The director who “galvanised” the career of Ron Howard
Remarkably, Ron Howard was only two years old when he got his first taste of the movie business, and it proved to be an appetite that still hasn’t left him feeling full almost 70 years later.
Appearing in the background of 1956 western Frontier Woman – of which his father Rance was part of the cast – Howard would become a full-fledged veteran by the end of the decade after notching 17 appearances in eight different TV shows prior to date as a series regular in all eight seasons of The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 to 1968.
However, despite becoming a regular on-screen presence, Howard always harboured dreams of becoming a filmmaker first and foremost. He made his directorial debut in his early 30s on the Roger Corman-produced road trip comedy Grand Theft Auto, which was the one and only one of his movies that he also starred in.
Since then, he’s gone on to direct a cavalcade of critical darlings, box office sensations, and the occasional flop here or there, but a pair of Academy Award wins and billions of dollars in ticket sales have ensured the hits drastically outweigh the misses. Even in his teenage years, though, Howard knew that he didn’t want to be an actor forever.
As he explained to A.Frame, it was a book penned by an industry legend that gave him the impetus to succeed in his secondary line of work: “I had read Frank Capra’s autobiography, The Name Above the Title, which galvanised my passion to overcome all obstacles and become a filmmaker.”
Revealing that he’d “been making short films and telling anyone who would listen that I wanted to be a director,” it was Capra’s autobiography that cemented his desire to make his dream a reality: “Finishing that book, I not only began to be a student of Capra, but I really threw down the gauntlet and said, ‘I don’t hope to be a director. By god, I am going to be a filmmaker.'”
Not many of Howard’s films could be called Capra-esque, but the impact remains undeniable, with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington singled out. The star admitted that whereas “the movies I had been exposed to were broad and funny,” they didn’t have much in the way of darkness or an edge.
Meanwhile, the Jimmy Stewart classic “was so muscular and political” while remaining “really engrossing to watch,” something that “struck and inspired” the young Howard. Rough and tumble political thrillers is an arena that he’s rarely dabbled in, but trying to tell broader stories while rooting them in a tangible reality would nonetheless become a hallmark of his own filmography, which includes its fair share of stories ripped from real-life and brought to the screen.
