If my life were devoted solely to acting, I'd never appear in a film

[sovay]

Happy birthday, Leslie Howard! A hundred and twenty-four years ago you were born Leslie Howard Steiner and I am so very grateful you did not stay a bank clerk. You were one of my formative actors and one of the great hot intellectuals of the screen and you punched Nazis with art and I am glad you are in the zeitgeist for it lately, because that thing where for decades you were remembered mostly for Gone with the Wind (1939) was awkward. You inspired H.P. Lovecraft and Raoul Wallenberg and I wrote a poem out of one of your characters once. I seem to have have written about a highly random assortment of your movies over the years (and I want credit for not compulsively rewriting the post about Pygmalion on the spot, even though it really needs it):

Berkeley Square (1933), dir. Frank Lloyd
Captured! (1933), dir. Roy Del Ruth
The Petrified Forest (1936), dir. Archie Mayo
Stand-In (1937), dir. Tay Garnett
Pygmalion (1938), dir. Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard & David Lean
49th Parallel (1941), dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Pimpernel Smith (1941), dir. Leslie Howard
The First of the Few (1942), dir. Leslie Howard
The Gentle Sex (1943), dir. Leslie Howard

This is not a numerically significant anniversary, so I'm not going to try for some sort of summing-up essay of your influence on my life or my interest in film, although neither is negligible; I am going to post this gif of you eating a banana because I continue to think it's one of the funniest things Tumblr has ever turned up and point out that I think your weird cat-face was beautiful in portraits where you were shot like a romantic hero and in candids where you looked like a terrific nerd and pretty frequently, if you ask me, you counted as both at once. The fact that generations of fans—and not a few lovers—agreed with me will never cease to delight me. You should have played Peter Wimsey. I will fancast that till I die. I have no idea what happened here.

Your memory for a blessing. If you'd never appeared in a film, I'd never have known.

Comments

[sovay]

He was so wonderful, and left us way, WAY too soon.

I don't know what kind of movies he would have made after the war, but I miss them.

The question I am asking everyone at the moment: are you on Dreamwidth? There is a strong chance I will not be around on LJ much longer and I would really like not to lose track of you.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I signed up for it years ago, and I think mirrored my LJ, but I found very soon I really disliked the ugly interface, and moreso the scolding aunt attitude. I'm staying here until it crumbles under me, or I find out that Trump and Putin are making money off it, or something.

[sovay]

I signed up for it years ago, and I think mirrored my LJ, but I found very soon I really disliked the ugly interface, and moreso the scolding aunt attitude.

I got my Dreamwidth account in 2013 and did not experience the scolding aunt, but if you don't find the platform pleasant or comfortable to interact with, I am not going to push you. There are specific content reasons I am no longer comfortable with LiveJournal. I hope to be able to read your Tolkien posts anyway.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I just went over there. It was actually earlier than that. Two people have said it's a lot mellower now. I still can't quite process the complication of their subscription page, but I'm going to try to poke at it just in case, so if I have to switch over, I can. I don't want to lose people! OTOH these communities come together and break, and I learned after the heartbreak of GEnie's demise not to count upon anything lasting. (SFF.NET bit the dust a few days ago, sigh.)

[sovay]

I still can't quite process the complication of their subscription page, but I'm going to try to poke at it just in case, so if I have to switch over, I can.

What about the subscription pages is confusing? In most cases I grant people access and subscribe because I want to read their posts and I trust them, but I understand the separation of the two functions: there exist people you want to keep track of, but don't necessarily want reading all your personal stuff.

I don't want to lose people! OTOH these communities come together and break, and I learned after the heartbreak of GEnie's demise not to count upon anything lasting. (SFF.NET bit the dust a few days ago, sigh.)

This will be the first time I have lost a community. I came late to LiveJournal and only because I needed some kind of platform to promote my first published books and was tired of finding out months after the fact that friends had gotten married or divorced or dropped out of grad school or reproduced; I joined Dreamwidth even later as a kind of mirror hosting of LiveJournal, because in 2013 I was merely worried LJ might fold up and die. It hurts.

(I'm sorry to hear about SFF Net.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, SFF.NET made it for twenty years. Genie was only five or six, but it had a tremendous impact--everybody in the SF world was on it. Including editors and agents. Its demise hit really hard among us geeks and dorks who have minimal contact with the books and things we love in meatspace.