Category Archives: Transhuman News

One person was killed and 14 others were injured in a shooting at a bar inSaint Paul, Minn.early Sunday.

According to theSaint Paul Police Department, officers responded to the scene onWest7th Street around 12:15 a.m. to find 15 people suffering from gunshot wounds.

A woman in her 20's was declared dead while the 14 others were transported to local hospitals and are expected to recover from their wounds.

No arrests have been made and the police said five investigators are currently working to "piece together" what precipitated the shooting.

Early information indicated that there were multiple shooters, though a motive has not yet been identified.

My heart breaks for the woman who was killed, her loved ones and everyone else who was in that bar this morning,Saint Paul Chief of Police Todd Axtell said in a statement.

In an instant, they found themselves caught in a hellish situation. I want them to know that we have the best investigators in the country, and we wont stop until we find the people responsible for this madness. We will do our part to hold them accountable," said Axtell.

According to Saint Paul police, this is the 32nd homicide inthe city this year.

See more here:
1 dead, 14 others injured in Saint Paul shooting | TheHill - The Hill

The Arizona Cardinals come into this game at 4-0.

That means they have something to prove. They will simply have something to prove every week from here on out.

As the Cardinals try and show that they are for real every game becomes the biggest game of the week.

The Cardinals get a chance to show who they are against a desperate and hurting San Francisco 49ers team.

Can they show up and set the tone?

Here is everything you need to know about the game today.

Who: Arizona Cardinals (4-0) vs San Francisco 49ers (2-2)

Where: State Farm Stadium, Glendale, AZ

When: October 10, 2021 - 1:25 p.m. Arizona Time

TV: Fox (Channel 10 Locally) - Kevin Kugler (play-by-play) Mark Sanchez (analyst) Laura Okmin (sideline reporter)

Streaming: Fubo TV

Local Radio: Arizona Sports 98.7 FM - Dave Pasch (play-by-play) Ron Wolfley (analyst) and Paul Calvisi (sideline)

Spanish Radio: KHOV 105,1 FM - Luis Hernandez (Play-by-Play) Rolando Cantu (Color Analyst)

Odds: Cardinals -5.5Over/Under: 48.5DraftKings Sportsbook

Read the original here:
Arizona Cardinals vs San Francisco 49ers (2021) first half open thread - Revenge of the Birds

For generations, students in American elementary schools were taught Christopher Columbus "sailed the ocean blue" to discover America in 1492. Today, that lesson is changing in schools across the suburbs and country.

Contrary to the once-popular rhyme and belief, the American continent had been inhabited for centuries, and other explorers from Europe, Asia and Africa already had been here. And lessons about Columbus have become much more nuanced in suburban classrooms, at least in the higher grades.

Critics say Columbus was responsible for atrocities committed by his crew, some perhaps at his direction, against the inhabitants of the islands he encountered.

Columbus statues nationwide have sparked protests, leading to the removal of many of them, including monuments at Chicago's Grant and Arrigo parks.

Although Columbus Day -- observed today -- is recognized as a federal and state holiday in Illinois, a growing number of states, cities, towns and counties now celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead, to honor Native American history and acknowledge the impact of colonialism on Indigenous communities.

President Joe Biden commemorated both holidays on Friday, noting in his remarks the contributions to society Italian Americans have made and continue to make.

The debate between Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day also is raging in classrooms nationwide, said Anna Veksler, who teaches honors U.S. history and current events at Round Lake High School.

"We do have to realize that the story has shifted, and we do have new resources, new information and new viewpoints that we want to present," Veksler said. "Of course, we never want to teach (students) the wrong narrative, but very often we present them with the sources and we let them create their own narratives."

Many educators say it's not revisionist history, but rather teaching students a more accurate version of Columbus' story, which includes the Indigenous perspective and uses original sources to paint a more realistic picture.

"It's changed because we share the truth more," said Paul Friedrich, who teaches global studies, Advanced Placement U.S. history and current events at Vernon Hills High School. "We share the actual narrative of what happened. It's not hard to make it accurate. All you've got to do is read (Columbus') notes on his first voyages."

Columbus' description of the natives he encountered from his notes reveals he didn't see them as a threat because they didn't possess metal tools or weapons.

"He keeps describing the perfect slave," Friedrich said. "He fits in with the general, European worldview of others as less or even not human at all. It's the beginning of a cultural narrative of purposeful and accidental (because of disease) genocide of the aboriginal people here."

Friedrich said he guides students "to approach history like a historian does" and draw their own conclusions based on actual evidence.

