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Clint howard's 5 star trek characters explained.

Clint Howard has made guest appearances as five different characters in five different Star Trek shows, including Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

• Clint Howard has appeared in five different Star Trek shows, making him the only actor to have appeared in both The Original Series and either Discovery or Strange New Worlds.
• Howard's iconic role as Balok in Star Trek: The Original Series showcased his talent at a young age, portraying a frightening alien with a surprising twist.
• His recent appearance in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as Commander Buck Martinez highlights his versatility as an actor, as he portrays a no-nonsense Chief Medical Officer during the Klingon War.

Clint Howard's appearance in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds marks the fifth Star Trek show in which the actor has appeared as a guest star. Howard made his Star Trek debut at age seven on Star Trek: The Original Series, and would go on to appear in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Star Trek: Enterprise , Star Trek: Discovery , and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . With his role in Strange New Worlds , Howard has become the only actor to have appeared in both TOS and either Discovery or Strange New Worlds .

Clint Howard begin his acting career at two years old when he appeared alongside his brother, actor and director Ron Howard, in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show . Since then, he has had an extremely prolific career, appearing in countless movies and television shows over the decades. He has had roles in seventeen films directed by his brother, including Solo: A Star Wars Story, making him one of the actors who has appeared in both Star Trek and Star Wars . Balok from Star Trek: The Original Series remains one of Clint Howard's most iconic roles . Here is a list of all five of Clint Howard's Star Trek characters explained.

5 Balok in Star Trek: The Original Series

Clint Howard first appeared in Star Trek at just seven years of age when he played Balok, a member of the First Federation, in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Corbomite Maneuver." Though Balok initially appeared to the USS Enterprise as a frightening-looking alien, he revealed his true child-like form when Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) , Doctor Leonard McCoy (Deforest Kelley), and Crewman Bailey (Anthony Call) visited Balok on his ship, the Fesarius. Balok then admitted (in an uncharacteristically adult voice provided by Walker Edmiston) that his earlier threats against the Enterprise had merely been a test of the crew's character, and he offered them a tour of his ship. As the ship's only occupant, Balok admitted to being lonely, which prompted Kirk to order Crewman Bailey to stay with Balok and learn more about his culture.

4 Grady in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek often tackles important and relevant political issues and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's two-part episode "Past Tense" serves as one of the most powerful examples. When Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig), and Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) find themselves in 2024 San Francisco, they become involved in riots that mark an important moment in human history. Clint Howard appears in "Past Tense: Part 2" as a homeless and mentally ill man named Grady who believes that aliens will soon invade Earth. He steals Dax's combadge, but she is able to get it back by convincing him that she is one of the good aliens.

3 Muk in Star Trek: Enterprise

In the Star Trek: Enterprise season 1 episode "Acquisition," Clint Howard plays a Ferengi pirate named Muk. When a group of Ferengi boards the Enterprise NX-01, Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer), and Subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) must work together to stop the intruders. T'Pol eventually convinces Muk that the leader of the Ferengi group was going to take all of the profits, turning the Ferengi against one another. Trip then tricks the Ferengi to follow him to the Enterprise's supposed vault, leading them into an ambush. In the end, Muk and the Ferengi must return everything they stole and Archer orders the Ferengi to leave Federation space. The Federation would not make official first contact with the Ferengi until around 200 years later when they encounter Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

2 Creepy Orion in Star Trek: Discovery

In his only unnamed Star Trek role, Clint Howard plays a "Creepy Orion" in Star Trek: Discovery's season 1 finale, "Will You Take My Hand?." When some of the Discovery crew visit an Orion outpost on the Klingon homeworld, Qo'noS, Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) encounters the Creepy Orion. When he offers her some volcanic vapors, she inhales some and then promptly faints. When she comes to, the Orion is trying to steal the briefcase that she has handcuffed to her wrist. The briefcase was meant to contain a drone that would be used to map the planet, but when the Orion reveals that the volcanoes on Qo'noS remain active, Tilly realizes the drone wouldn't be useful. Tilly then checks the case and discovers a bomb that Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) had planned to use to destroy Qo'noS.

1 Commander Buck Martinez in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' darkest episode so far, Clint Howard plays Commander Buck Martinez, the Chief Medical Officer stationed at a Starfleet Mobile Combat Hospital on the moon J'Gal during the Klingon War. Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8, "Under the Cloak of War" follows Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and his USS Enterprise crew as they host a visiting Klingon Ambassador, Dak'Rah (Robert Wisdom), who used to be a General infamous as "the Butcher of J'Gal." Dak'Rah's presence on the ship brings up painful memories for Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) and Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) who served together in the Klingon War.

As revealed in flashbacks throughout the episode, M'Benga and Chapel served under Buck Martinez on J'Gal, where he commanded with a no-nonsense attitude. Clint Howard's appearance on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds comes just under 57 years after his first appearance on TOS in 1966, giving him the record for the longest time period between his first and most recent Star Trek appearances. Clint Howard also has the distinction of appearing in every decade Star Trek has had a live-action TV series on the air.

The Truth About Ron Howard's Brother

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Ron Howard has enjoyed critical and commercial success for directing films such as "Apollo 13," "A Beautiful Mind," and "The Da Vinci Code." While the director may be best-known for collaborating with Tom Hanks , Ron's collaborations with his brother, Clint Howard, have been just as integral to his career. Both brothers got their start in Hollywood at an early age. Ron rose to fame playing Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" in the '60s, while Clint worked on "Gentle Ben," per Entertainment Weekly . The two brothers decided to collaborate on a book titled "The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family," and it was Hanks who suggested the duo focus on their childhood.

Although he first made a name for himself acting, Ron found his true calling in Hollywood as a director and storyteller. When Ron was 15 years old, he cast his brother in a three-minute short film that earned him second place in a Kodak youth film contest, per the Los Angeles Times . That was the first of many times Ron would direct Clint. In fact, the younger Howard brother is more of a natural in front of the camera. "I do like to entertain people. I'm probably more of an entertainer than Ron personality-wise. It's sort of second nature to me," Clint told the Saturday Evening Post while promoting their new book.

Throughout the years, Clint appeared in so many of Ron's films that some fans believed the director always cast his brother, but it has not been that simple.

Why Ron Howard will sometimes not cast his brother

One of the highlights of Clint Howard's career was when he played NASA flight controller Sy Liebergot in "Apollo 13," which Ron Howard is famous for directing. "I'm very proud that I got to be in 'Apollo 13' ... I felt like that was really a privilege," Clint told Bullz-Eye.com in 2008. Clint was forthright with his older brother about wanting to be in the space drama. "I more than asked to be in the film–I told him," Clint recalled to the Los Angeles Times in 1995. "I knew I was perfect to play one of those NASA guys." The actor had appeared in many of his brother's films up to that point, including "Cocoon," "Backdraft," and "The Paper."

Landing a role in one of Ron's movies is not as straightforward for Clint as simply asking his brother. "I have to lobby him, because I'm an actor trying to get work," he told the Times. Sometimes, the director cannot envision his younger brother being part of a project, and Ron passes on including him. "But there have been plenty of parts I wanted that he just hasn't seen me doing," Clint said.

Besides working alongside his brother, Clint is known for his prolific on-screen output. "I've only turned down a couple of jobs in my life," he admitted to the AV Club  on October 11. This has led to Clint enjoying a wonderfully eclectic career from notable comedies to sci-fi and horror projects. 

Clint Howard is a Star Trek veteran

Stellar work in comedy has been a staple in Clint Howard's career. The actor has appeared on episodes of beloved series such as "Seinfeld," "My Name is Earl," and "Arrested Development," per IMDb . Plus, he has popped up in movies such as "The Waterboy," and the "Austin Powers" trilogy, where he even parodied his character from "Apollo 13." "I thought about it for two seconds when I started getting asked to sort of spoof myself," he told the AV Club on October 11. "It's a job. It pays."

Along with the prestige projects Clint has appeared in, he has also amassed a slew of credits in pulpy B-movies with genre directors, such as Roger Corman and Uwe Boll. "Horror movies are like Mexican food ... I don't like to eat it all the time, but occasionally it's fun, you know?" the "Ice Cream Man" star told Bullz-Eye.com in 2008.

One of Clint's earliest roles was as the alien Balok in the original "Star Trek" series when the actor was only 7 years old, per Star Trek.com . Later, he popped up on episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," and "Star Trek: Enterprise." In 2018, the showrunners of "Star Trek: Discovery" created a role specifically for him. "We sort of created the part for Clint," showrunner Aaron Harberts told Inverse at the time. "And Clint has been in almost every iteration of Star Trek."

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He filmed his scenes as Balok for "The Corbomite Maneuver" on Wednesday 1 June 1966 at Desilu Stage 9 . He also filmed a makeup test the previous day. [1]

Along with Majel Barrett , Joseph Ruskin , Jack Donner and Vince Deadrick , he is one of only five actors to appear in both The Original Series and Enterprise . He, Barrett, and Ruskin also appeared in Deep Space Nine . He is the only performer to date who appeared in both The Original Series and Discovery or Strange New Worlds (excluding performers who appeared in archive footage).

Appearing as an adult Balok

On Comedy Central's 2006 roast of William Shatner , Howard reprised his role as Balok in an older, grown-up form addicted to tranya .

Howard holds the record for longest period between first and most recent appearances on Star Trek , of 20713 days, or just under 57 years, reclaiming the record from Walter Koenig who played the voice only role of Anton Chekov in Star Trek: Picard .

Howard is the younger brother of actor and director Ron Howard , and the son of actor Rance Howard . Clint's career began at the age of one, with a role in The Andy Griffith Show , a television show that starred his brother. He has worked steadily since.

His roles as a child actor include appearances on series like The Fugitive (with Andrew Prine , James B. Sikking , Joseph Campanella , and Barbara Baldavin ), Bonanza (with Bob Miles ), Judd for the Defense (with Dick Cherney ), Love, American Style , The Odd Couple , Gunsmoke (with Anthony Caruso , Bobby Clark , and Gary Combs ), The Mod Squad (starring Tige Andrews and Clarence Williams III , with Barry Atwater ), and The Streets of San Francisco (directed by Corey Allen ).

One of his most memorable TV guest appearances was in the titular role of the 1971 Night Gallery episode "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes".

