Actor Clint Howard Cool with Simply Being 'That Guy'

[Zoneboy]

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Clint Howard orders a big tuna salad and a Diet Coke at Jo's on Second Street, and mere moments into the transaction the cashier, a young, clean-cut man, compliments the actor's Cheap Trick T-shirt, a florid garment that catches then blisters the eye.

Howard loves this and jumps into an explanation that he and guitarist Rick Nielsen are friends.

Then it comes, because it always comes: "Are you an actor?" the cashier asks.

"Not to sound like one of those old-timers, but I've been in the business 48 years and have been recognized before I can remember," Howard says as he cosies into a booth. "It's so second nature to me. There's no denying it's an ego stroke, but I put it in context. If I can make somebody's day because they've run into a guy who's been on television and in movies, that's fine.

"Hey, that guy started the conversation in the right place -- with Cheap Trick, baby." Howard says this with a big smile that shows-off his trademark tooth gap.

Public recognition comes with the terrain of being a nearly ubiquitous character actor since the 1960s. Think Gentle Ben. Think Star Trek. Think Frost/Nixon. That's how he met the Cheap Trick axman: Nielsen spotted Howard in the audience at one of the band's shows and invited him backstage.

"He had just been watching an episode of The Andy Griffith Show that I was in," Howard recalls.

(Later, Howard is stopped on the sidewalk by a trio who ask if he has a part in his brother Ron's new film Angels & Demons. Nah, he says. But the new movie is exceedingly better than its predecessor The Da Vinci Code, he volunteers. He didn't like that movie. His fans nod in unison.)

As if haunted by the fact, Howard repeatedly brings up that he turned 50 on April 20, a birthdate he shares with Adolf Hitler, he says with a high-pitched cackle-laugh.

Howard has a bit part in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which opened Friday. It's a typical character role for an actor who claims more than 200 film and television appearances. You might have seen him in Night Gallery or Apollo 13 or Austin Powers or Gunsmoke or Bonanza or Happy Days or Backdraft. Whatever, you have seen him.

"One reason I've worked in so many eclectic things is because I rarely say no," Howard says. "I've never gotten picky about roles. I let God sort of be the casting director."

Howard is also famous, of course, for that famous brother. Antsy McLain and the Trailer Park Troubadours, even wrote a song about him titled Ron Howard's Brother.

"It's better to be Ron Howard's brother than Charlie Manson's brother," he says. "We have a great dynamic. He's a better big brother than he is a movie director."

That's not to say that Howard thinks his brother is a shabby filmmaker. Hardly.

"In 100 years, he's going to be known as a really, really good filmmaker," he says. "He's really underrated."

Clint Howard's career has profited from the relationship, as Ron has cast him in small parts in many films.

"I'm always lobbying him for work," Howard says. "Ron's a chief, and I'm an Indian. I can badger him as his little brother, but that doesn't get very far."

Howard comes across as balanced, a smidgen goofy, happy and adjusted, especially for a former child actor who's never broken into superstardom. Asked if he's had his dire, substance-abusing nadirs, he puts it this way: "I haven't had a drink in a long time, and I remember the day I took my last drink."

Still, he shrugs off the child-actor curse.

"Is it hard to be a child actor? Probably. Was it hard for me? No. My parents, both actors, raised us with a set of strong, Midwestern values. I've known since I was a little kid that the whole fame and fortune thing is false, it's not what's important. What's important is you do a good job, you go home and you be a good guy with your family. Anybody who thinks the purpose of being in the business is to be famous, they are bound for trouble."

[JamesG]

Clint Howard is awesome.

[browneyes106]

lol I liked Clint in that movie.

[catlover79]

Clint seems like one cool guy. Same goes for Ron.

[phoebe7165]

The cashier asked "Are you an actor?" Are you kidding? I would recognize Clint in a heartbeat. Then again, that's just me.

In fact, I just happened upon AMC(I think that was the channel) yesterday and they were playing the movie "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" and Ron Howard was Eddie. There was a scene where Eddie was having a birthday party and Clint was one of the kids in the scene. I thought "why am I not surprised??!!"