American filmmaker who first achieved fame as a child actor and who later became a respected director.

Howard's parents were in show business, and he made his first screen appearance, in Frontier Woman (1955), at the age of 18 months. His first onstage appearance came at age two in a summer-stock production of The Seven Year Itch, and, as Ronny Howard, he soon was appearing on various television series, including Playhouse 90, General Electric Theatre, The Danny Thomas Show, The Fugitive, and Dr. Kildare, as well as in the film The Journey (1959).

In 1960 Howard began portraying one of his best-known characters, Opie Taylor, on The Andy Griffith Show, which ran for eight years. He was also featured in such films as The Music Man (1962), The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963), and The Wild Country (1971) and made numerous appearances in television series episodes. In 1973 Howard experienced his first big film hit, American Graffiti, and the following year saw the beginning of another of his best-known characters, Richie Cunningham, on the series Happy Days, which ran until 1980.

Howard had already developed an interest in directing, however, and after high school he spent two years in the University of Southern California's film program. In 1977 he made his directorial debut with Grand Theft Auto, and its financial success led to further opportunities. Among his early hits were a series of comedies that included Night Shift (1982), which centred on two morgue employees (played by Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton) who turn their workplace into an escort service; Splash (1984), an unconventional romance between a man (played by Tom Hanks (Hanks, Tom)) and a mermaid (Darryl Hannah); and Parenthood (1989). In Apollo 13 (1995) Howard re-created the spacecraft's 1970 flight that nearly ended in disaster. The film was both a critical and commercial success.

After the film adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Howard directed A Beautiful Mind (2001), a biopic about Nobel Prize-winning mathematical genius John Nash (Nash, John F., Jr.) (Russell Crowe (Crowe, Russell)) and his struggle with schizophrenia. The critically acclaimed film earned Howard an Academy Award for best director and was named best picture. Howard's later films include Cinderella Man (2005), which was based on the Depression-era boxer James Braddock (Braddock, James J.) (Russell Crowe), and The Da Vinci Code (2006), a film adaptation of Dan Brown (Brown, Dan)'s best-selling thriller. In 2008 he directed Frost/Nixon, about the interviews between British television personality David Frost and U.S. Pres. Richard M. Nixon (Nixon, Richard M.) after the latter resigned from office. His efforts earned Howard another Academy Award nomination for best director.

In 1986 Howard cofounded (with Brian Grazer) the production company Imagine Entertainment. In addition to films, Imagine produced numerous television shows, including 24, Friday Night Lights, and Arrested Development.