The Boys

Brothers Ron and Clint Howard tell this dual memoir, tracing their upbringing as child actors in 1960s and 1970s Hollywood and crediting their parents, Rance and Jean Howard, with guiding them through an industry that routinely destroyed young performers. The book opens shortly after Rance's death in November 2017 at age 89, as the brothers sort through their parents' belongings and recognize for the first time how unusual their childhoods truly were.

Rance, born Harold Beckenholdt on an Oklahoma farm, and Jean Speegle, a performer from Duncan, Oklahoma, met in a drama class at the University of Oklahoma in 1947. They dropped out to pursue acting, joined a touring children's theater troupe, and married in a Kentucky hotel lobby in October 1948. Rance changed his name because he found "Harold Beckenholdt" too cumbersome for a postwar acting career. Jean gave up her own performing ambitions rather than accept work that would separate her from her husband, taking jobs at Macy's and the Copacabana nightclub to support them in New York. After Rance landed a role in the touring production of Mister Roberts alongside Henry Fonda and served four years in the Air Force, the couple endured the stillbirth of their first child, Mark, in 1953. Ron was born the following year in Duncan, and the family drove cross-country to Burbank, California, in the summer of 1958.

Ron's acting career began by accident. While making rounds at casting agencies in Manhattan, Rance told an MGM receptionist that he had a son who was "a fine actor" and left their phone number. At three and a half years old, Ron was called in for a screen test, and Rance prepared him by simulating a soundstage at home and teaching him a simplified version of Method acting: Look your scene partner in the eyes, stay present, and really listen. Ron won a role in The Journey (1959), a Cold War drama filmed in Vienna with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. On set, Brynner showed Ron that a glass he bit in a scene was made of sugar, sparking the boy's lifelong fascination with filmmaking illusions.

Once in California, Ron's freckled, red-haired look proved ideal for late-1950s television, and he booked roles on Playhouse 90, The Twilight Zone, and Dennis the Menace. After the Mr. O'Malley pilot aired on General Electric Theater, producer Sheldon Leonard placed a hold on Ron for a new series built around Andy Griffith. When Mr. O'Malley was not picked up, Leonard secured Ron as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, which premiered in 1960 and finished its eighth and final season in 1968 as the number one program in America. Rance devised a distinctive coaching method, helping his sons build emotional backstories by asking three questions about their characters' motivations rather than having them mimic line readings or improvise wildly. Early in the first season, Rance suggested to Andy that Opie should genuinely respect his father rather than serve as a stock sitcom wisecracker, and Andy directed his writers accordingly; Ron did not learn about this creative decision until 26 years later. Ron achieved an acting breakthrough in the episode "Opie the Birdman," when Rance instructed him to recall the death of their dog Gulliver to summon genuine grief; for the first time, Ron cried real tears on camera.

Clint, born in April 1959, grew up on the Desilu Cahuenga soundstages where the show filmed. Director Bob Sweeney noticed the toddler in a cowboy outfit and created a recurring silent role for him as Leon. By age six, Clint landed guest roles on shows like Bonanza, and in 1966 he played the alien Commander Balok in the Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver," wearing a latex skullcap and drinking grapefruit juice that stood in for the fictional beverage tranya. Clint's biggest childhood role was Mark Wedloe in the CBS series Gentle Ben. Filming required Clint and Rance to spend months each year in Miami, separated from Jean and Ron. The show ran for two seasons before CBS cancelled it as part of its Rural Purge, a strategy of dropping rural-themed programming to attract younger urban viewers.

Throughout these years, Rance and Jean maintained a household of deliberate normalcy. By law, 15 percent of the boys' earnings went into Coogan Trust Accounts, savings accounts named after child actor Jackie Coogan, whose parents had squandered his fortune. The remainder went into savings in the boys' names, with Rance and Jean drawing only a five percent manager's fee. They insisted their sons attend public school, where Ron endured persistent bullying from classmates who mocked him as "Dopey Opie." Jean managed the family's logistics while battling chronic rheumatoid arthritis and the long-term effects of a teenage truck accident that had shattered her pelvis.

When The Andy Griffith Show ended in 1968, Ron discovered that the industry felt no obligation to keep hiring him. He struggled to land parts but channeled his energy into making short films, starting with an 8mm camera and later moving to Super 8, and coached Clint's Bantam League basketball team as deliberate practice for directing. He fell in love with Cheryl Alley, a fellow redhead at Burroughs High School. Ron's career revived with American Graffiti (1973), director George Lucas's low-budget ensemble film about California cruising culture in 1962. Shot entirely at night over six weeks, the film became a cultural phenomenon, grossing over $100 million against a $700,000 budget.

ABC launched Happy Days with Ron as lead Richie Cunningham. When Henry Winkler's breakout performance as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli led ABC to propose renaming the show Fonzie's Happy Days, Ron told producers he would rather return to USC. Creator Garry Marshall blocked the title change, but the experience crystallized Ron's determination to transition to directing. Ron struck a deal with producer Roger Corman, agreeing to star in the low-budget Eat My Dust! in exchange for a chance to direct. With Rance's help, he developed Grand Theft Auto, a comedy about young lovers fleeing to Las Vegas in a stolen Rolls-Royce. Corman green-lit the film for $602,000, and Ron directed it in 23 days; it earned $6 million and launched his directing career. Ron married Cheryl on June 7, 1975, in a Burbank church and eventually left Happy Days to direct full-time, accepting a less lucrative NBC deal over ABC's offer because it included directing commitments.

Meanwhile, Clint's adolescence brought substance use. He began smoking marijuana at 14, started drinking shortly after, and discovered cocaine by his senior year of high school. His drug use worsened through the 1980s until a visit to the Los Angeles County Morgue while researching a role in Ron's film Backdraft (1990) confronted him with the physical reality of addiction. On June 14, 1991, Clint achieved sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous, supported by Rance, who quit drinking in solidarity.

Jean returned to acting in her late 50s and eventually won the role of astronaut Jim Lovell's mother in Ron's Apollo 13 (1995) after Rance advocated for her casting. She died on September 2, 2000, at 73, having told Clint that his sobriety was the achievement that made her most proud and having written Ron a final message: "Rance loves to act." Rance continued working into his late 80s; his final dramatic scene came opposite Clint in the indie film Apple Seed, during whose rehearsal both father and son broke into tears. Rance died in November 2017, and the brothers close the memoir reflecting on the extraordinary journey their parents made possible.