After reading Henry Winkler’s recent memoir I was curious to hear Ron Howard’s story. According to Winkler, the two men have a deep and abiding friendship but I was curious to hear the other side (spoiler: it’s true). I didn’t know about Clint Howard. 

Reading about the Howard family and the brother’s relationship plus their Hollywood careers was interesting. I loved the behind the scenes takes and Ron Howard’s enthusiasm for “the wizardly craft of creating moving-picture illusions”. It was fun to learn more about Ron’s early acting and then trajectory as a director. Clint’s story was also engaging. Their writing collaborator alternated their voices so it felt like an ongoing conversation. If you like behind the scenes, give this one a try. Especially if you are old enough to remember Mayberry. 😉

“Andy directed his writers to model the Andy-Opie relationship more on the Rance-Ronny one. I was flabbergasted to learn about this conversation; Dad had never breathed a word of it to me. But I was also moved - more than moved. This was a key moment in my life, revealed to me years after the fact: in the distant past of my early childhood, when they still barely knew each other, the two men who effectively charted my future, had held this conversation, and they had come to a mutual understanding, derived from mutual respect.”