"That's the impetus of this broader cultural discussion about, 'Do we really want statues of this guy?'" Friedrich said. "I am not saying that we should think about Columbus either this way or that way. Thomas Jefferson was not either a bigoted, racist slaveholder or a progressive liberal thinker about democracy. The challenge is that he's both."

Columbus still is a hero to many people, young and old alike. Particularly, for many Italian Americans, Columbus Day is a time to celebrate Italian heritage and the contributions of Italian Americans to the nation.

"This is a 130-year-old tradition that means a lot to us," said Ron Onesti of Wood Dale, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, a congress of more than 50 groups in the Chicago area. "It's the one day of the year that our Italian heritage is celebrated, and that's what people can't forget. We believe in reconciliation, righting wrongs and making amends. We just want to be a part of that discussion."

History always has been reinterpreted over time, and teaching students how to be historiographers helps hone their critical-thinking and inquiry skills, said David Bell, social studies coordinator for Round Lake Area District 116.

"When I taught high school, our big topic with Columbus was always, 'Was he a hero?'" he said. "Forcing the kids to choose one or the other isn't the goal. There's nothing more important (that) we do as historians and as social studies teachers than teach kids how to look at a source critically and ask questions about it."

A positive byproduct of the Columbus controversy is a growing call for re-examining the facts surrounding historical figures.

"At young ages and elementary levels ... they're kind of learning this, sort of, airbrushed, quasi-nationalistic, patriotic version of history ... where everything is kind of bright and shiny and everything is good," said Geoffrey Guiney, who teaches sociology at Elgin High School. "But when we get them into high school, we're doing them a disservice if we're not teaching them to look more critically at those things. It's kind of teaching them to look at their own society critically and to look at their 'historical heroes' ... more critically. You don't really understand history if you only know those bright, shiny parts of it."

Continue reading here:
How controversy has changed the way Columbus' story is taught in schools - Daily Herald

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They dont know beforehand what roles well ask them to talk about.

The actor: Celebrating 60 years in show business this year, Clint Howard has more than 250 roles under his belt. The textbook example of a that guy, a character actor, a guest star, a child star, and just about any other Hollywood label you can throw on him, Howard has seen it all, done it all, and lived to tell the tale.

And thats before getting into the family of it all. Along with his brother, Ron Howard, the blockbuster filmmaker whos been Clints director almost as long as hes been Clints sibling, the Howard brothers are spilling the beans in a new dual memoir, The Boys: A Memoir Of Hollywood And Family.

The Howards were raised on backlots and soundstages, with their father, actor and filmmaker Rance Howard, and mother, actor Jean Speegle Howard, shepherding them from the set of The Andy Griffith Show to the backwoods of Florida for series like Gentle Ben. Though frequently intersecting, their paths were very different, as Clints filmography can attest. Before The Boys release, The A.V. Club chatted with Clint over Zoom about the roles, big and small, that make up his long and storied career.

The A.V. Club: On your IMDB page, your first credit is for The Courtship Of Eddies Father as Child Party Guest in 1963, but your first appearance on Andy Griffith is 1962. Do you remember your first on-screen appearance?

Clint Howard: I dont remember. What I remember are the conversations and the talks with Mom and Dad about all this, but I do not remember when I started in the entertainment business. I really tell people that Im getting ready to have 60 years in the business. December of 1961 was my first day of employment and that was The Andy Griffith Show. Then, soon after, I worked on Courtship Of Eddies Father, which, by the way, heres an anecdote: Liza Minnelli was the party choreographer.

These are all stories that my dad said. Vincente Minnelli directed the movie, and when it came time to do that party scene, he brought his daughter in. Liza was, like, 12 years old at the time, and Liza coordinated all the extras and did what extra coordinators do. I dont know how much hands-on she had with me. I was still pretty much a babe-in-arms.

I really start having memories in show business at about the age of 5, so like I tell people, Ive been paying attention for about 55 years and have actually been in the business for 60.

AVC: You have such a reveal as your first appearance as Little Leon on Andy Griffith. The cameras pushing in and the crowd is moving away and there you are. Whats it like watching something like that from a distance?

CH: Well, boy, I was a cute kid. First and foremost, I can see why I continued to work because the camera obviously liked me. And also, the director, Bob Jones, who invented that first bit, he was a regular director on The Andy Griffith Show, he was the one that spotted me one day and said, Hes too cute. Because I would come to the set with Mom. Dad was working on something of his own. Mom would have to come down and watch Ron, and at the time, not wanting to hire a babysitter, Mom just brought me along, and I would wear my little cowboy outfit. Bob Sweeney saw me one day and said, Weve got to use him. Theres a bit we can do. And it was that bit in the square dance, and then there was me, and I was leaning up against the door jam checking out the ladies and smilinghad a big smile on my faceand the bit worked really good.