In 1974, Howard co-starred in the short-lived western series The Cowboys which was cancelled after only 12 episodes, and featured DeForest Kelley , Ian Wolfe , and Jack Perkins in guest roles.

In 1978, he appeared in Harper Valley PTA directed by an uncredited Ralph Senensky and starring Ronny Cox and John Fiedler . He made two guest appearances on the show Happy Days starring his brother and Anson Williams , in 1976 and 1980.

From the 1980s onwards, Howard mostly appeared in supporting roles in feature films, often directed by his brother. He has been directed by his brother in seventeen films, including Splash (1984, with Charles Macaulay ), Cocoon (1986, with Herta Ware ), Backdraft (1991), Far and Away (1992, with Barbara Babcock , Colm Meaney , and Anthony De Longis ), Apollo 13 (1995, with Googy Gress , Max Grodénchik , Ned Vaughn , and Steve Rankin ), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000, with Bill Irwin , Landry Allbright , and Frank Welker ), Cinderella Man (2005, with Bruce McGill , Ron Canada , Daniel Kash , and Marcelo Tubert , written by Akiva Goldsman ), Frost/Nixon (2008, starring Frank Langella , with Antony Acker , Andy Milder , Geoffrey Blake , Ned Vaughn, and Googy Gress), and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), the latter making him one of the performers who both appeared in Star Trek and Star Wars .

In 1986, Howard appeared in his brother's Gung Ho alongside Patti Yasutake and in the same year co-starred in television series adaptation Gung Ho , which starred Scott Bakula and Patti Yasutake, and featured Wendy Schaal and Earl Boen in guest roles.

His other film credits include Tango & Cash (1989, with Marc Alaimo , Roy Brocksmith , Teri Hatcher , Glenn Morshower , Michael J. Pollard , and Phil Rubenstein ), The Rocketeer (1991, with Paul Sorvino , Terry O'Quinn , Ed Lauter , Max Grodénchik, William Boyett , and Merritt Yohnka ), Carnosaur (1993, starring Raphael Sbarge , with Frank Novak and Martha Hackett ), Santa with Muscles (1996, with Robin Curtis , Ed Begley, Jr. , Brenda Strong , and Brian J. Williams ), Barb Wire (1996, with Shelly Desai , Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Jr. , Henry Kingi, Sr. , Patti Tippo , and Tracee Lee Cocco ), The Waterboy (1998), My Dog Skip (2000), Little Nicky (2000, with Michael McKean , Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Jr., Jeff Imada , and Jess Harnell ), The Cat in the Hat (2003, with Amy Hill and Frank Welker), Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), Halloween (2007, starring Malcolm McDowell , Brad Dourif , with Richard Lynch , Tom Towles , and Sid Haig ), and BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011).

He made a small but notable appearance as radar technician Peters in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997, with Charles Napier , Brian George , Douglas Aarniokoski , and Patricia Tallman ), which he reprised in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999, with Jane Carr , Michael G. Hagerty , Jack Kehler , and Tony Jay , and Rebecca Romijn ) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002, with Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Jr. and Greg Grunberg ).

His further television credits include a co-starring role in Space Rangers in 1996, alongside Marjorie Monaghan and Cary-Hiroyuki , and guest appearances on Seinfeld (starring Jason Alexander , with Vaughn Armstrong ), Married... with Children , The Outer Limits (1996, written by Richard Matheson from his own short story, co-starring Matt Frewer , and narrated by Kevin Conway ), Total Recall 2070 , The Pretender (with Harve Presnell and James Whitmore, Jr. ), Crossing Jordan (starring Jerry O'Connell and Miguel Ferrer , with Cliff DeYoung and Scott MacDonald ), Arrested Development , My Name Is Earl , Heroes (starring Greg Grunberg and Zachary Quinto , with Douglas Tait ), and Hawaii Five-O (starring Daniel Dae Kim , with Corbin Bernsen , developed by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman ).

In 2009, Howard appeared on an episode of Fringe , starring John Noble , created by J.J. Abrams , Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman, and co-written by Akiva Goldsman, playing paranoid conspiracy theorist Emmanuel Grayson, who believed he was the son of Sarek and feared an invasion by Romulans from the future (foreshadowing the plot of Abrams' Star Trek ). Grayson's apartment was #1701 and he shared his surname with Spock's mother .

Star Trek appearances [ ]

External links [ ]

• Clint Howard at StarTrek.com
• Clint Howard at the Internet Movie Database
• Clint Howard at Wikipedia
• 3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Clint Howard: Ron Howard's Prolific Character Actor Brother

Clint Howard 's unique look, family ties and on-screen talent have made him one of America's most prominent character actors.

The younger brother of actor, writer and director  Ron Howard was born in Burbank, California on April 20, 1959 to actors Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard.

By age 2, Clint appeared along with Opie on The Andy Griffith Show as Leon, a Western wear-clad toddler who never spoke and offered folks around Mayberry a bite of his sandwich.

By the end of the '60s, Clint had starred in CBS' The Baileys of Balboa (1964-'65) and Gentle Ben (1967-'69) and appeared in Star Trek: The Original Serie s as Balok (he'd go on to play different characters over the years on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Discovery ). Additional '60s TV series of note from Clint's filmography are The Fugitive, Bonanza and The Virginian .

Young Clint also landed voice acting roles in Disney classics, as Roo in multiple Winnie the Pooh features and as Hathi Jr. in The Jungle Book .

Clint appeared in films involving Ron as early as 1963's The Courtship of Eddie's Father . Since then, Clint's appeared in numerous Hollywood films ( Eat My Dust, Grand Theft Auto, Night Shift, Cocoon, Gung Ho, Backdraft, Cinderella Man, Apollo 13, EdTV ) and TV shows ( Happy Days , Arrested Development ) starring, written, narrated or directed by Ron.

Read More:  Ron Howard's Daughter Bryce is An Actor and Filmmaker Just Like Her Dad

He also appears as the lead in the cult slasher comedy The Ice Cream Man (other horror roles came in Evilspeak and one of the Halloween remakes) and as a recurring character in the Austin Powers films. Additional comedies featuring Clint include How the Grinch Stole Christmas , Rock 'n' Roll High School , Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Adam Sandler 's Little Nicky and The Waterboy .

Clint, an avid golfer, split from his wife Melanie in 2017 after 22 years of marriage.

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Clint and Ron Howard Remember When They Were Just ‘The Boys’

In a new memoir, the showbiz siblings recall their experiences growing up on “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Star Trek” and other Hollywood classics. But they weren’t all happy days.

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By Dave Itzkoff

Growing up, Clint and Ron Howard never had to dream of stardom, because as children they’d already achieved it. Ron was just 6 when he was second-billed on “The Andy Griffith Show” and 8 when “The Music Man,” featuring him crooning “Gary, Indiana,” was released. Clint, his younger brother, was racking up roles on “Bonanza,” “Star Trek” and “Gentle Ben.”

Today they are both Hollywood veterans: Ron, 67, is an Academy Award-winning director (“A Beautiful Mind”) and co-founder of Imagine Entertainment, while Clint, 62, is a prolific character actor who’s shown up everywhere from “Seinfeld” to the “Austin Powers” movies.

But their lives were transformed by their time as child actors and the influence of their parents, Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard, who left Oklahoma to pursue their own ambitions of becoming actors — goals that were surpassed countless times over by the accomplishments of their two sons.

Ron and Clint Howard retrace this formative period in a new book, “The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family,” which will be released by William Morrow on Tuesday. In their alternating accounts, the Howards look back on their parents’ lives, their own upbringings and their success at staving off the darker aspects of their profession — at least until the realities of adolescence and adulthood reared their heads.

When the brothers spoke in a video interview last month, they talked about how writing “The Boys” had helped reconnect them to each other and to their family history.

“We’ve remained close, but we’re 3,000 miles apart and busy with our own families,” Ron Howard said, adding that the book “has everything to do with trying to put our lives into the context of who our parents were and what they gave us.”

“We wouldn’t have done it just to tell our story,” he added. “Once again, Mom and Dad pulled us together.”

Clint and Ron Howard talked about their early starts in show business, their earliest brushes with fame and how their parents helped them keep it together. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

It’s well-known that you’re the children of actors, but you’re not exactly Barrymore scions. What were your parents like? How did they find it in Hollywood?

RON HOWARD There’s no reason they should have succeeded. They didn’t know a thing about where they were going. They weren’t bohemians, they weren’t hippies, but they certainly were not conservatives. But they had this dream. They had to chase that horizon. And when they got to the horizon, they never really fit in. They were always a little cornpone. Hence the term that they applied to themselves, sophisticated hicks.

Were you ever made to feel that you were the breadwinners of your family?

CLINT HOWARD We didn’t take show business home with us. Both Dad and Mom worked their tails off. Mom was just a championship mom. She was on the P.T.A., she was a basketball mom, she was a baseball mom.

RON Dad was a kid-actor whisperer. But he said, I work with you boys because you’re my sons and I think you can learn something. I don’t think he believed this was our career for the rest of our lives. I don’t think he wanted to project that desire upon us.

You probably could have lived much larger on the money you were earning — why didn’t you?

RON We always lived on Dad’s salary. Somebody wanted to do an Opie line of clothing — I’m sure it would have meant hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of the day. Mom and Dad turned that down for me because they didn’t want me wasting my time on that.

CLINT We were never short for anything. But we didn’t go on vacation. They didn’t buy new cars. Once a year, Ron and I got new school clothes. No one was chasing those intoxicating elements that modern life or show business can overwhelm you with.

As children, you were regularly crossing paths with venerated Hollywood artists. Clint, you got to meet Walt Disney when you were working on “The Jungle Book.” What was that like?

CLINT I was completely blown away when Walt walked in and said, “You’re doing a fine job, Clint.” I was truly a Disney baby. But I was a little irritated that I hadn’t worked in more Disney shows. [Laughter.]

RON Too bad you didn’t just say, “What took you so long? Walt, how many times have I been to Disneyland? Where’s the quid pro quo here, Walt?”

CLINT These people all seemed pretty friendly but they weren’t handing out the contracts. I never got on “The Mickey Mouse Club.”

Were either of you ever jealous of each other?

CLINT Our age difference was ideal. Being five years apart, I would look at my brother and go, there’s no chance that I can kick his butt. There were a few times we would get into a fight over baseball cards or a toy, and Dad would physically pull us apart. He would say, you boys are going to want to be good friends when you grow up. So why don’t you just knock it off?

