>>>I have been a loyal reader of this digest since the mid 1990's and have NEVER seen anyone address this issue of Ron Howard's incredible talent at such a young age.<<<
I don't mean to contradict you, Ted, but this subject has been brought up different times. In fact, I tried to locate a post I made, perhaps a few months ago--I don't remember--but was unsuccessful. In it I compared, just as an example, Ron Howard to Larry Mathews, who played Richie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" during the same time period. Ron as Opie had such a naturalness about his acting. It's easy to believe that Opie is a real boy doing and saying the things that real boys do. He never seems to be aware of himself. Larry Mathews, on the other hand, often displayed that self-awareness, as if he was thinking, "Hey, I'm pretty cute and funny." If he said something humorous, you could see that he was trying to suppress a smile. I speculated that the way the two shows were filmed probably gave Ron Howard an advantage. Not to take anything away from Ron, of course, but it had to be more difficult for a child to act in front of a live audience as opposed to just in front of a c amera with no audience present. In fact, just compare Ron's acting in TAGS with his acting in "Happy Days" when he was older. I, frankly, didn't think he was as good in that show. There was that self-awareness that comes with acting in front of a live audience that I glimpsed from time to time in Richie Cunningham that I never saw in Opie. Of course, the writing probably had something to do with that, too. I also think the one-camera set-up used in TAGS contributed to the realism of the show. It was done more like a film rather than a play. So I believe several things worked together to make TAGS such a superlative show and to bring the best out in the actors. Even so, Ron Howard was, in my opinion, one of the greatest child actors of all time. Thelma Lou (Janet) _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list WBMUTBB@wbmutbb.com http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