The one thing if you really notice, and its something that I did a few years ago when I realized the technology to slow it down frame by frame, you can see that it wasnt my first take because, if you notice, I blink. I tighten up a little bit as the man puts his hands over my eyes, so its one of those actors dilemmas, where if you do something a couple of times, your body gets used to it. But I held in there pretty good.

CH: I dont have memories of working on that one, but I do have memories the next year or so. It mustve been about 1965 when we did the recording for the soundtrack of The Jungle Book. I do remember that, and the reason why I remember that is because Walt Disney came into the recording stage and I could see him, andI will never forgetI saw his silhouette cross in the engineers booth.

Of course, I was a Disney baby. I knew him by seeing Wonderful World Of Disney. I knew what Walt Disney looked like. I saw this gentleman had walked into the engineers booth and my eyes were fixed on him, and in a second or two, he came to the soundstage door. Back in those days, they had a little window that you could peer in to see if there was any activity. Well, I could see Walts eyes in the little window of the studio door, and he opened the door. He took about three steps into the recording stage, and he waved to me, Youre doing a good job, Clint. I was actually at the grand piano. They were trying to get me to do The Marching Song. I was completely mesmerized by Walt. That left an impression. That is something Ill never forget.

AVC: He just had an energy about him.

CH: He looked like Walt Disney! You know, I remember his suit and everything. He didnt look schleppy. He looked like Walt Disney, and he gave me that wave. Youre doing a fine job, Clint.

Later on in my life, I got to fly in Walts private plane, The Mickey Mouse. Ron and I had done a movie for Disney after Walt died [The Wild Country], and they still had the plane. We did it up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and after 10 or 12 weeks of working in Wyoming, we flew home and they invited us to fly home on The Mickey Mouse.

CH: First of all, I remember getting tested for the skull cap. I did not want to shave my head. I thought that would be a real sign of something bad, like going to public school if I showed up to school with a shaved head. So they honored our request to test for the skull cap. And I went in for a day of testing. The skull cap worked just fine.

The costume that they made for me, it didnt really fit. It was scratchy. They didnt bother putting any liner or anything, and it was a sequined material, and it was itchy and scratchy. That, I didnt dig. But one wonderful moment that Ill never forget was my scene being shot on a set that they had built on one corner of the soundstageI was done with studio schooland they brought me to that set while they were still filming on the other side of the soundstage. So I was waiting, and I knew the way that the business worked. There was one bell that meant theyre rolling. When two bells sound, that means that theyre not rolling anymore. And when I heard the two bells, which meant that they were done with that shot, they were gonna come towards me.

I saw some of the actors and some of the crew come out from the shadows of the backstage of the soundstage and walk toward me, and it was a really empowering moment. I wasnt getting arrogant or anything. I knew I was prepared. One thing that Dad was really brilliant about was having Ron and I fully prepared. I never felt intimidated. I never felt like I was less than.

In many casesit wasnt on Star Trek, I dont recall having any issues with any of the actorsbut I do recall when I was very little, me identifying actors that were stiff. Boy, I mustve been an arrogant little kid when I was that age to think that Lorne Greene was a little cheesy. God bless him. He was fine. That was another episode I was really proud of was my episode of Bonanza, which I did right before I did Star Trek.

AVC: The Star Trek experience was one of several episodic television shows you did that year: The Virginian. Gunsmoke. As you said, Bonanza.

CH: Please Dont Eat The Daisies. I did all the Westerns. Years later, I did The Streets Of San Francisco. I did two episodes of The Fugitive. I did an episode of F.B.I. In writing [The Boys], Ron and I went backbecause we never talked shop at home.

Listen, I didnt hardly know what he was doing. He would go off and work. I didnt care. I was waiting for him to come home so we could play wiffle ball or something. But he had done episodes of F.B.I. He had done episodes of The Twilight Zone. I had done an episode of Night Gallery.

We both appeared in a couple of things together. We appeared in an episode of The Danny Kaye Show together, which is a fun highlight for us. We never worked together on The Andy Griffith Show. We worked together on that movie that I referenced, The Wild Country. That was later on, I was 12 years old and he was 17, or I was 11 and he was 16. And then he did a couple episodes of Gentle Ben.

CH: Whenever they would take time off from The Andy Griffith Show, Mom and Ron would jump on a plane and fly down to Florida, and [producer] Ivan Tors, he recognized that. He was the producer, and they immediately wrote episodes that Ron could be in.

