The role Ron Howard hated so much he almost fled Hollywood: “I was borderline miserable”
Plenty of actors harbour ambitions of directing, but few experienced actors actively treat their on-camera work as a short-term fix until they can move to the other side for good. Ron Howard never wanted to be a performer for the entirety of his professional life, and he only grew more frustrated as his chance to establish himself as a filmmaker repeatedly failed to materialise.
It was a decidedly first-world problem, seeing as he’d been gainfully employed since he was a child. Breaking out on The Andy Griffith Show, Howard was never out of work for too long and got the chance to rub shoulders with names like John Wayne, Harrison Ford, and George Lucas, but he still wasn’t happy.
He always wanted to be a director, and as soon as he became one, he essentially turned his back on acting for good. It was a means to an end, and while plenty of young stars would be thrilled to play a major part in a smash hit TV series that only paid better the longer it went on, Howard grew to loathe his ongoing role as Richie Cunningham in Happy Days.
Howard was the first-billed name in the cast and a series regular for the first seven seasons, during which Happy Days averaged between 17 and 31million viewers per episode. Most people in his position would kill for this opportunity, but having so little control over his destiny and future trajectory instead convinced him that he needed out more than ever.
“I was borderline miserable,” he told the LA Times. “The job was good, and the money was good, but I wasn’t happy with the way the network perceived me, and I wanted to become a director. I’d be driving to work and instead of turning off to the Hollywood Freeway, I’d think, ‘What if I just keep going to Tijuana?'”
High-paying guaranteed work be damned, Howard was seriously contemplating a one-way trip to Mexico to escape his Happy Days misery. It seems excessive, but he was in the unusual position of being a popular and in-demand actor with no interest in being an actor at all, and the longer he went on without making the leap into directing, the unhappier he became.
As often tended to be the case when an aspiring auteur with no experience was desperate to make their feature-length directorial debut regardless of the financial rewards on offer, Roger Corman rode to Howard’s rescue and offered him a platform. This being the notoriously tight-fisted producer, though, certain compromises and agreements still needed to be ironed out.
Once 1977’s Grand Theft Auto had been released, it was game over for Howard as an actor. He still popped up occasionally on the big and small screen, but he would never let his dream slip through his fingers after he’d patiently bided his time and wallowed in his own self-pity to seize it in the first place.
