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CINEMA: NICE GUY AT MISSION CONTROL

3 minute read
Jeffrey Ressner

Child stars lose it once their hormones kick in, nice guys finish last, and you can’t shoot a movie in zero gravity. Those are just a few of the show-biz verities broken by Ron Howard, whose assured direction of Apollo 13 may finally help people get past his image as the TV tyke who grew up in our living rooms on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days.

“It’s Opie Cunningham!” folks on the street still yell out when Howard walks by, combining the names of his TV alter egos. Since his days as a child actor, however, Howard has gone on to direct a string of high-concept but engagingly human Hollywood entertainments (Splash, Cocoon, Parenthood) while maintaining his sitcom reputation as the most likable kid on the block. Not that Howard’s easygoing nature prevents him from firing unprofessional actors or screenwriters who can’t deliver the goods. “He’s tougher than all of us,” Creative Artists Agency chief and Hollywood hardball player Michael Ovitz has said.

“The whole ‘nice’ thing has been overplayed,” contends Michael Keaton, who starred in Howard’s first studio film, Night Shift, as well as in the director’s later features Gung Ho and The Paper. “He can make cold, hard decisions when he needs to. It’s not like he rolls over. He does anything but roll over.” Says Howard: “I’m not real neurotic, so I don’t heap pressure on people unnecessarily. But if we’re falling behind schedule or missing something artistically, it doesn’t take a hell of a lot for me to let that be known.”

Born in Oklahoma to an acting family, Howard made his stage debut at age 2 in a production of The Seven Year Itch directed by his father. Even during his days as TV’s freckle-faced icon of small-town Americana, he was starting to learn the filmmaking craft. While in his teens, he won second prize in a Kodak-sponsored movie contest and briefly attended film school at the University of Southern California. Still, Hollywood was wary when Howard tried to move behind the camera. “When I set up Night Shift, most studio executives didn’t want Ron to direct it,” recalls his longtime producing partner, Brian Grazer. “Some of those people are still around today–except now they’re all trying to kiss his ass.”

Unlike many directors who chafe under studio involvement, Howard says, “I grew up comfortably within the system and never felt terribly hindered by it. My instincts don’t frighten them.” Maybe that’s because his instincts are so, well, comfortable. What attracted him to Apollo 13 was not the techno-wizardry but the human story. “The bittersweet quality of Jim Lovell’s experience definitely drew me in,” says Howard. “Here was a guy, arguably the best-equipped individual to walk on the moon, and the opportunity was pulled out from under him. It was devastating, and we can all relate to that kind of disappointment.”

Everyone, maybe, except Howard, whose career disappointments have been precious few. Yet he is typically modest about the technical feat of making Apollo 13. “I always feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants,” he says, chuckling. “I could carry the analogy further and say I haven’t even come close to making a movie on autopilot yet. I hope I never do.”

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