RON He would say you have a chance to be good friends when you grow up.

There’s a period you describe in the book, where things were starting to wind down for Ron on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Clint was beginning to take off on “Gentle Ben.” Did that create tension between you?

RON I felt envy over what Clint was achieving. He was really popular at school, an excellent athlete, gregarious, smart, confident. Things that I don’t necessarily feel or exude. And I admired that about his persona. And I could see it in the work he was doing as well. He was a hell of a good child actor. The system is set up to make child performers feel like failures as they go through adolescence, that most vulnerable period, and I was beginning to experience that. Clint experienced a version of it later.

CLINT I worked on “Gentle Ben,” I was one of the coleads of a television series that was really popular for a short period of time. What really knocked my chin in the dirt was getting hired to work on a TV series called “The Cowboys.” The job ended up just sucking. It was a bad show. I was still making money but the work was poor. That, and then pimples. Dad and Mom warned us about this period of show business. We knew it was coming. There was just no way to really quantify how I was going to feel about it.

In an era and an industry where drugs were prevalent, Ron avoided them fastidiously while Clint had a long period of addiction and recovery. Why do you think you had such different experiences?

RON I was very introverted and my group of friends were likewise. I wasn’t really allowed to go to parties. If I was invited once or twice, I think my parents said no. But Clint was in a different group, much more socially mature. I also resented some of the restrictions that my parents put on me, and I was constantly imploring them to use a lighter hand with Clint.

CLINT I had just some sort of odd fascination with smoking weed. To the point where I literally practiced — I took some pencil shavings from my pencil sharpener and I twisted up a joint and tried to smoke it. Ron was the first, he was a little more nerdy. I was socially more outgoing. I ended up with a group of friends where it was no big deal. The problem is, once that train leaves the station, it can get going pretty darn fast. It’s a slippery slope and I was throwing down the Crisco.

Ron, did you ever feel guilty that you had somehow let your little brother down and hadn’t protected him from this?

RON Yes, I did feel that. When we knew Clint was smoking pot, I said, look, it’s not the horrible curse of the demon you fear it might be. But as Clint started to go further, by then I was married and beginning to have kids. I was concerned and I tried to offer support and go to meetings. I continued to work with Clint and cast him when it made sense. I remember telling him pretty late in his period of abuse — we used a lot of baseball terminology — I said, you’re a bona fide .300 hitter who’s batting about .217.

CLINT I have that letter. You wrote it on stationery from a New York hotel room.

RON I was thinking about you while I was on the road. But I was very proud of Clint for having navigated it. That achievement meant so much to Mom and Dad, probably more than anything any of us had achieved.

CLINT My recovery wasn’t easy-peasy, clean and snazzy. Ron had a lot to do with it and Dad had a lot to do with it, too. I struggled with Mom passing away, but I was very proud of the moment I could drop my nine-year chip in her coffin. I only wish it was a 10-year chip.

What’s your favorite performance that your brother has given?

RON Clint was tremendous in “The Red Pony.” But as I was doing research for this, I had forgotten that we had both been on “The Danny Kaye Show,” and there was this sketch where I was supposed to be this kid James Bond character and Clint was my boss. He nailed that scene. When I watched it, I said, my God, look how present he is. He really is playing a 50-year-old, hard-bitten guy, and I buy it.

CLINT He talks about me being in “The Red Pony,” but I never got a chance to do what he did in “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.” There’s a scene in that movie where he has this panic attack that turns into a tantrum, and he just was so believable. I’m going, the guy’s got chops. Also, as a young man, he did a movie, “Act of Love.” That was weighty material and he nailed it.

RON That was a euthanasia story, based on a real event, where a younger brother had been beseeched by the other to end it after a horrible accident. There’s a courtroom scene where he’s talking about how much he loves his brother and Clint was going through a difficult time during this period. It was one of the most personal moments I ever generated onscreen, because I was channeling my own sense of love and despair for what Clint was going through. The tears and the emotions were real — they came from my own gut.

Dave Itzkoff is a culture reporter whose latest book, “Robin,” a biography of Robin Williams, was published in May 2018. More about Dave Itzkoff

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Published Jan 3, 2014

INTERVIEW: Frequent Trek Guest Clint Howard, Part 2

Clint Howard has been on StarTrek.com ’s radar for a long while now, but we’d never been able to lock him in for an interview. Howard, who is Ron Howard’s younger brother, first made a mark on the Star Trek franchise as a child, when he guest starred as Balok in The Original Series episode “ The Corbomite Maneuver .” He’d just turned 7 when he shot that classic hour. Several decades later, he portrayed Grady in the Deep Space Nine hour “ Past Tense, Part 2 .” And in 2002, he slipped into Ferengi makeup to play Muk in the Enterprise episode “ Acquisition .” Well, Howard will be appearing this weekend at the Hollywood Show , a popular autograph event, and in advance of it he agreed to chat. Over the course of a half-hour, Howard – who was in great spirits and full of entertaining anecdotes – looked back at his Trek experiences, previewed the Hollywood Show and filled us in on his current projects. Below is part two of our exclusive interview.

Of the three Star Trek episodes you did, which still stands out the most and why?

HOWARD: Enterprise was interesting, playing a Ferengi, and I was there for several days, but I’d have to say The Original Series . I’ve said this 100 times over the years, but it’s still funny to me: I still can’t stomach pink grapefruit juice. I’m not a big fan of any grapefruit juice, but when I saw the prop man, he’d mixed up pink grapefruit juice and was using it as tranya. I tasted it and it was just terrible. I asked my dad, “Dad, do you think we can get the prop man to put some apple juice in this? Does it really matter?” And my dad said, “Listen, you’re going to drink the pink grapefruit juice and you’re going to like it.” So, if you see the episode and you notice me taking a sip and acting as if I really like it, like it’s alcohol, it was the same pucker-up face as what might happen if you’d just had a vodka gimlet.

You reprised the role of Balok in 2006 for Comedy Central’s roast of William Shatner. What was that experience like for you?

HOWARD: Oh, that was pretty funny. I knew the guy who was producing it, Joel Gallen. He’d done the MTV Movie Awards , the one where I got the lifetime achievement award. That played really well and, a few years later, I ran into him at a Super Bowl. He was producing the halftime show for the NFL and I was there as a guest, so I got to go to a couple of the parties, which was fun. He pulled me aside at one of these parties and said, “That segment you did, getting the lifetime achievement award, might be the best piece of television I’ve ever done.” So that made me feel proud, but what I heard about the Shatner roast was that Ben Stiller had been in contact with Joel. I guess Stiller was going to do something on the Shatner roast and he, in passing mentioned, “Oh, you’ve got to have Clint Howard.” Ben is a big Star Trek guy and he had me in Night at the Museum , so it was Ben’s suggestion and Joel remembering me, and I went in and did it.

If I remember correctly, my agent was able to strike up a fairly healthy deal because if you knew me, you would realize that me going in and climbing into a big, oversized version of a costume that I wore when I was seven and putting on a bald cap again is not my idea of big fun. But it was a nice thing and I’m glad I did it. Shatner is really, really amazing to me. I mean, talk about the Energizer bunny. Also, his career has had big ups and downs, and the fact that he stayed in it and kept grinding, I give him a lot of credit. He’s just a little younger than my dad, and they came out of an era where, by God, they want to keep working. And Bill has done it through a wild career.

It’s why, in my own career, I am so grateful that I have bounced around and done enough varied characters to where nobody can quite pin me down for anything. About the closest thing anybody can pin me down for is being Ron Howard’s brother, which is something I’m very proud of. He’s a great man. He’s a better older brother than he is a movie director, and he’s an awesome movie director.

Let’s bring people up to speed. What are you working on at the moment?

HOWARD: I’ve done several indie films. One of them is called Guys and Girls Just Can’t Be Friends , which was a really fun experience. I shot that in Indiana. I also did a movie called Sparks , and it’s a low-budget film that was really a labor of love. These guys shot in about 14 days in Los Angeles and yet they were able to do a lot of things, with green screens and effects, that even five years ago a small little company couldn’t do. So, there’s Sparks , Guys and Girls Just Can’t Be Friends and a few other indie films I’ve done, and I’ve got a project that I can’t talk about yet that I’m trying to get made. It’s something I’ve been fiddling with as a filmmaker. It’s something I’d direct, and we’re in the formative stages of funding and putting the other pieces in place.

What do you play in the two films you mentioned?

HOWARD: I’m a newspaper editor in Sparks . I shot that a year ago. I probably had a name, but I don’t remember it. He’s like the editor of The Daily Planet , a crusty, old newspaper editor. And in Guys and Girls Just Can’t Be Friends , I play a guy who owns a miniature golf course where a lot of the romantic things in the movie happen.

We mentioned (in part one of this conversation) that you’ll be attending the Hollywood Show this weekend. What kind of a kick do you get from attending a show like that, meeting the fans, signing autographs, posing for pictures?

HOWARD: You know, I honestly have always gotten a kick out of it. My mom could make friends with strangers in elevators, and I’m a little like that. I have no problem saying hi to someone and creating a little small talk. My mom and my dad – she’s passed away, but he’s still alive – instilled in Ron and me the idea that spending time with people who recognize you is an important part of the job. If you can make somebody’s life a little happier by saying hi, you do it. It’s kind of the same thing we do as entertainers. There’s a line that people can cross, and my brother and I instinctively know that line. My brother’s line is a little different than mine because of who he is, but it’s an important part of what we do. For me, if I ran into Lee Trevino, the Hall of Fame professional golfer, I’d be as giddy as all get-out, so I can certainly understand why fans are thrilled to meet certain people.

Click HERE to read part one of our interview with Clint Howard. And remember to follow the links above to watch Howard’s episodes of Star Trek .

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Meet Clint Howard: Director Ron Howard’s Famous Brother Who Followed in His Footsteps

Director Ron Howard is the man behind some of the biggest blockbuster films of all time like The Da Vinci Code and Apollo 13 . His contributions to the world of entertainment are unmatched and have been praised for over six decades. His younger brother, Clint Howard , has been by his side supporting him through it all and even launched a successful show business career of his own.

Ron and Clint grew up in a household full of actors. Their parents, Jean Speegle Howard and Rance Howard were also in show business. Ron was born in 1954 and Clint was born in 1959. Their parents decided to uproot their farm life in Oklahoma in the 1950s and move the family to Los Angeles to pursue their acting dreams.

