It began with a cowboy hat and a dream.
Nine times out of ten, one of the key requirements of being a kid on television is to be adorable. Luckily, the Howard brothers had this in spades. This, combined with their early performance education from their parents, who were also actors, meant that Clint and Ron Howard seemed almost destined to be on screen.
According to the Howard brothers’ book, The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, Clint was actually so darn adorable that he won himself the role of Leon, Mayberry’s sweetest sandwich-eater.
Clint wrote, “My clothing landed me my first job. Dad loved anything to do with the Old West. Knowing this, Mom dressed me up as a toddler in a perfectly sized cowboy getup: hat, kerchief, snap button Western shirt, fringed buckskin jacket, and boots. With my tousled blond hair and chubby cheeks, I looked friggin’ adorable.”
Mrs. Howard decided that she wanted to share this wealth of cuteness, and brought her son to visit the set of The Andy Griffith Show, “One day, Mom brought me to the set in this outfit, and Bob instantly came up with a role for me. At first, I was just an extra, but then the writers developed a running bit for my ‘character,’ such as he was, named Leon.”
Leon dons the same cowboy costume that Clint wears, and while the character had no lines, he certainly was memorable. You’d commonly see Leon in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show offering Mayberry residents a very polite bite of his sandwich.
Leon was just as adorable as the Howard brothers were, and Clint was overjoyed to play the character. Just like that, his acting career took off on The Andy Griffith Show set. Like any good sibling, he found himself following in his brother’s footsteps. Clint wrote, “Just like that, I, too, was in the business. Like Ron’s career, mine began organically, as a matter of circumstance. The difference for me is that Ron had provided a blueprint. My folks now knew that if I wanted to go down the same route, they could manage it.”
