Actor Clint Howard is the younger brother of acclaimed filmmaker Ron Howard
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, Clint has also dabbled in music, sports and the arts, with passions across multiple disciplines.
Clint and Ron 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 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
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
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. 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,” Clint said in an appearance on The View. “It was beautiful and it gave me confidence.”
He was the lead singer of a band
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, Clint 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
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 and recently shared a snap of multiple snow globes on Instagram, captioning the post, “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
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.”