Ron booked his breakout role of Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show in 1960. Jean would take Clint to the set to watch Ron perform. Director Bob Jones spotted Clint one day and decided he wanted to create a role for him on the show too. Clint was just 2 years old at the time when he played the role of Little Leon on The Andy Griffith Show . Even though the Howard brothers were both child actors, there was never any kind of rivalry between them.

“Ron and I were never in competition, as siblings so often are,” Clint wrote in the duo’s 2021 book The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family . “I looked up to him. Coming along second gave me a greater vantage point from which to watch and learn.”

Clint got his big break working on the series Gentle Ben from 1967 to 1969. In the show, Clint worked with a live black bear during his scenes and was praised for being so mature at a young age. When Ron had days off on The Andy Griffith Show , he would fly down to Florida to visit Clint on set. Producer Ivan Tors wrote in parts for Ron on Gentle Ben so the brothers could act together.

“I loved watching Clint act,” Ron shared in the memoir . “I was always conscious of hitting my mark, not making mistakes, pleasing the director. Clint didn’t give a damn! He had a go-for-broke quality that worked because he was so well-prepared and naturally talented.”

Growing up in the spotlight certainly had some drawbacks for both Ron and Clint. In his early teens, Clint wondered if he should pursue a different career path as a journalist. Now a published author with his brother, the pair still have a bond that is stronger than ever. Clint has starred in 16 films directed by Ron throughout his career including Parenthood and Night Shift .

Clint became a regular on Star Trek in the late ‘60s. He also worked with Disney on several Winnie the Pooh films before taking on the role of Hathi Jr. in The Jungle Book . Clint has over 250 acting credits that range from comedies, dramas and sci-fi films. He recently appeared in Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018, another Disney film that was directed by Ron.

Aside from his busy life in Hollywood, Clint is a loving husband to Kat C. Howard . The pair were married in a 2020 Las Vegas ceremony. He was previously married to Melanie Howard for over 22 years. The pair divorced in 2017 and never had any children. Clint is a proud uncle of Ron’s children, Bryce , Paige, Reed and Jocelyn.

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The Corbomite Maneuver

• Episode aired Nov 10, 1966

After the Enterprise is forced to destroy a dangerous marker buoy, a gigantic alien ship arrives to capture and condemn the crew as trespassers. After the Enterprise is forced to destroy a dangerous marker buoy, a gigantic alien ship arrives to capture and condemn the crew as trespassers. After the Enterprise is forced to destroy a dangerous marker buoy, a gigantic alien ship arrives to capture and condemn the crew as trespassers.

• Joseph Sargent
• Gene Roddenberry
• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• Anthony D. Call
• 36 User reviews
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• Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk

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• Balok's Puppet

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• Trivia Although the script instructed Leonard Nimoy to emote a fearful reaction upon his first sight of Big Balok, director Joseph Sargent suggested to Nimoy that he ignore what the script called for and instead simply react with the single word "Fascinating." The suggestion of this response helped refine the Spock character and provide him with a now-legendary catchphrase.
• Goofs When Balok begins his 10-minute countdown of the Enterprise's destruction, McCoy enters the bridge wearing a standard long-sleeve uniform shirt. Shortly after this, camera cuts around the bridge include one focused on Spock and McCoy standing by the science station, with McCoy wearing his short-sleeve medical tunic. Then, when Lt. Bailey has his frantic outburst, McCoy goes to him to calm him, wearing the long-sleeve shirt again.

Bones : [to himself] If I jumped every time a light came on around here, I'd end up talking to myself.

• Alternate versions Special Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song. The Remastered version has the alien cube change the direction of its spin when the cube also reverses direction, but is not consistent in maintaining this in all shots.
• Connections Featured in Star Trek Logs: An MTV Big Picture Special Edition (1991)
• Soundtracks Theme From Star Trek Written by and credited to Alexander Courage

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• Jun 27, 2006
• November 10, 1966 (United States)
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Who Is Ron Howard's Brother? All About Clint Howard

Actor Clint Howard is the younger brother of acclaimed filmmaker Ron Howard

Kevork S. Djansezian/Getty

Clint Howard , brother of director Ron Howard , has been in the business since he was a toddler.

Ron’s long and storied career began in 1959 when he was cast on The Andy Griffith Show at 5 years old. Clint got his start on the same television show as his brother, playing a toddler who wandered around Mayberry in a cowboy outfit.

Since then, Clint has been involved in a long list of films and shows across multiple genres. Over his decades-long career, he has also dabbled in music, sports and the arts, with passions across multiple disciplines.

They have worked together on multiple projects, but the sibling duo have made sure not to let work get in the way of family.

“I love my brother,” Clint said in an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show . “He’s a great older brother. He’s a hall-of-fame movie director and he’s a better big brother than he is a movie director.”

So who is Ron Howard's brother? Here’s everything to know about Clint Howard.

He is been acting for most of his life

Clint started his acting career at age 2, when he joined the cast of The Andy Griffith Show in a handful of episodes. At that time, his elder brother Ron was already starring on the show.

After his five episodes on The Andy Griffith Show wrapped, Clint continued to act, and his first prominent acting role came in 1967 on the show Gentle Ben .

From the start of his career in 1962 until the present day, Clint has been on both the big and small screens, amassing over 200 credits from films like Apollo 13 to shows like Arrested Development .

He comes from a film family

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Ron was in the business before Clint, but the Howard lineage in the entertainment industry goes back even further. Their father, Rance Howard , got his big break in the Broadway national tour of Mister Roberts with Henry Fonda .

Later, Rance noticed that Ron enjoyed the atmosphere of rehearsals and that he had a natural aptitude for acting. From then on, all three Howard men went on to build acting careers.

Clint’s nieces, Bryce Dallas Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard , have followed in the family’s footsteps and have become actors as well.

He and Ron are best-selling authors

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

In 2022, Clint and Ron published a memoir titled The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, which was a New York Times best seller.

In the book, which Tom Hanks said would “surprise every reader with its humanity,” the two brothers “frankly and fondly share their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors,” according to HarperCollins .

He sees Ron as a role model

Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

As an older brother, Ron has served as a mentor for Clint throughout his career.

“Not only did I have a beautiful mentor in Dad, but I had a great example in Ron," Clint said in an appearance on The View .

He continued, "Ron’s five years older than me, so he had already gotten into the business when, luck have it, I got into the business, and I saw by example how he was doing it all. It was beautiful and it gave me confidence.”

He was the lead singer of a band

Albert L. Ortega/Getty

In the 1980s, Clint formed a rock ‘n’ roll band called The Kempsters with a group of his friends. The band included Clint on lead vocals, Scott Greene on guitar and vocals, Sabino Flores on guitar, J Dean on bass and both Spooner Bauer and Tony Rodriguez on drums.

While the band never released an album, in 2022, Clint began personally distributing copies of a CD titled No Brains at All . On his Instagram account, he shared photos of fans excitedly showing off their rare CDs and wrote that those interested in getting their hands on a copy could DM him for information on how to purchase one.

He and Ron still work together

Andy Kropa/Getty

Throughout their careers, the Howard brothers have collaborated on a number of projects. In fact, Clint has appeared in 17 films his brother directed, including Grand Theft Auto, Cocoon, Backdraft, Parenthood and Apollo 13 . As a director, Ron is often the one in charge on set, and Clint discovered that at a young age.

“I learned my lesson early on,” he shared on The Drew Barrymore Show . “I was probably in ... my early 20s and yet I had to learn that ultimately, he’s the boss, he’s making the decisions.”

Ron added, “When I do have the opportunity to direct Clint, it’s always a joy because … he also will tell me the truth.”

He makes custom snow globes

In addition to his acting career, Clint also has an interest in making custom snow globes. He shares his original creations on his social media accounts, including a snap of multiple snow globes on Instagram, captioned, “A candid of my globes.”

His niece Bryce shared insight into her uncle’s creative process in a 2017 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon .

“He’s super artistic,” she said. “He’s always making things, he’s sculpting, he’s painting, he’s doing all this kind of stuff. Now he’s really into snow globes.”

The actress shared photos of Clint’s personalized globes with the talk show host, including one of his brother Ron directing.

He enjoys golf

Clint Howard Instagram

While passionate about acting, Clint took up golf later on in life. In 1990, in between auditions and work, Clint says he has played hundreds of rounds of golf.

“I may have worked a lot but there are many days where the phone is not ringing,” he told Los Angeles Downtown News in 2023. “It can be poisonous, so I learned to get out of the house and go play 18 holes.”

However, health problems have made it difficult for Clint to continue playing.

“I played for a while with the first artificial hip, but with the second one I could not turn well and only drove the ball 130 yards,” he said. “I took the game seriously. It still drives me crazy when I see a golfer who should be a bowler.”

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StarTribune

Clint howard reveals his all-time favorite performances.

Clint Howard has not matched the success of brother Ron, but you'll never hear the younger sibling complain. That's because he has had a pretty good run of his own.

As a child actor, he starred opposite a bear in the TV series "Gentle Ben" and appeared as a powerful alien in an early episode of "Star Trek." He's made so many memorable cameos in beloved films that he even won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1998 MTV Movie Awards.

Now, the Howard brothers have teamed up to write "The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family," which looks at old Hollywood and is a love letter to their parents. Clint Howard spoke about it by phone from his home in Burbank, Calif.

Q: I assume you wrote most of the book during the pandemic. How was the writing process for you? A: It was slow in the beginning, as writing usually is. Ron didn't really want to do a memoir, but Tom Hanks was really the one who encouraged him do something about childhood. We knew, even back then, that our parents were really special. Unparalleled in this business. I hope we give them their due credit. We picked on our mom a lot when we were growing up. I feel bad about that. The last time Ron and I collaborated as writers was for the novelization of his film "Cotton Candy." So I technically have a credit as a novelist.

Q: What do you think were your best performances a child actor? A: I feel like I really excelled in "The Red Pony" with Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara. That got nominated for a lot of Emmys. Henry was pretty cold to me. I've seen some adult actors work that way. I understand it. I'm kind of amazed how well I handled "Star Trek" [the original series] and how comfortable I was with that. I'm too young to remember the episode of "Bonanza" I did called "All Ye His Saints." But going back and watching it, I'm very proud of that performance. There was an episode of "Night Gallery" about a boy who predicts earthquakes. That was pretty heady stuff. A lot of dialogue. My father and I worked on that a lot.

