Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#43021
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Howard Hickman works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Howard Hickman appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Howard. Gone with the Wind is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, adventure, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Richard Thorpe, Arthur Lubin, Jack Conway and others, Howard Hickman helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Gone with the Wind (1939) as John Wilkes · Fury (1936) as Governor · Holiday (1938) as Churchgoer (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #43021 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1936–1942
Career length
6 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Gone with the Wind
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Gone with the Wind
Most frequent director
Richard Thorpe
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Richard Thorpe
Most common genre
Romance
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.3
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1930s
6.9 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. The Return of Doctor X, Gone with the Wind, Holiday — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.9
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Return of Doctor X, Gone with the Wind, Holiday.
Most productive era
1930s
5 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.33 films | 6.42 films |
| Action | — | 6.31 film |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.82 films | 6.51 film |
| Crime | 7.01 film | — |
| Romance | 7.13 films | 6.42 films |
| Horror | 6.21 film | 6.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1936Swing Time
Where our catalogue meets this career, as (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1942Tarzan's New York Adventure
The current state of the argument, as Tarzan's Lawyer Blake Norton.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
9 of 9 films
as John Wilkes
Directed by Victor Fleming
as Governor
Directed by Fritz Lang
as Churchgoer (uncredited)
Directed by George Cukor
as McCreery's Associate #1 (uncredited)
Directed by Jack Conway
as (uncredited)
Directed by George Stevens
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
John Wilkes
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. John Wilkes gives Howard Hickman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Governor
Fury (1936)
Performance score6.9
Fury asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Governor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Churchgoer (uncredited)
Holiday (1938)
Performance score6.8
Holiday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Churchgoer (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
McCreery's Associate #1 (uncredited)
Boom Town (1940)
Performance score6.6
Boom Town asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. McCreery's Associate #1 (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as John Wilkes
Start here. Gone with the Wind is the clearest statement of what Howard Hickman does — accessible, 238 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Howard at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Fury (1936)
Keeps the drama register of Gone with the Wind but asks for a colder reading of it.
Swing Time (1936)
A deliberate change of key after Fury — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Holiday (1938)
Keeps the romance register of Swing Time but asks for a colder reading of it.
Boom Town (1940)
Keeps the romance register of Holiday but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Fritz Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably Fury
George Stevens
Director
1 film together
Notably Swing Time
George Cukor
Director
1 film together
Notably Holiday
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Gone with the Wind
Vincent Sherman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Return of Doctor X
Raoul Walsh
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark Command
Jack Conway
Director
1 film together
Notably Boom Town
Arthur Lubin
Director
1 film together
Notably Hold That Ghost
Richard Thorpe
Director
1 film together
Notably Tarzan's New York Adventure
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gone with the WindFritz Lang
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FuryGeorge Cukor
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HolidayJack Conway
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Boom TownGeorge Stevens
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Swing TimeArthur Lubin
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hold That GhostRichard Thorpe
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tarzan's New York AdventureRaoul Walsh
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark CommandVincent Sherman
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Return of Doctor XSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Boom Town
as McCreery's Associate #1 (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Gone with the Wind
as John Wilkes
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Gone with the Wind
as John Wilkes
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Boom Town
as McCreery's Associate #1 (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Gone with the Wind
as John Wilkes
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Howard Hickman has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Romance Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in romance, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Gone with the Wind
as John Wilkes
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Fury
as Governor
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Boom Town
as McCreery's Associate #1 (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Return of Doctor X
as Chairman
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gone with the Wind
as John Wilkes
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tarzan's New York Adventure
as Tarzan's Lawyer Blake Norton
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Holiday
as Churchgoer (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Return of Doctor X
as Chairman
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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