Selznick International Pictures; Fred Parrish, photographer · Public domain

Leslie Howard was one of the biggest box-office draws of 1930s cinema, playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and earning two Best Actor Oscar nominations, but he spent his final years turning that fame toward the war effort, making films that shored up Allied support and were credited as some of the most effective British propaganda of the period. He was killed in 1943 when a civilian flight he was aboard was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the Bay of Biscay, a death long rumored, though never confirmed, to have been a deliberate targeting tied to intelligence work.