Ron Howard

Ron Howard, born in 1954, American television and motion-picture actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, a popular child- and teen-actor during the 1960s and 1970s, and one of the most consistently popular filmmakers of the 1980s and 1990s. Born in Duncan, Oklahoma, Howard made his acting debut at the age of 18 months, performing with his parents in a stage production of The Seven Year Itch in Baltimore, Maryland. He later appeared on several television programs, including Dennis the Menace (1959-1960) and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1960), before he achieved fame as Opie, the fresh-faced son of Sheriff Andy Taylor, on the popular situation comedy The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968).

Howard also acted in several films throughout his childhood, making his motion-picture debut in The Journey (1959) and later delivering notable performances in The Music Man (1962) and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963). As a teenager, Howard found fewer prominent roles, until he played a leading part in American Graffiti (1973), a nostalgic film of teen life in the early 1960s by American director George Lucas. This role revived Howard's career and led to a similar part as Richie Cunningham, a clean-cut 1950s teenager, in the television situation comedy Happy Days (1974-1984). In the early 1980s Howard began to refocus most of his creative energy toward directing.

As a director Howard debuted with a low-budget action movie, Grand Theft Auto (1977). He then directed several television programs before achieving critical and commercial success with his motion picture Night Shift (1982), a comedy about two men who operate a prostitution ring out of a morgue. Subsequent films, including Splash (1984), Cocoon (1985), and Parenthood (1989), established Howard's reputation as an able director of mainstream, popular motion pictures. Howard won wide critical acclaim for his direction of spectacular fire scenes in Backdraft (1991), a drama about firefighters. A few years later he directed Apollo 13 (1995), a successful movie based on the nearly disastrous 1970 U.S. space mission (see Space Exploration: Apollo 13). Howard's direction of the film won the coveted Best Director Award from the Directors Guild of America.

Howard also directed the comedy Edtv (1999), about a video store clerk who agrees to let his life be televised. The following year Howard filmed a live-action version of the animated classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch. He then directed and coproduced the drama A Beautiful Mind (2001), a film about the life of Nobel Prize-winning economist John Nash. The movie won four Academy Awards, including for best picture and best director.