Ron Howard’s traumatic first taste of life in Hollywood: “We thought it would be wonderful”
If it feels like Ron Howard has been around forever, that’s because he has. The actor and filmmaker was born in 1954, and he’s been in the industry almost as long, which is nuts when you think about it.
While there are more than a handful of stars on either side of the camera who’ve enjoyed careers of 70 years or longer, they’re in the minority, and Howard is nowhere near done yet. He successfully pivoted from performing to filmmaking, and not even a traumatic first taste of Hollywood could stop him.
When you really think about it, though, not only is it nuts that he became a household name at the age of six when The Andy Griffith Show premiered in 1960, it’s even more insane that he was already a veteran by then, with the precocious youngster already having two movies and almost a dozen TV shows under his belt by then.
With his father, Rance, being an actor, and his mother, Jean, also being an actor, there was really only one avenue for Ron and his brother, Clint, to follow. That’s exactly what they did, but the future Academy Award-winning director’s big-screen career got off to a terrible start, with his old man deciding that the best way to draw out a debut performance was through method acting.
Obviously, a literal baby has no idea what method acting is, but Rance didn’t care. Shot in early 1956, before Ron had even turned two years old, his father was determined to find a part for him in director Ron Ormond’s western, Frontier Woman, to make it even more of a family affair.
“Jean also had a part, and we wanted to somehow get Ron into the picture, too,” the first-generation Howard recalled. “He was only 18 months old, but we thought it would be wonderful for our parents to see their grandson in a movie with us.” Noble intentions, but he still had to get directorial approval.
Having worn down Ormond’s resistance, Ron was hired for his first-ever movie role. It was only a small part, but he wasn’t being cast as an ordinary baby, no; he’d been cast as a crying baby. Naturally, that meant he was required to turn on the waterworks, with Rance devising a harsh method of getting the shot.
Between takes, the youngest Howard would play with a prop tomahawk being used in Frontier Woman, and when his big moment began shooting, he had it in his hands. However, when the camera was about to turn toward him, one of the extras had been instructed to snatch it away from him, leaving the little fella devastated.
“Ron begins to howl,” Rance reminisced. “The politician stops, comes over to Jean, and says, ‘You’d better take that baby home, lady, I think he’s sick’. And that was Ron’s introduction to moviemaking!” Ron more than likely didn’t have a clue what was going on, but his folks knew exactly how to get him to cry on command, so they kept snatching away his new toy until the footage was in the can.
