Veteran Hollywood actor and father of director Ron Howard
Born: November 17, 1928;
Died: November 25, 2017
RANCE Howard, who has died aged 89, was a veteran Hollywood actor and the father of the movie director Ron Howard. His acting career spanned more than 60 years and included several films made by his son.
He was born Harold Engle Beckenholdt in Duncan, Oklahoma, the son of a farmer and changed his name when he became an actor. He began his career in the late 1940s and went on to play more than 250 roles - one of his most famous was as Dr McIvers in the long-running 1970s drama series The Waltons.
In all, Howard's acting career spanned more than five decades and enjoyed a late flowering when his son, by then a hugely successful director, began casting his father in his movies. Howard appeared in several of his son's films, including Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Splash, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Parenthood and Grand Theft Auto, which father and son wrote together; the 1977 film was also Ron Howard's directorial debut.
Rance Howard's other film credits include Chinatown and the 2013 drama Nebraska. On television, he appeared in many series including Seinfeld, Murder She Wrote, NCIS: Los Angeles, Grey's Anatomy and the popular sit-com set in the 1950s Happy Days, which also starred his son.
Rance Howard had been married to the late Jean Speegle Howard, having met as teenagers doing a touring children's production in Oklahoma of classic fairy tales.
They married on the tour dressed in their costumes, with the bride dressed as Snow White and the groom as a huntsman.
Ron Howard's daughter, the actress Bryce Dallas Howard, paid tribute to her grandfather by sharing Henry Van Dyke's poem Gone From My Sight along with the message: "My grandfather, the patriarch of our family's favourite poem, he could recite it from heart. I think I'll do the same now."
The Van Dyke poem about death ends: "Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone," there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, 'Here she comes!' And that is dying."
Ron Howard wrote, on behalf of himself and his brother Clint: "Clint and I have been blessed to be Rance Howard's sons.
"Today he passed at 89. He stood especially tall for his ability to balance ambition with great personal integrity.
"A depression-era farm boy, his passion for acting changed the course of our family history."
Rance Howard is survived by Ron, his other son actor Clint Howard, and grandchildren Bryce Dallas Howard and Paige Howard.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here