Q: How about as an adult? A: In "Rock 'n' Roll High School," I got to play a wheeler-dealer who wouldn't let anything get in his way. I really got the spirit of that movie. And then there's "Apollo 13." John Sayles did an uncredited rewrite for that movie. What a guy. It felt great to work with Ed Harris, one of the greatest actors in American history. I was so proud of Ron, the way he ran that ship as comfortably and confidently as he did.

Q: Who's the most impressive actor you've ever worked with? A: As a child, I was really impressed how easygoing and strong Ben Johnson was. He had just won the Academy Award when we worked together on "The Red Pony." He was a really comfortable cowboy. Jim Carrey is a freaking genius. What he had to do on "The Grinch" was unbelievable. The last thing you want to do is be funny after being in makeup for three hours and then climbing into a wet suit. When we were working on "Fun With Dick and Jane," he broke away to tell me how much I meant to him when he was a little dude watching me on "Gentle Ben." Eddie Murphy said the same thing to me. That means a lot.

Q: What are you currently working on? A: I just flew home yesterday from shooting a western with Nicolas Cage. Very friendly fellow. Such a pro. I play one of four bad guys that chase him. I hadn't been on location in a long time. It felt good to be back in the saddle. No pun intended.

Neal Justin covers the entertainment world, primarily TV and radio. He also reviews stand-up comedy. Justin is the founder of JCamp, a non-profit program for high-school journalists, and works on many fronts to further diversity in newsrooms.

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Oklahoma native Ron Howard and brother Clint to release memoir and more entertainment news

Ron Howard and brother Clint Howard to release memoir 'The Boys'

William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, today announced plans to publish "The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family" by Academy Award-winning filmmaker and Duncan native Ron Howard and his brother, fan-favorite character actor Clint Howard.

To be published Oct. 12, the book will feature the brothers frankly and fondly sharing their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors. 

The Howard brothers' parents, Rance and Jean Howard, were Duncan natives who met at the University of Oklahoma while taking a scene study class. They married in Kentucky while touring as actors in a children’s theater company and ultimately landed in New York. Their older son, Ron, was born in Duncan in 1954, but by the time younger son, Clint, was born in 1959, the family had relocated to California.

Although their parents moved to California to pursue their own showbiz dreams, it was their young sons who found steady employment as actors. Rance put aside his ego and ambition to become Ron and Clint’s teacher, sage and moral compass. Jean became their loving protector — sometimes over-protector — from the snares and traps of Hollywood.

“What was it like to grow up on TV?” Ron Howard has been asked this question throughout his adult life. In "The Boys," he and Clint examine their childhoods in detail for the first time. For Ron, playing Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days" offered fame, joy, and opportunity — but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as "Gentle Ben" and "Star Trek" dwindled in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons.

With the perspective of time and success — Ron as an award-winning filmmaker, producer and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a sought-after character actor — the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but. 

“Mom and dad‘s teachings are treasures to this day but I’ve realized that I took their presence for granted. Writing 'The Boys' with my brother has been the topper of a wonderful lifetime," said Clint Howard in a statement. 

Billed as "confessional, nostalgic, heartwarming and harrowing," "The Boys" is a dual narrative that lets readers into the Howard brothers’ closely held lives. It’s the journey of a tight four-person family unit that held fast in an unforgiving business and of two brothers who survived “child-actor syndrome” to become fulfilled adults.

In memory of their parents, Ron Howard last year gave a $90,000 gift to the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts at OU to establish a scholarship to support students in the college’s Helmerich School of Drama who come from rural areas across the United States.  

“When our dad passed in 2017, Clint and I began reflecting upon our lives and realized that while our childhoods seemed normal, they were anything but. Who grows up on a soundstage hanging out with Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, or with a trained bear? And what are the ways that particular childhood forever informed the choices I would make as a husband, father and filmmaker? We’re excited to share the story of how our parents pulled this off — raising two show-business kids who had no clue that their lives were out of the ordinary while rooting them in a loving, slightly off-beat family," Ron Howard said in a statement. 

Executive Editor Mauro DiPreta negotiated the book deal with CAA, according to a news release.

“As Ron and Clint came of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s as actors, America grew up with them. More than an exploration of the cultural touchstones of their TV and film work, though, these pages also convey a profound sense of brotherhood and the importance of family, all told with a self-deprecating humor and candor that completely wins you over," DiPreta said in a statement.

Amy Grant to headline virtual OKC fundraiser 

The Salvation Army of Central Oklahoma and Women’s Auxiliary will host the 33rd annual Celebration of Hope fundraiser virtually on June 3, with Dove and Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Amy Grant headlining. 

This year the event will celebrate The Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary and its 81 years of service to central Oklahoma.

“We are very excited to honor one of our auxiliary members this year, Annette Basey, who will receive a lifetime achievement award for her dedication and commitment over the years to selflessly serving others,” said Major Susan Ellis, area commander, in a statement. 

KWTV News 9 anchor Lacie Lowry will serve as emcee.

The Women’s Auxiliary represents generations of volunteers who have dedicated their time and talents to the mission of The Salvation Army. The Celebration of Hope event began 33 years ago to raise funds to purchase Christmas gifts for forgotten angels, children on the Angel Tree who were not adopted, but has grown to help fund many more programs.

All funds raised through this year’s event will benefit the ongoing programs at The Salvation Army of Central Oklahoma including the emergency shelter, food pantry, seniors programming, homeless outreach, and programs at The Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club.

Tickets for the event are $25 and can be purchased online at celebrationofhopeokc.com . All reservations must be made by May 28.

The event will be live-streamed from 7 to 8:30 p.m. June 3. A link to the virtual event will be emailed out to registrants the day before event.

Grant has special ties to Oklahoma as the wife of Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill, who was born in Norman, grew up in Oklahoma City and has maintained close connections to his home state. (Today is also his 64th birthday.

Carpenter Square Theatre launches first show since warehouse fire

Carpenter Square Theatre isn't letting the recent downtown Oklahoma City fire that destroyed the warehouse storing its costumes, props and sets put a damper on its 37th season: The venerable community theater launched Friday its latest production, “Ada and the Engine,” a comedy-drama based on historical figures who designed the first computer in the 1800s. 

Written by Lauren Gunderson, the play continues through May 1 at the theater's current performance space at 800 W Main in downtown OKC. 

Jane Austen meets Steve Jobs in this poignant pre-tech romance heralding the computer age.  As the British Industrial Revolution dawns in the 1800s, young Ada Byron Lovelace (daughter of the flamboyant and notorious Lord Byron) sees the boundless creative potential in the “analytic engines” of her friend and soul mate Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer. Ada envisions a whole new world where art and information converge — a world she might not live to see. It’s billed as "a music-laced story of love, friendship, and the edgiest dreams of the future."

For tickets and more information, go to www.carpentersquare.com . 

Executive Artistic Director Rhonda Clark tells me the response to Carpenter Square's “Phoenix Fund" is going well, but the nonprofit still has a long way to go. People can donate at www.gofundme.com/f/total-loss-from-fire-of-play-production-goods .

Taika Waititi-Sterlin Harjo series 'Reservation Dogs' casting indigenous youths

The Native American comedy "Reservation Dogs" — which is set in Oklahoma, where the pilot was filmed — is casting indigenous youngsters and teenagers ages 9 to 17  as additional episodes are currently filming in Tulsa and Okmulgee .

"Reservation Dogs" is the anticipated new series from Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi, who is of Maori ancestry, and Tulsa moviemaker Sterlin Harjo, who is a member of the Seminole and Creek nations.

Harjo's first foray into scripted television, "Reservation Dogs," which recently received an official series order at FX, is a new half-hour, coming-of-age comedy about four Native American teenagers growing up on a reservation in eastern Oklahoma who spend their days committing crime — and fighting it.

The series is co-created by Harjo ("Four Sheets to the Wind," "Mekko"), who also directed the pilot episode, and Waititi (“JoJo Rabbit,” “What We Do in the Shadows”), according to a news release. The series stars D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Paulina Alexis and Lane Factor. "Reservation Dogs" is executive produced by Harjo, Waititi and Garrett Basch (and produced by FXP).

The Oklahoma Film + Music Office estimates that the filming of the pilot episode for “Reservation Dogs”  generated $3.2 million in direct in-state spending on crew, lodging, supplies, rentals and more throughout the production’s primary hubs in Okmulgee and Tulsa County.

The production is estimated to have hired more than 100 local crew members for the six-day shoot which ran Sept. 6-11, 2020, with key filming sites including Okmulgee, Tulsa and Beggs. 

Even better, the series has the chance to be the proverbial gift that keeps on giving as it continues filming more episodes in Oklahoma.

The production is seeking the youth actors for filming to take place Friday, Monday and April 23. Those selected for the scenes will be required to test for COVID-19 in Tulsa 48 hours prior to filming and have a parent or guardian accompany them on set. Oklahoma-based Freihofer Casting issued the casting call. For more information, go to www.facebook.com/FreihoferCasting .

Oklahoma-made 'Girl Who Believes in Miracles' tops specialty box office

Two movies made in Oklahoma ranked high on the specialty box office chart over the weekend.

The Oklahoma-made movie "The Girl Who Believes in Miracles," which opened Friday in several theaters across the Sooner State, topped the specialty box office, which tracks independent, non-studio films. In its second weekend in theaters, the faith-based film from Atlas Entertainment scooped up $604,000, with its cumulative box office total doubling to more than $1.3 million, according to Deadline. 

Written and directed by Rich Correll (“Hannah Montana,” “Fuller House”) and produced by Laurence Jaffe, “The Girl Who Believes in Miracles” tells the story of a young girl named Sara (Austyn Johnson, “The Greatest Showman,” “The Post”), who takes God at His word and prays for people in her small town to be healed.

The faith-based film stars Oscar winner Mira Sorvino (“Mighty Aphrodite,” “Do You Believe?”), Kevin Sorbo ("Hercules" “Let There Be Light,” “God’s Not Dead”), and Emmy Award winner Peter Coyote ("The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," “E.T. The Extraterrestrial,” “A Walk To Remember”).

