Howes was born in Washington, D.C. in 1900, the only child of Edwin Luther Howes and Grace LaForest Howes (née Meserve).[citation needed] He spent the beginning of his childhood in Washington, D.C. before moving with his parents to Ogden, Utah. He served in the US Navy in the closing stages of World War I and was the Pacific Fleet Swim Team's captain. He was discharged as an apprentice seaman. After the war, Howes attended the University of Utah where he graduated. He later went to Graduate School at Harvard University and then entered show business appearing in vaudeville in stock roles.[citation needed] In 1919, while attending Harvard, he saved the lives of a young woman and another man after they nearly drowned in the ocean at York Beach, Maine.
Howes married three times in his life: to Lillian Pechin in 1923, Catherine Tabor in 1932, and Mary Donovan Howard in 1937.
In the early 1920s Howes began modeling shirts and detachable collars produced by Cluett Peabody & Company. Howes was one of several men known as Arrow Collar Men (others were Neil Hamilton, Fredric March, Brian Donlevy, Jack Mulhall, and possibly Ralph Forbes) who were the models seen in the Cluett Peabody company's advertisements for the apparel drawn by illustrator J. C. Leyendecker. A 1924 advertisement by film company FBO capitalizing on Howes Arrow Collar popularity has Howes: "Acknowledged and acclaimed America's handsomest man To be starred in a series of Eight Productions" .

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