Trivia

The first person to win an Academy Award posthumously (for Autant en emporte le vent (1939)).

Worked under contract at United Artists (1929-31 and 1936). He labored on the script of Autant en emporte le vent (1939) for more than a year with David O. Selznick, but never saw a single reel of the completed film; he died in an accident on his farm in Massachusetts when the tractor he was driving rolled over on top of him.

Grandfather of Tony Goldwyn.

The first person to win both the Pulitzer Prize (Drama, 1925, for "They Knew What They Wanted") and the Academy Award for Best Screenplay (1939 for Autant en emporte le vent (1939)).

Father with first wife Clare of Jennifer Howard.

Grandfather of John Goldwyn.

As of 2018, he's the only screenwriter to ever win a posthumous Academy Award in the screenplay category.

He got the sole script writing credit for 'Gone With the Wind' despite others such as Jo Swerling, Ben Heccht, Charles MacDonald and F. Scott Fitzgerald, amongst others, making contributions. He alone won the Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaption, but wasn't there to accept it as he'd been killed earlier in the year in an accident on his farm.

Is portrayed by Dan Caldwell in The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980)

His second wife Leopoldine (known as Polly) was daughter of Walter Damrosch. Their 3 children together included Sidney (wife of Brian Urquhart), journalist Walter Damrosch Howard, and Maggie Howard.

Howard was posthumously inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.

Co-wrote two plays ("Jeannette's Way" and "Fiat Lux") with Frederick Faust (Max Brand) while they were students at UCal Berkeley in the 1910s.

Howard died at his Massachusetts summer estate after he had left the tractor in gear as he cranked the motor. The tractor started so suddenly he could not get out of its path.

Howard served in WWI as an ambulance driver on the Balkan front and then as an aviator. He became a member of the famous Lafayette Escadrille and achieved the rank of Captain in the US Army Air Corps.

The musical, "The Most Happy Fella" at the Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for a 2017 Non-Equity Joseph Jefferson Award for Musical Production.