Actor, director, producer. Born March 1, 1954, in Duncan, Oklahoma. He started off in show business at age two, appearing on the Kraft Theatre and the Red Skelton Show and quickly followed in the footsteps of his father, Rance Howard, an actor, director, and writer. His mother, Jean Howard, was an actress until Ron’s birth and his brother, Clint, performed for two seasons on the TV series Gentle Ben and subsequently pursued an acting career, eventually becoming recognizably famous for his bit parts in Hollywood films. Howard spent his childhood on the sets of such TV shows as Dennis the Menace, The Fugitive, and The Big Valley. At age five, he made his first appearance on the big screen beside Hollywood hotshots Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr in Anatole Litvak’s The Journey. He was eventually cast as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, which began its eight-year run in October of 1960. Despite his phenomenal success as a child actor, Howard’s parents attempted to keep his childhood as normal as possible, enrolling him in public school when he was not working, where he claims “I was always a novelty at first.” However, Howard adjusted quickly and embraced school life, eventually turning down roles in order to play on the basketball team. Howard never stayed away from the set for long, however, and he acted prolifically throughout his adolescence, playing a precocious child in Door-to-Door Maniac with Johnny Cash and an introspective little brother in the musical, The Music Man. He also appeared in several television movies, including Land of the Giants, Daniel Boone, and a World of Disney two-part feature, Smoke. In 1971, he starred alongside his brother, Clint, in the Disney feature film The Wild Country. In 1973, Howard accepted a part in a low-budget nostalgic film by a young, up-and-coming director, George Lucas. American Graffiti, a simple story of four recent high school graduates, poignantly depicted the bitter-sweet conflicts of youth against the backdrop of a restless summer night in early 1960s northern California. Howard, alongside a young Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford, played Steve Bollinger--a bright kid who decides to attend the local junior college to be near his girlfriend the night before he is to board a plane for university.