How much is Ron Howard worth?
| Net Worth: | $150 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Director |
| Date of Birth: | March 1, 1954 (age 68) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 5 ft 8 in (1.75 m) |
About Ron Howard
Ronald William Howard or better known as “Ron Howard”, is a world-renowned American film director and actor. He is also one of those rare examples of a child movie and TV star who has gone on and made a significant career also as an adult. Ron Howard was born into a showbiz family. His mother, Jean was an actress, who worked mostly on TV and has appeared in over 30 sitcoms. His father, Rance Howard, was a director, actor, and writer, who appeared in a lot of great films such as A Beautiful Mind, Chinatown, Splash, Ed Wood, and Independence Day.
Ron Howard was determined from a very young age to be an actor and director. He was initially schooled on sets of TV shows but did eventually go to high school and college. Like many other stars of his generation, he dropped out of college before he could finish his major.
Ron Howard was not even 10 and he already had multiple acting gigs under his belt. He even appeared in the immensely popular anthology series that ran throughout the 60s, The Twilight Zone. He played a lost child in one of the episodes. As a five-year-old, he landed the role of the son of the protagonist of the Andy Griffith Show.
He stayed with the show for its whole 8 season-long run. Once that TV show ended, he kept looking for acting work on TV. He booked mostly small parts on sitcoms and TV dramas, usually playing someone’s son.
One of his first movie roles, as well as the one that opened some interesting doors for him in his later years, was that in George Lucas‘ coming of age film American Graffiti. The performance in that film helped him get a role in the successful sitcom Happy Days. The show ran for 11 seasons and it totaled over 250 episodes.
Ron Howard played the teenager Richie, a humble, innocent, hard-working teen, who was constructed as the opposite of the popular character of Fonzie. Ron Howard and Ron Winkler, who played Fonzie, would become life long friends.
One of Ron Howard’s last roles was in The Shootist, the last movie John Wayne was ever in. It is widely considered one of John Wayne’s best films, and Ron Howard gives a great performance as the son of an innkeeper, whose immature actions lead to the downfall and injuries of John Wayne’s character. But the most important final big role that he had in films was in the movie Return to Mayberry. It was a film that worked as a reunion vehicle for all the cast members of the Andy Griffith show. He also appeared in two Happy Days reunion specials.
In 1980 he would fully dedicate himself to film directing. But, his directorial debut would come even earlier than that. After arranging a deal with Roger Corman, the Pop of Pop Cinema as he is called, he was able to direct the low budget film Grand Theft Auto. In exchange for that Ron Howard had to star in Eat my Dust. The first major film that Ron Howard would make was Night Shift. It was a comedy about a bunch of morgue employers and it stared Michale Keaton, Shelley Long, and his beloved friend Henry Winkler.
He was a director on the rise. He was greenlit for a bunch of big movies that were all successful. Some of the biggest movies of his early period include the sci-fi movie about aliens rejuvenating senior citizens, Cocoon; the docudrama Apollo 13, which starred Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Ed Harris.
His biggest artistic achievement is by far the movie A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe at his apex. Crowe plays the mathematician Nash, who was a brilliant man but struggled with different, hard, and difficult mental illnesses. The movie made over 300 million dollars at the box office alone. It got Ron Howard an Oscar nomination for Best Director, which he did indeed win.
He also directed the Da Vinci Code Trilogy which had made close to $1.5 billion dollars at the box office combined. He was also tasked to bring one of the most popular film characters, Han Solo to life once again in the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. The movie was not a critical success, but thanks to the many fans of Star Wars, it was a commercial success grossing $393.2 million.
The foundation of success in the life and career of Ron Howard is hard to pin down. It was probably the fusion or combination of him being born in an acting family, and him being really talented for both acting and directing.
It is hard to make a great career after you have hit fame as a childhood actor. But Ron Howard did exactly that. He knew he wanted to shift his focus to directing eventually. That is why he used his acting days to pick the brains of every director he was ever around. He used that accumulated knowledge to create his own, distinct directorial style. The love and passion he had for film making helped him win an Oscar as well as create numerous box office hits.
Summing-Up
A member of a mildly successful show biz family, he helped the family ascend to incredible heights. From one of the most popular children who have ever stared in a TV show, to one of the most successful film directors in the world.
Ron Howard has come a long way. The struggles of a childhood star are many, it is hard to shake the stigma of being “that kid, in that show”. But he moved on from acting to directing and made a name for himself. His dedication to his true love, directing, helped him avoid all the dead-ends most child stars fall into. He never made movies that portrayed him as a thug or a rough guy. He was an actor as long as he felt he needed to be until he was ready to take the world by storm with his directing talents.