“The Girl Who Believes in Miracles” (former working title “The Mustard Seed”) was filmed in Oklahoma throughout the communities of Guthrie, Mustang, Bethany and Luther in September 2018. The film created 374 local jobs and a had direct impact of over $3 million in Oklahoma throughout the production process, according to the Oklahoma Film + Music Office.

“The Girl Who Believes in Miracles” also utilized the music incentive afforded by the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program for productions that record or license music in Oklahoma, working with Castle Row Studios in Oklahoma City to record the film’s musical score.

Deadline reports that the Academy Award-nominated holdover "Minari" (A24), which filmed in Tulsa in 2019, ranked No. 4 at the specialty box office over the weekend. The indie drama could cross the $3 million mark heading into the April 25 Oscars, which will air live in ABC. 

'Minari' adds to Oscars momentum with BAFTA win 

A week after her historic win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Youn Yuh-jung, star of the Oklahoma-made movie "Minari," earned more Oscars momentum — and charmed with her cheeky virtual acceptance speech — over the weekend at the  British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. 

Youn moved into the front-runner position in the best supporting actress category for the April 25 Oscars by securing the supporting actress BAFTA.

"I'm just very honored being nominated — well, not nominated, I'm the winner now!" Youn said in her acceptance speech before joking that "Every award is meaningful, but this one, especially being recognized by British people, known as snobbish people, (that) they approve of me as a good actor, I am very, very, very happy. Thank you so much."

More seriously, Youn also offered the British audience her condolences on the passing of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Filmed in Tulsa in 2019, writer-director Lee Isaac Chung’s powerful and poetic semi-autobiographical film tells a story of the American dream not often seen in mainstream movies: "Minari" stars best actor Oscar nominee Steven Yeun as the patriarch of a Korean immigrant family who relocates in the 1980s from Los Angeles to rural Arkansas to start a farm. He, his dubious wife Monica (Yeri Han), their two lively children — Anne (Noel Kate Cho) and David (Alan Kim) — and his feisty mother-in-law Soonja (Youn) weather tragedy and triumph in their quest to build a life in the Heartland.

"Minari" has been has steadily winning over moviegoers and earning acclaim over the past year, starting with earning both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival . A Golden Globe winner, the film is nominated for six Academy Awards  heading into the April 25 Oscars, which will air live in ABC. 

"Minari" will be released on DVD and Blu-ray, plus Digital, May 18 from Lionsgate.

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In 'The Boys,' Ron and Clint Howard mine memories of growing up in Hollywood

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• Tonya Mosley

People ask famous brothers Ron and Clint Howard all the time: “What’s it like to grow up on TV?”

But for Ron Howard, beneath that question lies another one — how he and his brother survived their childhoods in Hollywood.

The two acting legends have been in the business since they were in the single digits. Ron Howard got his big break as Opie Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Clint starred in iconic shows like “Star Trek” and “Gentle Ben.”

But the brothers say in order for people to understand the answer to that question, you first have to understand their father. When they would scuffle in the living room as kids, Ron Howard says their father would pull them apart and make it a teaching moment.

“Dad would grab us and he would say, ‘You guys have a chance to have something that's really valuable. You have a chance to be brothers and love each other and be best friends for the rest of your life,’ ” Ron Howard says. “ ‘Don't blow it now when you're kids.’ ”

Ron Howard says his dad was all about instilling the importance of family in order to survive growing up in Hollywood. The two brothers’ new memoir about that foundation is called " The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family .”

Ron Howard is best known for his extensive career as a child actor and an award-winning director. And Clint Howard has more than 200 acting credits. Their grounding came from their parent’s sensibility: Ron Howard says his mom would often call them "sophisticated hicks."

“They were comfortable in their own skin in a way that I don't fully understand,” Ron Howard says, “and it gave them a kind of confidence.”

Jean and Rance Howard left farm life in Oklahoma to pursue their own acting aspirations in the 1950s. After moving to Los Angeles, their dad immediately zeroed in on the need for child actors. And Ron Howard had an especially strong aptitude for taking acting directions from adults.

Rance Howard wanted to be a good father before anything else, Ron Howard says.

“His father was very negative, and I think that from the very beginning, dad saw all of this as a teaching opportunity,” Ron Howard says. “I think he saw it all as a chance to be a good father and give us something — not necessarily careers — but an experience where we could feel successful.”

Interview Highlights

On whether it bothered Rance Howard that his sons were more successful actors than he was

Clint Howard: “No, dad, never for a second. I didn't feel there was any competition or anything, and also I would take a little bit of exception to that. Dad worked a lot. Dad never achieved the sort of stardom that he probably dreamed of when he was a child. I know he dreamed of it. He wanted to be Roy Rogers. He wanted to be a singing cowboy, Gene Autry.”

Ron Howard: “Even though he couldn't carry a tune. Thank God nobody told him he couldn't sing. Go ahead, Clint.”

Clint Howard: “Listen, he was a great parent. Ron and I worked as children in show business, but mom probably saw 500 of my Little League games and high school baseball games. They were devoted parents.”

Ron Howard: “And by the way, speaking of mom, none of this happens without her. As I look back, her life, energy, her optimism and her intelligence and natural kind of leadership played such a role in any of this working out.”

Clint Howard: “Also to one thing about mom. She was extremely in her own gentle way. She was competitive when she got in front of a typewriter. She was typing and she wanted to be really good, and she'd get frustrated when she made a mistake.”

Ron Howard: “And when she wanted to put up Christmas decorations, then we would win the award on our block for the best-decorated home. But there was also this understanding of our business. And she loved that we had this great relationship with our father and that her husband was such a wonderful dad to her boys.”

On if the brothers ever considered giving up acting

Clint Howard: “Oh, certainly when I was 13 or 14 years old, I was developing an alternative, you know, an option for myself. I was going to be a journalist. [But] I enjoy my life as an actor and now I'm an author.”

Ron Howard: “It was definitely a survival story, you know? I mean, this is a business that sets young actors and performers up to fail. And it's just this undeniable reality that children are often winning and effective because they've kind of been taught to perform a bag of tricks. And it's the one thing that our father never did. His idea was to teach us from the beginning, assume that we had the emotional and intellectual capacity to understand what the scenes were about and connect with them with emotional honesty. Not here's how you fake cry. Not here's how you get a cute laugh and you pause and then do a double take. It wasn't mechanical. He was actually teaching us a craft. And it's why our childhood performances were different and winning. But it still didn't exclude us from that period of time when they can simply hire somebody who still looks your age. When you're 16, they can find an 18 year old who looks 16 and you don't have the limit of the work hours.”

On what revelations came from writing the book

Clint Howard: “I think it was interesting to look back and recognize how much the business as a kind of an industry and a culture has both changed and stayed the same. To sort of recognize the world we grew up in in the way it functioned, where it was much more of a World War II grizzled veterans, more like sailors and cowboys than the environment that we have now, which is, you know, even with crew members generally not only from all corners of the planet, but also college educated, aesthetically sensitive and interested. It's a very different world in that way. And yes, the job of telling the story that which entertains that which reaches an audience, those principles remain entirely unchanged.”

On Clint Howard’s struggles with alcohol and drug addiction

Clint Howard: “Listen, it was not the business. It wasn't disappointments in the business that made me want to anesthetize myself. I simply enjoyed it. It came back to bite me in the ass really hard. And in fact, I only had probably five or six years where I was successfully imbibing and anesthetizing myself. I'm so very grateful that I didn't die. And again, going back to what mom and dad did for me, I mean, there was a time in my life where I did not have the keys to their house. You know, that's very much Al-Anon, you know? Listen, I'd never stolen anything from them but that was one thing they did. And mom and dad had a wonderful, wonderful gift at helping their children. And I'm so grateful for that.”

On Ron Howard’s regret that he missed the signs of his brother’s addiction and whether he could have made a difference

Ron Howard: “Clint says there's no way I could have. I'll never believe that I couldn't. I not only missed it, but when I recognized it, I would even say to my parents, 'Hey, look, this is the reality of the moment. And he's got great friends. He's a high achiever. He's an athlete. Relax. Let him live his life.’ And I think I probably held my folks back from clamping down on him harder. And I can't help but believe that that might have spared Clint a lot of pain that came along later.”

On how Rance Howard wanted his sons to be there for each other

Ron Howard: “Yeah. we still have each other. it was great the way this book brought us together. It was interesting for me. I always kind of thought it was a fairly straight line, you know, I was very fortunate. I kind of, you know, I had good roles, good opportunities, I began to dream of directing. I worked my way into that situation, but as I looked back, I began to recognize that it was not a foregone conclusion that I was going to succeed in this business as an adult. No way, but my parents believed.”

On Ron Howard’s parenting style and daughter Bryce Dallas Howard

Ron Howard: "Bryce is also a director, and she did a fantastic documentary. It's called ‘Dads,’ and she coaxed out of me in an interview the admission that I was always trying to live up to my father as a parent. And I never felt I could ever get close. He was so remarkable and so is our mom, and we were blessed to have him.”

Emiko Tamagawa  produced and edited this interview for broadcast with  Todd Mundt .  Allison Hagan  adapted it for the web.

This segment aired on October 14, 2021.

Tonya Mosley Correspondent, Here & Now Tonya Mosley was the LA-based co-host of Here & Now.

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Ron and Clint Howard discuss their childhood memoir The Boys and the hardest story to write

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

Ron and Clint Howard had two of the most public childhoods you could imagine.

The famous brothers — Ron as a child actor and now renowned director and producer, Clint as a prolific character actor — got their start in Hollywood early. Ron rose to fame with projects such as The Music Man and his recurring role as Opie on The Andy Griffith Show , while younger brother Clint followed in his footsteps on shows like Gentle Ben .

But through it all, the two managed to weather the pitfalls and challenges that come with being a child star and go on to the rare achievement of Hollywood longevity. They credit their enduring success to their parents, Rance and Jean, but for the first time, their new memoir The Boys gives audiences unprecedented insight into what it was like growing up Howard.

Ron and Clint co-wrote the book, alternating their perspectives and taking readers inside their upbringing, as guided by their parents, who acted as both managers and mentors. It's a unique look at how one family maintained a sense of normalcy in the midst of a childhood that could've been anything but.

Before the memoir hits shelves Oct. 12, we called up the brothers to talk about why they wanted to put their childhood into a book, what the hardest story to write was, and what their beloved late parents would think of it.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Because you both grew up so much in the public eye, you've talked about your upbringing a lot. What made you decide you wanted to write a book about it?

