took his own life at the age of 39 in his flat in Hyde Park Gardens. His autobiography, Focus on Fame was published posthumously in 1957.

Leslie Howard (1893-1943) was a leading English actor, director and film producer who epitomised a particular civilised Englishness and a strong sense of patriotic duty during both world wars. He served on the Western Front in the First World War where he suffered shell-shock during the battle of the Somme. After the War he developed his acting career on both sides of the Atlantic, playing leading roles in the films Of Human Bondage (1934), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) and Gone with the Wind (1939), the year the Second World War broke out.

In the latter film he played his most famous role as the archetypal Southern gentleman Ashley Wilkes. Rather than staying in Hollywood for the duration of the war he became one of the first British stars to make a point of returning home. Back in England he directed wartime features including The First of the Few (1942) in which he starred alongside David Niven, and The Gentle Sex (1943) which celebrated the contribution of women to the war effort.

Howard died when the plane he was a passenger in was was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the Bay of Biscay as he flew home from Portugal to Bristol after a lecture tour that may have been a cover for a British Intelligence mission. As the very embodiment both onscreen and off of strong traditional British values his shockingly sudden death was widely regarded as a national tragedy. The subject of several biographies, the documentary on his life Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn was released in 2017.