Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American filmmaker and actor. He started his career as a child actor before transitioning to directing films. Over his six-decade career, he has received multiple accolades, including two Academy Awards, seven Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Grammy Awards as well as nominations for seven British Academy Film Awards. He was also awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2003 and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2013. Howard has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions in film and television.
Howard first came to prominence as a child, acting in several television series before gaining national attention for playing young Opie Taylor, the son of Sheriff Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 through 1968. During this time, he also appeared in the musical film The Music Man (1962), a critical and commercial success. Howard was cast in one of the lead roles in the coming-of-age film American Graffiti (1973), and became a household name for playing Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days (1974–1980). He starred in the films The Spikes Gang (1974), The Shootist (1976), and Grand Theft Auto (1977), the latter being his directorial film debut.
In 1980, Howard left Happy Days to focus on directing, producing, and sometimes writing a variety of films and television series. His films included the comedies Night Shift (1982), Splash (1984), and Cocoon (1985) as well as the fantasy Willow (1988), the thriller Backdraft (1991), and the newspaper comedy-drama film The Paper (1994). Howard went on to win the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Picture for A Beautiful Mind (2001) and was nominated again for the same awards for the historical drama Frost/Nixon (2008).
Howard has directed historical dramas such as Apollo 13 (1995), Cinderella Man (2005), Rush (2013), In the Heart of the Sea (2015), and Thirteen Lives (2022), the children's fantasy film How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), the mystery-thriller series Robert Langdon (2006–2016), the comedy The Dilemma (2011), and the space drama Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). He also directed numerous documentaries such as The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2016), Pavarotti (2019), and We Feed People (2022).
Ronald William Howard was born on March 1, 1954, in Duncan, Oklahoma, the elder of the two sons of Rance Howard, a director, writer, and actor, and Jean Speegle, an actress. He is of German, English, Scottish, Irish, and Dutch ancestry. His father was born with the surname "Beckenholdt" and took the stage name "Howard" in 1948 for his acting career. Rance Howard was serving three years in the United States Air Force at the time of Ron's birth. Ron's younger brother Clint Howard is also an actor.
Howard was tutored at Desilu Studios in his younger years but continued his schooling at Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary and David Starr Jordan Junior High in Burbank, California, when not working in television, eventually graduating from Burbank's John Burroughs High School. He later attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts but did not graduate. Howard has said he knew from a young age he might want to go into directing, thanks to his early experience as an actor.
In 1959, Howard had his first credited film role in The Journey. He appeared in June Allyson's CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson in the episode "Child Lost"; in The Twilight Zone episode "Walking Distance"; a few episodes of the first season of the sitcom Dennis the Menace, as Stewart, one of Dennis's friends; and several first- and second-season episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Howard played "Timmy" (uncredited) in "Counterfeit Gun", Season 4, Episode 2 (1960) of the TV series Cheyenne.
The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968)
In 1960, Howard was cast as Opie Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show. Credited as "Ronny Howard", he portrayed the son of the main character (played by Andy Griffith) for all eight seasons of the show. Recalling his experiences as a child actor on set, he commented,
I was five years old. And I was preoccupied with the prop that was in my hand, because it was a toy turtle. But I had to pretend it was a real turtle that the audience just wasn't seeing, and it was dead, so I was supposed to be crying and very emotional, and I remember him looking at that little turtle and talking to me about how it was kind of funny to have to pretend that was dead. So I recall just a very relaxed first impression.
The sitcom was known for its old-fashioned wholesome quality. Even though it was set in a contemporary period, it evoked a mood of a different era from that of the 1960s. The series also starred Don Knotts, Frances Bavier and Jim Nabors. It received numerous nominations for the Primetime Emmy Awards including three Outstanding Comedy Series nominations which it lost to The Jack Benny Show in 1961, The Bob Newhart Show in 1962, and The Monkees in 1967. Howard reprised the role of Opie Taylor one final time in the 1986 NBC TV movie Return to Mayberry.
A role in an installment of the ABC anthology comedy series Love, American Style, titled "Love and the Television Set", led to his being cast as Richie Cunningham in the TV series Happy Days (for syndication, the segment was re-titled "Love and the Happy Days"). Beginning in 1974, he played the likable "buttoned-down" boy, in contrast to Henry Winkler's "greaser" Arthur "Fonzie"/"The Fonz" Fonzarelli. On the Happy Days set, he developed an on- and off-screen chemistry with Winkler. Howard left Happy Days to become a film director just before the start of its eighth season in 1980, but returned for guest appearances in the show's eleventh season (1983–1984).
In the 1962 film version of The Music Man, Howard played Winthrop Paroo, the child with the lisp; the film starred Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, and Buddy Hackett. The film was based on the 1957 musical of the same name by Meredith Willson, and was directed by Morton DaCosta. The film was a critical and commercial success, becoming the third highest-grossing film of that year. The Music Man went on to receive six Academy Award nominations including for Best Picture. He also starred in the 1963 film The Courtship of Eddie's Father, in which he was reunited with Jones and starred with Glenn Ford in the titular role.
In his most significant adult on-screen acting role, Howard played Steve Bolander in George Lucas's coming-of-age film American Graffiti in 1973. As part of a memorable cast of up-and-coming actors, Howard starred alongside Richard Dreyfus, Cindy Williams, Charles Martin Smith, and Harrison Ford. Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the film in his four-star review writing, "American Graffiti is not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant." In addition to critical acclaim, the film also grossed $55 million, becoming the third highest-grossing film of that year. The success of American Graffiti (along with Howard's performance) was the inspiration for the sitcom Happy Days starring Howard. In 1976, Howard starred alongside John Wayne and Lauren Bacall in Don Siegel's The Shootist, the story of a Western gunfighter dying of cancer. (The movie was Wayne's last.) Howard reprised the role of Steve Bolander in the sequel More American Graffiti (1979) in what is to date his last credited feature film role.
On television, from 1971 to 1972 Howard was a main cast member in the ABC drama series The Smith Family as Bob Smith, the son of Henry Fonda's lead character (his only regular on-screen TV role outside of The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days). He also made many guest-starring TV appearances throughout the 1960s and 1970s, some of the most notable including: as Tommy in the 12th episode of the first season of The Big Valley and as Barry Stewart on The Eleventh Hour, both in 1965; on I Spy in the 1966 episode "Little Boy Lost"; as Jodar in Land of the Giants, and as a boy whose father was shot on Daniel Boone, both in 1969; as a teenage tennis player with an illness in one episode of The Bold Ones in 1972; and as an underage Marine on M*A*S*H in the 1973 episode "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet". In 1974, Howard guest-starred as Seth Turner, the best friend of Jason Walton (Jon Walmsley), in The Waltons episode, "The Gift". Also featured in the same episode was Ron Howard's father Rance Howard in his recurring role of Dr. McIvers. Howard's final lead acting roles were in the TV movies Bitter Harvest and Fire on the Mountain, both of which were broadcast on NBC in 1981.