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Behind the Laughter: Ron Howard
Published in the Tokyo Journal issue 21 (1st March 2002)
"You can't ride one success forever. That's why I gave
up acting and became a director."
Ron Howard. One of the unforgettable stars of Happy Days.
And what Happy Days they were. With acceptations of course
as Homer Simpson's reminded us in the episode where him and
Marge were going to the high school reunion. "It will
be great to see all the gang again," then he listed many
of the Happy Days stars. Then Marge said "Homer that
was happy days." And Homer replied "No, the weren't
all happy days." But enough said about the Simpson's
(at least for the moment). We are here to look back at Ron
Howard's amazing career.
Here's a picture of Ron Howard when he was just a child,
in one of his first movies. Ron began his career young and
had already done a fair bit of acting before moving in happy
days. But these earlier works are not as well known as what
was about to turn his acting career into a winning success
story, that would last for many years.
Before we move on to that though lets start at the very beginning.
Ron Howard was born on March the 1st 1954 in Ducan Oklahoma.
His parents were theatre actors and in 1959 he moved to Hollywood.
He took up acting at an early age and got parts in televisions
shows in Playhouse 90, The Red Skelton show, Dennis the Menace
and more.
At 6 Ron Howard was picked up for the Andy Griffith Show
where he stayed for 8 years until he was 14. He became a big
star in 1973 where he got a part in the smash movie American
Graffiti. ABC started showing Happy Days in 1974 with Ron
starring as Richie Cunningham.
"It was a very demanding schedule. They had us filming
to all hours, someone as late as 9:30. I still had time for
other things though. I was looking to expand my career into
directing before I left happy days. I had been experimenting
with short films since I was a teenage so I found it a natural
progression for myself."
The success of happy days still continued with high ratings
into the early 80's. However, by 1981 Ron Howard has announced
he has signed a contract with NBC and left Happy Days forever.
In the mid 70's, Ron Howard got his big chance to direct
a feature length movie. Grand Theft Auto was released in 1977
and was funded by legendary B-Movie producer Steve Bollander
on the condition that Ron would star in the movie "Eat
my dust," which he did so just previous to directing
his movie.
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