The Boys : A Memoir of Hollywood and Family(111)
Mom and Dad did their best to help me. Throughout my dark decade, they were the one consistent positive in my life. They went to meetings of Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, fellowship programs for the loved ones of people experiencing addiction. (These are distinct from Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, which are twelve-step programs for addicts pursuing recovery.) That first time I went into treatment, Dad, in solidarity, quit drinking, too. He never took another drop. Like a normie, which is what we in the recovery community call those who aren’t afflicted by addiction, he remarked to me that he didn’t miss it at all. For Mom, my troubles were especially hard to bear because she viewed my problems as an inheritance from her side of the family. But that didn’t make anything her fault.
Like a lot of addicts, I needed a few tries before recovery took. Ron, bless him, consistently cast me in his movies throughout my using years. I prided myself on delivering for him and carrying myself with the utmost professionalism on his sets. In 1990, though, when we were making Backdraft, his movie about professional firefighters, he made a strange request of me.
I played an autopsy technician in the film and had a scene to do with Robert De Niro, who played a Chicago F.D. captain. De Niro, Kurt Russell, and Billy Baldwin researched their roles by shadowing real firefighters. Ron suggested that I do the same in my character’s field. So I went to the L.A. County Morgue to observe the professionals there. I saw victims of overdoses, drug-related murders, and drunk drivers. Nearly every cold body lain out before me on a slab represented a life cut short, directly or indirectly, by drink or drugs. That was a huge wake-up call.
On June 14, 1991, I cried uncle. I was no longer deriving any joy from drinking or taking drugs, though lord knows I kept trying to the bitter end. This time, there was no expensive treatment program, no getaway to a gated rehab center. I found a home group, the AA term for a meeting one attends on a regular basis, and a sponsor. One day at a time, my life started to improve.
Dad really stepped up for me in this shaky period of recovery. Ron and Cheryl had moved to the East Coast in 1985, after their twins Paige and Jocelyn were born, and were understandably busy raising small kids. In his firm but loving way, Dad helped me along my path without any of the hair-trigger anger he displayed the day that I thrust my bong in his face. He and Mom laid down firm guidelines for me as I rebuilt my life. Gradually, I regained their trust and my own sense of self-worth. I reconnected with the Clint who didn’t need a drink, a toke, or a toot to get through the day.
I’M HAPPY WITH my lot as a character actor and my place in the industry. It isn’t the exalted place where Ron lives, but it suits me just fine. I’m more like Dad: a working actor who waits for the phone to ring. Sometimes there are moments of profound frustration, but hey, that’s the life that I signed up for. The pisser about being an actor is that you can’t make anyone hire you; all you can do is suit up, apply what you know, and do the best you can.
My phone has never rung off the hook, but it has rung enough to keep me going. I have well over two hundred TV and movie credits to my name. Some of these are horror pics you’ve never heard of unless you’re a dedicated consumer of the genre. Lots of my jobs have paid me no more than scale or just a hair above. You know what? I’m damned proud of them all. How many people have sustained an acting career from their toddler years to their sixties?
It’s fair to say that I have entertained literally millions of people over the years, in movies ranging from Rock ’n’ Roll High School to Evilspeak to Austin Powers to The Waterboy. That, along with still being alive and still working, is a testament to my resilience and the support and guidance I was privileged to receive from Rance and Jean Howard.
Oh, and being Ron’s brother is pretty cool, too.
24
Richie Grows Up
RON
I could say the same of being Clint’s brother. As different as we are and as divergent as our paths have sometimes been, I can’t get enough of his unique, brilliant Clint Howard brain. There is no one else like him. I adore listening to him speak and watching him act.
I’m far from alone in this. Clint has routinely received significant parts in my films: as the flight controller Sy Liebergot in Apollo 13, for example, and as the floor manager in Frost/Nixon. The fans love him and want to see more of him. A question I frequently get from strangers when I meet them in public places is, “Will Clint be in your next movie?” There’s always a happy glint of recognition in viewers’ eyes when he shows up on-screen.
MY ACTING CAREER was winding down when I decided to visit Clint on the set of Rock ’n Roll High School in 1979. I wanted to check out what he was doing with my old compadre Allan Arkush and the other Cormanites with whom I had worked.
When I showed up, Roger himself happened to be around. He was in a good mood. “Ron, how fortuitous that you would be here today!” he said. “Come to my office.”
When we got there, he asked me to take a seat. “I just sold the TV rights to Grand Theft Auto to CBS for $1.1 million,” he announced. “That makes your 7.5 percent of the net profits look pretty good. And it makes my 92.5 percent look fucking fabulous.’
I was still a ways from being anything resembling a Hollywood player, but this was a start. I was learning to be more assertive, to advocate for myself more. When the sixth season of Happy Days was about to begin in 1978, I decided that enough was enough and played hardball with the network. On a lawyer’s advice, I held out from the first day’s shooting, demanding a salary commensurate with my workload and the show’s level of success. Cheryl and I spent the day at Disneyland instead of Stage 19 at Paramount, to keep me distracted from the proceedings.