Ron Howard

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For other people named Ron Howard, see Ronald Howard.
Ron Howard
Birth name Ronald William Howard
Born March 1 1954 (1954-03-01) (age 55)
Duncan, Oklahoma, U.S.
Children 4; including Bryce Dallas Howard (b. 1981)
Parents Jean & Rance Howard (b. 1928)


Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American actor and Academy Award-winning film director and producer, known for his roles on sitcoms, movies and television.

The naturally red-headed Howard came to prominence in the 1960s as Andy Griffith's son, Opie Taylor, on The Andy Griffith Show, and later in the 1970s as Tom Bosley's son and Henry Winkler's best friend, Richie Cunningham, on Happy Days (a role he played from 1974 to 1980).

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Howard was born in Duncan, Oklahoma, the son of Jean (née Speegle), an actress, and Rance Howard, a director, writer, and actor.[1] His younger brother, Clint Howard, is a well-known character actor. Howard attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts but did not graduate.

[edit] Career

[edit] Early acting roles and The Andy Griffith Show

Howard first earned recognition for playing Winthrop Paroo, the child with the lisp in the film version of The Music Man with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. After The Music Man, he appeared in the role of Opie Taylor in the television series The Andy Griffith Show, which was the successful spin-off of The Danny Thomas Show. There he portrayed the son of the local sheriff in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina. For eight seasons, he also created a loving relationship with Andy Griffith, on-screen, and spent a lot of time with him, off-screen, when not filming. The credits referred to him as "Ronny Howard." He also appeared in the 1963 film The Courtship of Eddie's Father with Glenn Ford and (billed as "Ronnie Howard") in Little Boy Lost, a 1966 episode of the TV show I Spy with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby.

Howard made a notable guest-star appearance on the popular television series M*A*S*H during that show's first season as an underage American soldier serving in the Marines during the Korean War.

[edit] Happy Days

Howard is also well known for his role as Richie Cunningham in television's Happy Days on which, beginning in 1974, he played the likable "buttoned down" boy, in contrast to Henry Winkler's Fonz. He attained film success with his role as Steve Bollander in George Lucas' teen movie American Graffiti. In 1977, while still starring on Happy Days, he directed his first film, a low-budget comedy/action film called Grand Theft Auto.

His last significant on-screen role was when he reprised his famous role as Opie Taylor in the 1986 TV reunion movie Return to Mayberry reuniting him with Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, and most of the old cast.

[edit] Directing

After leaving Happy Days in 1980, he directed several TV movies. His big theatrical directing break came in 1982 when he directed the bigger budget film Night Shift featuring soon-to-be well-known actors such as Michael Keaton and Shelley Long, and reuniting Howard with his Happy Days co-star Henry Winkler.

He has since directed a number of high-visibility films, the most acclaimed of which include Splash, Willow, Cocoon, Apollo 13 (nominated for several Academy Awards), A Beautiful Mind, for which he won the Oscar for Best Director, and Cinderella Man. His latest film, The Da Vinci Code, reteaming Howard with Splash and Apollo 13 star Tom Hanks, has been a box office hit earning more than $700 million at the box office, but was a critical letdown.

Howard casts his younger brother Clint in a minor role in most of his movies.

[edit] Imagine Entertainment

Howard is the co-chairman, with Brian Grazer, of Imagine Entertainment, a major film and television production company, which has produced notable projects like Friday Night Lights, 8 Mile, Inside Deep Throat, and the television series 24 and Felicity.

Through his company Imagine Television, Howard continues to have a presence in television, most recently as the executive producer and uncredited narrator of the critically acclaimed FOX sitcom Arrested Development. The show, despite having won six Emmy awards and near-unanimous praise from critics, did not enjoy high ratings and was limited by Fox Television in 2006. A series finale took place in February 2006, but Howard, on-screen for the first time in the show, suggested a movie version may be in the works.

[edit] Personal life

On June 7, 1975, Howard wed his high-school sweetheart, Cheryl (née Alley), a writer with a degree in geriatric psychology. They have four children; daughters Bryce Dallas Howard (b. 1981), Jocelyn Carlyle (twin, b. 1985), Paige Carlyle (twin, b. 1985), and son Reed Cross (b. 1987). Their daughters Bryce Dallas Howard and Paige Howard are actresses. They live on a 35-acre estate in the exclusive gated community of Conyers Farm in Greenwich, Connecticut. In February 2007, Howard became a grandfather when his daughter, Bryce, gave birth to a son.

Ron Howard was the sixth cousin to his Andy Griffith Show co-star, Don Knotts, through Howard's ancestor, Lucinda Knotts.

In the June 2006 issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Ron Howard was asked, "What do you consider your greatest achievement?" He replied, "Forty-eight consecutive years of steady employment in television and film, while preserving a rich family life."

[edit] Howard in popular culture

In The Simpsons episode "When You Dish Upon a Star", Homer meets and befriends Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger and Ron Howard. Later in the episode, Ron Howard is injured when trying to jump from a truck to the RV that Homer was driving. In the end, he pitches Homer's movie idea and gets it greenlit. Another episode ("Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder") Homer and Ron Howard are fighting each other while appearing on The Springfield Squares. Later, Ron gives Homer the inspiration to spend more time with his kids and gives him some money that Homer refuses but takes anyway. Ron yoinks the money back from Homer and then drives away.

When he hosted Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, Eddie Murphy called him "Opie Cunningham". In the South Park episode, "Ginger Kids", Cartman asks a crowd of fellow gingers to name great Americans with the hair color, the first and only name they can think of is "Ron Howard", and when asked to name a second, one responds "Ron Howard" again.

On a VH1 special about the 100 greatest child stars, many of the interviewees considered Ron Howard to be the most successful child star of all-time, considering his two major television acting roles and his directing career. In Season 1, Episode 3 of Stroker and Hoop on Adult Swim, Stroker and Hoop ran a detective agency whose first client needed them to make Ron Howard stop controlling his mind.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Directorial

[edit] Films

[edit] Television

  • M*A*S*H (1973)
  • Cotton Candy (1978)
  • Skyward (1980)
  • Through the Magic Pyramid (1981)
  • Littleshots (1983)
  • Take Five (1987)
  • Arrested Development (2002)

[edit] Acting

[edit] Film

[edit] Television

[edit] Quotes

  • "As a young adult trying to make the transition from sitcom actor to motion picture director, I was getting a lot of patronizing pats on the head. 'Hey, hang in there. In another ten or 15 years, I'm sure somebody will give you a chance to direct.' That's not what I wanted to hear at all."
  • "I really believe that great creative ideas will find their way to the surface."

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/42/Ron-Howard.html

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Steven Soderbergh
for Traffic 		Academy Award for Best Director
2001
for A Beautiful Mind 		Succeeded by
Roman Polanski
for The Pianist
Persondata
NAME Hoaward, Ronald William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Howard, Ron
SHORT DESCRIPTION American actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH March 1 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Duncan, Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
ar:رون هاوارد

da:Ron Howard de:Ron Howard es:Ron Howard eo:Ron Howard eu:Ron Howard fr:Ron Howard hr:Ron Howard id:Ron Howard it:Ron Howard he:רון הווארד nl:Ron Howard ja:ロン・ハワード no:Ron Howard pl:Ron Howard pt:Ron Howard sq:Ron Howard simple:Ron Howard fi:Ron Howard sv:Ron Howard tr:Ron Howard zh:朗·侯活

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