Sure, he may be an Academy Award winning director now (for A Beautiful Mind, 2001), but to many TV viewers, Ron Howard will always be all-American boy Richie Cunningham from the series Happy Days. The show, which kicked off its ten year run on ABC in 1974, launched Richie and pals Ralph Malph, Potsie and, of course, "the Fonz" into the annals of pop culture. Ron Howard was already a familiar face before Happy Days' success, getting his start in movies like The Journey (1959), The Music Man and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (both 1962). And of course, no one can forget Ronny Howard (as he was then billed) as Opie, the freckled-faced son of Sheriff Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show. Unlike many child actors, Ron Howard continued to get good roles as a teenager and young adult, including the pilot for a "1950's revival sitcom" which the network initially turned down. The show was packaged into a popular skit called Love and the Happy Days for the show Love, American Style. At the time, Howard's star was on the rise in films too, playing another high school teen in George Lucas' American Graffiti (1973). The success of these two ventures convinced the network to take a chance on Ron Howard and Happy Days. And they never looked back. Happy Days place in the Top 20 TV shows for eight years of its run and landed at number one for the 1976-77 season. Howard left the show in 1980, after six years, to pursue his dream of becoming a director. But Richie Cunningham, that clean cut personification of 50's Americana lives on, still hanging out at Arnold's in reruns.

by Stephanie Thames