Life and Work
Howard was born in South Norwood, London, the son of Ruth Evelyn (Martin) and film actor Leslie Howard. After graduating from Jesus College, Cambridge, Ronald Howard became a newspaper reporter for a while but decided to become an actor.
His first film role was an uncredited bit part in Pimpernel Smith (1941), a film directed by and starring his father in the title role, though young Howard's part ended up on the cutting room floor. In the early 1940s, Howard gained acting experience in regional theatre, the London stage and eventually films, his official debut in While the Sun Shines in 1947. Howard received varying degrees of exposure in some well-known films, such as The Queen of Spades (1949) and The Browning Version (1951). Howard played Will Scarlet in the episode of the same name of the 1950s British television classic The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Richard Greene. The character of Scarlet was later portrayed by Paul Eddington.
The 1954 Sherlock Holmes television series, based on the Arthur Conan Doyle characters and produced by Sheldon Reynolds, ran for 39 episodes starring Howard as Holmes and Howard Marion-Crawford as Watson. In addition to 21st century DVD releases, in 2006 this series was being broadcast for the first time in the UK on the satellite channel Bonanza.
Howard continued mainly in British "B" films throughout the 1950s and '60s, most notably The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964), along with a few plum television guest roles in British and American television in the 1960s, including as Wing Commander Hayes in the 1967 Cowboy in Africa TV show with Chuck Connors and Tom Nardini. In the mid-1970s, he reluctantly put aside his acting career to run an art gallery. In the 1980s, he wrote a biography, covering the career and mysterious death of his father, whose plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay on 1 June 1943.
Read more about this topic: Ronald Howard (British Actor)
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or work:
“Whenever [Leonard Bernstein] entered or exited a country he would fill in on his passport form not composer or conductor, but musician. Of course people in the press spent a lot of Lenny’s life telling him what he should have done; he should have been a concert pianist, he should have composed more.... And people wouldn’t let him live his own life. But he created his own career, in his own image.”
—John Mauceri (b. 1945)
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)