Ron Howard Profile
Ron Howard was born in Oklahoma on March 1st 1954
as Ronald William Howard, in his hometown of Duncan. Ron has followed the same
career path as his parents by going into the film and play industry because his
father Rance Howard, lived his boyhood dream by attending the university of
Oklahoma and taking a major in drama and his mother Jean Speegle Howard went
through an acting school in New York.
Ron Howard was brought into the film industry at a very young
age of 18 months in the film Frontier Women (1956) though his first official
part was at age 4 he became a regular on Playhouse 90 (1956) and he was cast as
Opie on The Andy Griffith Show (1960) after that he went on to the teenage role
of Richie Cunningham in Happy Days (1974). Rons childhood life was not routine
but Ron’s parents wanted Ron to have a normal life so Ron attended many Public
Schools and at the age of 15 he took a 9 month break to play a basketball
season. For any actor going from child to adult roles is going to be difficult
and Ron was no acceptation but instead of staying as an actor Ron became a
director but Ron did win a golden globe for his role in The Shootist (1976) but
his aspiration was now focused on becoming a director so at the age of 15 Ron started
shooting with his Super-8 camera and after high school Ron spent two years in a
film program at the University of Southern California but only to drop out
feeling that he could learn more from actual experience. Ron’s first film would
be the hardest to finance but Ron made a deal with Roger Corman the he would
star in Ron’s film Eat my Dust (1976) and Corman would go on to produce the film Grand Theft Auto (1977) which Ron would direct,star and write in the film and then after these two films, Ron's directing career took off and he went on to direct in some the biggest films of this century.