RON HOWARD: There were a few things. I had thought about it, and I'd been asked about it. I'd even talked to my friend Tom Hanks about it, he said, "Sure you've had a fascinating life, but if you ever do write about it, I would focus on your childhood." That's because whenever we're sitting around on the set, those are the stories he wanted to hear about. He asked the same question so many people have asked me all my life, which is, "What was it like to grow up on television?" But what really pulled us together was the opportunity to use our past and use those anecdotes that look backwards and all the humor and the nostalgia of that to tell a family story about our very unique parents, and the very unique way in which they helped us navigate — to answer the Tom Hanks question — what was it like growing up on television. It was all about being Rance and Jean Howard's kids. And that compelled us to tell the story, especially after Dad passed.

Why did it make sense for you to write it together?

CLINT HOWARD: Initially, and this goes years back, we were sort of riding Dad to write a book about his experiences raising us in the business. He didn't want to do it, although Ron cajoled Dad into doing these long email stories about the very early days of the Howard family before Ron and I came around. Ron, why don't you talk about using what Dad wrote as sort of a springboard?

RON: Once we got serious about it, we wanted to dig deeper into the origin story of our family, certainly as it related to being a Hollywood family. I went back to the reminiscences that Dad had written, and there was so much detail there. It became a jumping-off place for us to tell the story of not just what it was like to be on The Andy Griffith Show or Gentle Ben , but what was it like to be a part of a family that was, in its own way, an immigrant family. Their roots did not suggest that they should succeed in Hollywood, and yet miraculously they did. There is logic there. Along these lines, [the book] looks at it from a parental perspective. There are a series of really great decisions they made and mistakes they avoided at every pivotal fork in the road. Their common sense, their Midwestern zen, their logic and principles and morals led them to make really strong decisions on their behalf, and on ours as well.

What was your writing process like? How much were you swapping sections and revising each other's work or trying to remember things together?

CLINT: Especially in the formation of our book, we started with an outline. We also have a wonderful collaborator named David Kamp. Once Ron and I really worked on how are we going to tell this story and it's a matter of two creative people going back and forth, with the help of David Kamp we established a frame on how we were going to do it. Then it was just left to I was going to write my sections and Ron was going to write his. From the very early drafts, Ron's pages [were] page-turning. I loved hearing about The Music Man . And I loved hearing about even the American Graffiti stories. Because Ron and I never talked shop as kids. We never sat around and discussed the day's work. We talked about baseball, we talked about school.

RON: The real test was writing the book presentation. It was very fluid, and it was also immediately, clearly cathartic. I found it emotional. I found it funny. I can also see that our voices are different enough that there's an entertainment value there. Clint's funny, and the way he phrases and thinks, it's unique. That's reflected in the sections that he writes. I always felt like the back-and-forth was going to be natural, in terms of being brothers who see things a little bit differently at times.

You are that rare family in Hollywood that has really remained so together and leaned on each other and seems to have not allowed fame to disrupt the family unit. That continues here with the way you write of your mom and dad, and Ron's daughter Bryce writing the intro. Why do you think you've managed to perpetuate that after all these years?

CLINT: The beautiful foundation that Mom and Dad that set down. I didn't go to college or anything like that. I went to the same public schools that Ron went to. I personally owe it all to the nurturing and the guidance that Mom and Dad gave me. I miss them both terribly. Mom passed away several years ago, and Dad, it was more recently. Every day I'll think about what the old man would say about something. What would Pop think? I'm always talking to my wife about Dad. As far as I'm concerned, Dad is alive and well in my household.

RON: We wanted to look back and savor the unique experiences of working on these various shows and what we learned, which was a lot. That's in many ways why our parents actually encouraged it. I don't think it was about being career film and television people. They felt this was an opportunity to learn how to excel at something, how to earn people's respect, and they saw that we had the capacity and the aptitude to do it. There's a lesson in that. There are a lot of parental lessons buried within this story, these object lessons of how to navigate unusual circumstances by using common sense and that ever abiding sense of a quality of love. But it really is also a survival story, because this is a business which sets young artists and performer up to fail. It just does. It's just built into the nature of it. My parents recognized that, they believed they could help us navigate it, and for the most part they really did.

The book describes how your father came at you with a method approach from your earliest days rather than leaning into an extreme naturalism or the more showy tricks of a child actor. For both of you, how much do you think that shaped your careers and the way you've approached all of your work since?

RON: It affects everything. To this day it is the foundation from which I built my sensibility, and now as a director, my aesthetic. Whatever the genre, whether it's kids fantasy or sci-fi or real-life problems. I'm always trying to go build from a place of truth and honesty, and that all came from the simple approach that Dad took, which was to not turn us into trained performers with a bag of tricks but to instead understand the emotional logic of a scene, and trust that conveying that was going to be relatable and could be entertaining. It really has been the foundation of my career all these decades now as a director and a producer.

What do you feel you each learned most about the other from writing this together?

RON: I realized how funny Clint is, how smart and witty he is, what a good writer he is. But I also did not recognize how competitive he had actually been. Not with me, but with the world around him, with the business. I was surprised by some of the things that had really disappointed him in his late childhood and early teens. It really surprised me, and I thought it was great of Clint to share those feelings the way he did.

CLINT: I had a wonderful position watching Ron mature from being a kid on television to being a hall-of-fame storyteller and filmmaker. It wasn't so much in writing the book, but writing the book brought it all back to mind. Ron, he worked so hard. And he kept his eyes focused on his goals so well. That's one thing about Ron: Ron may not have been the smartest guy in school, he may not have been the wittiest guy in school, but I'll tell you what, he stayed on a problem and it got solved. He's done that his entire life, and I so admire that.

Was there one story, maybe different ones for both, that scared you a bit to include or was difficult to find the right words for?

CLINT: As we were writing, it was so tilted toward Dad. Dad was the one that was our mentor and our guide acting-wise, but the fact is, as we were writing it, we realized how important Mom was. A lot of our notes, going back and forth while we were writing the book, were, "Hey, we got to be more fair to Mom." We needed to bring out the beautiful thing that she did. For instance, when Dad and I were gone down in Florida doing Gentle Ben , Mom took it upon herself to set up the Christmas lights even bigger and better than ever. Ron witnessed that. Ron witnessed how much mom busted her butt to get Christmas right, so when her husband and her young son came home, they could enjoy Christmas.

RON: There were a few things that were sort of difficult to revisit. Some of the unsettled feelings that I had around Happy Days were things that I talked about a little bit. But I've never delved into it in the way that I did in the book. I also recognize how emotional it was then and how vitally important it was to me then. Yet now putting it into perspective, I recognize that it was just part of my growth. It was an aspect of the real world that was good and healthy for me to face because it ultimately motivated me to go ahead and pursue my big dream, which was to be a filmmaker. But revisiting that I found uncomfortable. Also admitting that as Clint got older and began experimenting with drugs and alcohol and having some struggles there that I could recognize that I had made some poor choices in terms of recognizing what my brother needed from me and what my parents needed to hear from me that I had fallen short on or misjudged. It was painful to put that into writing, but important.

For both of you, your relationships with the work and how that shaped people's perceptions of you have evolved over the years, but did you find writing this helped you rethink or crystallize any of that in new ways for you?

RON: I have always looked forward and leaned into the idea that my professional goals, my personal goals were achievable, and I have achieved many of them. But when I look back, I recognize it was not a straight line. There's no way that that it was a foregone conclusion that I would travel from those childhood experiences both professional and personal and grow into the filmmaker that I've become, the professional who I've become, and that transition into the life and career that I've had would be something that could be actualized. So in many ways I realized how many zigs and zags and crossroads there actually were that I had either forgotten about or didn't really identify at the time how pivotal those moments might have been.

CLINT: I think differently than Ron on this, and partially it is our different career trajectories. I was a character actor from an early age. I was always zig-zagging. I was always doing a different character, doing some kind of odd thing, being an alien in Star Trek and predicting the end of the world in Night Gallery , playing with a bear. I was always zigging and zagging. But one thing — and this is something that I hope I've had it over the years — but writing the book really helped me, and that was having an attitude of gratitude. It starts with putting Mom and Dad down on paper, and seeing what kind of Herculean job they did in their own wise way. It wasn't like they were ham-fisted about it. Mom and Dad had a unique way of operating. I'm so grateful to be their son, and I just have a tremendous amount of gratitude being Ron's little brother. It's such a beautiful cool place to be, to be Ron Howard's brother. I get that question a lot as an adult. People think that there's envy or there's conflict, and there really isn't.

RON: I also found it very interesting to recognize that I grew up understanding on a granular, elemental level, innately, popular entertainment, and what it means to tell a story for a large audience. Later in my life, as I have gotten more involved in documentaries and scripted versions of true stories, I really learned and became excited about narrowing that and understanding the power of those details and more sophisticated relationships and complexity. But it was interesting to look back, and see that of course there's this foundation that was built for me, which is an understanding of the way a story can speak to a lot of people all at once.

When you have kids on a set when you're doing a project, do you try to impart any of the wisdom or feeling of the experiences you had back then to them?

RON: When I'm directing a child actor, I try to mimic what my father was able to create for us, which was an environment where a child can both perform and achieve, but also learn and grow as a person. And as an artist. I just had an experience where I directed 12 kids for a movie, and I had 12 boys from age 14 down to 9 who had never acted before. What I tried to do in that situation is imbue them with a sense of the story and understanding of the moments and needs of a production, but also how to bring themselves, their truth, their honesty to their role. On the last day of shooting, it was very emotional for all of us, because I felt like they had grown a lot, and I was proud of them and happy to have witnessed it.

What do you think your parents would think of the book?

CLINT: They'd love it.

RON: Even a story they might find a little embarrassing, they would say, "Go for it," because they were proud of themselves. They knew what they had accomplished. Maybe it wasn't the superstardom Dad dreamed of, they knew that in their own way they were outliers. They had that sense of gratitude, but also they believed they earned it. And they had.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Related content:

• Ron Howard defends Hillbilly Elegy against critics slamming 'political thematics'
• Ron Howard is developing an animated musical
• Andy Griffith: Ron Howard shares memories

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Brothers Ron and Clint Howard have memoir coming in October

This image released by William Morrow shows cover art for the upcoming memoir “The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family” by Ron Howard and Clint Howard. It’s scheduled to come out Oct. 12. (William Morrow via AP)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Filmmaker-actor Ron Howard and actor Clint Howard, brothers, former child stars and fellow Hollywood veterans, will now share their unusual story in book-length form.

