Golden Age Movie Legends Who Fought in Secret Covert Operations

Best known as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939), Leslie Howard worked closely with his country’s intelligence services. The British actor also used his international fame as a cover, embarking on lecture tours that were secretly platforms to spread Allied propaganda and gather diplomatic information. The Nazi regime considered his covert influence so dangerous that they took extreme action. In 1943, Luftwaffe fighter planes were assigned with a specific mission: to shoot down the unarmed civilian airliner he was on, killing him instantly.