Trevor Howard
Trevor Howard was born on 29 September 1913 in Cliftonville, Margate, Kent, England, on 29 September, 1913, the only son and elder child of Arthur John Howard-Smith, who worked as the Ceylon representative for Lloyd’s of London, and his Canadian wife, Mabel Grey Wallace, a nurse. Until he was five, he lived in Colombo, Ceylon, but then travelled with his mother until the age of eight, when he was sent to school at Clifton College, Bristol.
Howard attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), acting on the London stage for several years before World War II. His first paid work was in the play Revolt in a Reformatory (1934), before he left RADA in 1935 to take small roles. That year, he was spotted by a Paramoun studio talent scout, but turned down the offer of film work in favour of a career in theatre. This decision seemed justified when, in 1936, he was invited to join the Stratford Memorial Theatre and, in London, given the role of one of the students in French without Tears by Terence Rattigan, which ran for two years. He returned to Stratford in 1939.
Howard moved back to the theatre in The Recruiting Officer (1943), where he met the actress Helen Cherry; they married in 1944 and stayed together until Howard’s death in 1988; they had no children.
A short part in one of the best British war films, The Way Ahead (1944), provided a springboard into cinema. This was followed by The Way to the Stars (1945), which led to the role for which Howard became well known, the doctor in the 1945 film Brief Encounter opposite co-star Celia Johnson. Directed by David Lean, the film won an award at the Cannes Film Festival and considerable critical acclaim for Howard. Next came two successful Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat thrillers, I See a Dark Stranger (1945) and Green for Danger (1946), followed by They Made Me a Fugitive (1947), to which the roots of British realism in cinema can be traced. In 1947, he was invited by Laurence Olivier to play Petruchio in an Old Vic production of The Taming of the Shrew. Despite The Times declaring, “We can remember no better Petruchio”, the opportunity of working again with David Lean, in The Passionate Friends (1949), drew Howard back to film and, although he had a solid reputation as a theatre actor, his dislike of long runs, and the attractions of travel afforded by film, convinced him to concentrate on cinema from this point.
He died on 7 January, 1988, from a combination of bronchitis, influenza and jaundice, in Arkley, Barnet, aged 74, survived by his widow Helen.