The Howards have a deal with William Morrow for “The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family,” scheduled to come out Oct. 12. According to William Morrow, a HarperCollins Publishers imprint, the book will help answer a perennial question asked of Ron Howard: What was it like to grow up on television?

“In ‘The Boys,’ he and his younger brother, Clint, examine their childhoods in detail for the first time,” the publisher’s statement Monday reads in part. “For Ron, playing Opie on ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ and Richie Cunningham on ‘Happy Days’ offered fame, joy, and opportunity — but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as ‘Gentle Ben’ and ‘Star Trek’ petered out in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons.”

According to the Howards, “The Boys” was first inspired by the death of their father, actor Rance Howard.

“When our dad passed in 2017, Clint and I began reflecting upon our lives and realized that while our childhoods seemed normal, they were anything but,” Ron Howard, who as an adult has directed such acclaimed films as “Apollo 13” and “A Beautiful Mind,” said in a statement.

“Who grows up on a soundstage hanging out with Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, or with a trained bear? And what are the ways that particular childhood forever informed the choices I would make as a husband, father and filmmaker? We’re excited to share the story of how our parents pulled this off — raising two show-business kids who had no clue that their lives were out of the ordinary while rooting them in a loving, slightly off-beat family.”

Clint Howard, whose hundreds of other acting credits range from “Seinfeld” to several films by his brother, said in a statement: “Mom and dad‘s teachings are treasures to this day but I’ve realized that I took their presence for granted. Writing ‘The Boys’ with my brother has been the topper of a wonderful lifetime.”

Ron Howard’s daughter, actor-filmmaker Bryce Dallas Howard, wrote a foreword for the book.

Clint Howard

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Clint Howard (born April 20, 1959), the brother of Ron Howard and the son of Rance Howard , played Leon on The Andy Griffith Show . As a child, he also played recurring roles in the TV series "The Baileys of Balboa", "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and "Gentle Ben", & in an episode of Star Trek , Called The Corbomite Maneuver . His film appearances include The Courtship of Eddie's Father , Gentle Giant , Disney's The Wild Country , I Never Promised You a Rose Garden , Harper Valley PTA , Rock 'n' Roll High School , Tango & Cash , Disney's The Rocketeer , Ice Cream Man , Forget Paris , That Thing You Do! , Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery , The Protector , The Waterboy , Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me , My Dog Skip , Little Nicky , Austin Powers in Goldmember , Pauly Shore Is Dead , The Cat in the Hat , Fun with Dick and Jane , How to Eat Fried Worms , Halloween , Play the Game (with Andy Griffith ) and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian .

Clint has appeared in sixteen films directed by his brother Ron, Grand Theft Auto , Night Shift , Splash , Cocoon , Gung Ho , Parenthood , Backdraft , Far and Away , The Paper , Apollo 13 , EdTV , How the Grinch Stole Christmas , The Missing , Cinderella Man , Frost/Nixon , The Dilemma and Solo: A Star Wars Story . His voice has appeared in the animated Disney films Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree , The Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and in Universal's Curious George .

He is the coauthor of the 2021 book "The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family" with his brother, Ron Howard.

The Andy Griffith Show [ ]

• The Bank Job first identified as Leon
• One-Punch Opie as Leon
• A Black Day for Mayberry as Leon
• The Shoplifters as Leon

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• 1 Mary Simpson
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• 3 Sue Ane Langdon

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Ron howard and clint howard to release memoir.

In 'The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family,' out Oct. 12, the brothers will detail their family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors.

By Lexy Perez

Associate Editor

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Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and actor Clint Howard will tell their family story in a new memoir.

William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced Monday the publication of  The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, which is slated for an October release. In the upcoming memoir, the brothers will detail their family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors.

“By turns confessional, nostalgic, heartwarming, and harrowing,  The Boys is a dual narrative that lifts the lid on the Howard brothers’ closely held lives. It’s the journey of a tight four-person family unit that held fast in an unforgiving business and of two brothers who survived ‘child-actor syndrome’ to become fulfilled adults,” the publisher’s statement reads.

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“When our dad passed in 2017, Clint and I began reflecting upon our lives and realized that while our childhoods seemed normal, they were anything but,” Ron Howard said of the book. “Who grows up on a soundstage hanging out with Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, or with a trained bear? And what are the ways that particular childhood forever informed the choices I would make as a husband, father and filmmaker? We’re excited to share the story of how our parents pulled this off — raising two show-business kids who had no clue that their lives were out of the ordinary while rooting them in a loving, slightly off-beat family.”

“Mom and dad‘s teachings are treasures to this day but I’ve realized that I took their presence for granted. Writing The Boys with my brother has been the topper of a wonderful lifetime,” said Clint Howard.

In their memoir, Ron Howard and his younger brother, Clint, will examine their childhoods in detail for the first time such as the success and bullying Ron experienced from playing Opie on  The Andy Griffith Show  and Richie Cunningham on  Happy Days.  Meanwhile Clint, who starred on programs such as  Gentle Ben  and  Star Trek,  also writes about his adolescence and the tough consequences and lessons that he was confronted with.

Ron Howard’s daughter, actor-filmmaker Bryce Dallas Howard, pens the book’s foreword. Executive editor Mauro DiPreta negotiated the deal with CAA.

“As Ron and Clint came of age in the ’60s and ’70s as actors, America grew up with them. More than an exploration of the cultural touchstones of their TV and film work, though, these pages also convey a profound sense of brotherhood and the importance of family, all told with a self-deprecating humor and candor that completely wins you over,” DiPreta said.

The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family will be released on Oct. 12.

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Strange New Worlds' War Episode Features a Star Trek TOS Cameo

A longtime Star Trek actor who made his first appearance in The Original Series shows up for his sixth franchise cameo in Strange New Worlds Season 2.

The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 8, "Under the Cloak of War," now streaming on Paramount+.

The latest episode of Strange New Worlds is an emotionally heavy story featuring an ending some Star Trek fans will find controversial . The episode ties back to Star Trek: Discovery and the war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. However, amidst all this emotionally weighty drama, there's a cameo from an actor who appeared in The Original Series . Clint Howard plays Chief Medical Officer Commander Martinez, but everyone calls him "Buck."

The focus of "Under the Cloak of War" is on Chapel and M'Benga as they deal with the last bloody days of the campaign on the moon of J'Gal. The episode, written by Davy Perez, is a meticulous dramatization of a Forward Operating Base in a "modern" war. While they have transporters and tricorders (but no internal organ regenerator), they also have familiar modern terms like "the wire" and "tent city." In her first few minutes on the FOB, Chapel is promoted to head nurse and is nearly rocked off her feet by a bomb blast. Martinez, however, barely notices and tells her she will "get used to" the frequent indirect fire. Clint Howard is the bright spot in an episode of Star Trek that spends most of its time staring into the darkness.

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Clint Howard Played the Infamous 'Balok' on Star Trek: The Original Series

Before playing Commander Buck Martinez, Clint Howard appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series . Like his brother, Ron Howard, he was a working child actor. Producers cast him as a member of an alien species the Enterprise crew encountered. Even though he was only seven years old, he was supposed to be playing an adult alien. At 64, he doesn't look all that different from his appearance in Star Trek: TOS. If he'd never acted again after the Season 1 episode "The Corbomite Maneuver," Howard would still be beloved by Trekkies and Trekkers alike. Balok was a member of a diminutive alien species -- the ethics and morality of the Enterprise crew. With his dialogue overdubbed by an adult actor, Balok revealed the deception when Kirk and company boarded the vessel, including a silly-looking alien puppet he used to hide his appearance.

It's not even entirely clear what it is about the character that fans love so much. The alien puppet who appears more than Howard's character, would have been one of The Original Series ' worst visual effects because of how fake it looks. So, when the show reveals that it is actually a puppet in the final scene, it's a clever twist.

Along with Balok, Howard has portrayed two more aliens. One was as the Ferengi called Muk in an episode of Enterprise . He also appeared on Discovery as an unnamed Orion in Season 1, Episode 15, "Will You Take My Hand?" He also appeared as Grady, a human, in the second half of Deep Space Nine 's iconic time-travel two-parter "Past Tense." With each appearance over the past 57 years, Clint Howard's roles bring moments of levity to even the heaviest episodes. Cmdr. Martinez is no different. Still, Balok remains his most well-known Star Trek character.

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Clint Howard Is the Only Actor to Appear in Live-Action Star Trek and Star Wars Without Heavy Costumes

Howard is one of five actors, including Majel Barrett, who played Nurse Chapel, to appear on both The Original Series and Enterprise , the final show of the franchise's second wave. He, Barrett and veteran alien actor Joseph Ruskin are the only actors to appear on The Original Series and Deep Space Nine . He's currently the only actor cast in an on-screen role in both The Original Series and the modern Star Trek shows. (Pavel Chekov actor Walter Koening did a voiceover cameo in the Picard series finale.) Along with his Trek bona fides, Howard is one of the dozen or so actors who've appeared in both Star Trek and Star Wars .

Actors like Jason Wingreen and Deep Roy have appeared in both franchises, usually playing characters whose faces are covered. Other actors, like George Takei and Olivia D'abo, appeared physically in Star Trek and as voiceover actors in animation on the Star Wars side. Only Clint Howard and Fionnula Flanagan have shown up in Star Trek and Star Wars playing characters whose faces audiences can see. Flanagan appeared in the made-for-TV movie Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure , which isn't considered "canon." Howard, however, appeared as Ralakili, the man who ran the droid fighting pit in Solo: A Star Wars Story . So, he's the only actor to appear with his face uncovered in both Star Trek and Star Wars , at least in the canon. Clint Howard is an important member of the Star Trek "family," and every time he shows up, it's a delight.

Commander Martinez's role is about as brief as his appearance as Balok. Yet, the Strange New Worlds character is one of the most authentic characters in either sci-fi franchise. It's a subtle performance, from his use of deception to get Nurse Chapel stationed at his FOB to how unbothered he was by indirect fire hitting the FOB. "Under the Cloak of War" is very light on comedy, but as he always does, Clint Howard shows up to lighten the mood and capture the hearts of Trekkies.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuts new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+ .