AVC: While were on the subject of Gentle Ben, what was it like working with a bear? If the show were made today, the bear would be CGI, but you can see that chain around your waist. Thats no computer-generated bear.

CH: No, it wasnt. No computer can generate that smell! He was always sweating. It was a black bear living in Florida, and he weighed 650 pounds and ate prodigiously. They had to keep weight on him. So he just sat around, made some prodigious dumps, and smelled just awful.

And, you know what, he was a vegetarian. Californian black bears would eat meat if they had to, they would eat fish if they had to. But primarily they were foragers. They showed me right away that he wasnt interested in me as a meal. And he was always based on treats. They kept him a little hungry, so he would always respond to anyone that had a cookie. Thats how they would get him to follow me around: They would put some cookies in my pockets or some honey on my right ear and the bear would nuzzle up to me all the time.

I felt no fear ever with the bear. Also, we had some great animal trainers. Bear wranglers. There was one guy named Vern Debord. There was a guy named Monte Cox. They were all there to offer me protectionI didnt need protection.

They were also there to move the bear around. We were doing 10 pages a day, and when youve got a big bear like that, hes not always cooperative. And when it comes down to say a bunch of dialogue and the bears doing this [waves arms around] because thats how bears cool themselves off. Here I was, 7, 8, 9 years old, and I had to do dialogue, and this bear is just making a lot of racket. I literally had to yank him by his chain and say, Stop it, Ben. Knock it off!

AVC: You really didnt feel fear.

CH: No! No, I didnt. There were other animals that you were supposed to have a healthy fear about. Like any time you work with big cats. Theres nothing they can really do with a panther or a cougar or a lion. Theyre dangerous, you know? And the extra artillery came out.

I had a slight issue with the raccoon one time, and it had nothing to do with him being mean to me. But it was a scene in which my pet raccoon, Charlie, was supposed to come to me, and I was supposed to pick him up. Well, after we did the take two or three times, he started to get really used to this behavior, and in fact, I had cookies in my pocket, which was the end result treat. Id pick him up, and hed have cookies to pull out. He realized where those cookies were, and we finally did a take where he didnt bother waiting for me to pick him up. He climbed me. They did not take the claws out of the raccoon because the raccoons would use their claws to eat, and when this raccoon climbed up my pants and tore into my cotton shirt to get to me, the days work was over for me. I had to go to the emergency room. I had scratches up my leg.

Show business. I had already been versed in show business.

The next day, the wardrobe lady made me this inside leather vest, so under my shirt, I would wear this leather vest, and she thought it was the cutest thing. It worked out great, and sure enough, it was going to keep this from happening. I questioned, How come you guys didnt think of this before?!?

AVC: Lets jump ahead to your Roger Corman movies: Eat My Dust, Grand Theft Auto, and my personal favorite Rock N Roll High School. Grand Theft Auto was the first time that you were working on a big movie with your brother as a director, right?

CH: Well, that was his first directing job, Grand Theft Auto. Thats how he broke into the business. Roger allowed him to direct a movie he would star in too. Eat My Dust was the first one, and Charles Griffith directed it. Then Ron got a chance to direct Grand Theft Auto. He wrote the script with my dad. My dad was in it. It was a family affair. It was a great experience.

AVC: You also had a bunch of Happy Days people in there, too: Marion Ross, Garry Marshall. And you also had Allan Arkush, who would direct Rock N Roll High School.

CH: Well, Allan Arkush was the second unit director on Grand Theft Auto.

AVC: Is that how you two met?

CH: Yeah, six months after we did Grand Theft Auto, he called me and said, Im doing this movie called Rock N Roll High School, and theres this wonderful character that Id like you to consider playing. At this point in my life, you give me an offer, and Id do it. I knew Roger didnt pay, but it didnt matter. It was a good role. I liked the script.

Allan Arkush was so afraid that Roger was going to say no to his idea that he had another script written called Disco High. Saturday Night Fever had come out and been a big wildly successful movie, and the disco craze was fully enveloping the world, and so Alan was smart enough to say, Were gonna make a movie called Disco High. Of course, Roger is going to like that. So once they green-lit it, they sort of changed it to Rock N Roll High School because Alans love was rock n roll.

AVC: What was it like working around the Ramones?

CH: It was really cool. I wasnt really a Ramones fan. I didnt have anything against the Ramones.

One little side note: Cheap Trick had been offered the parts in Rock N Roll High School, except Roger wasnt offering them any money. In Color, their album, had broken, and they wanted $100,000 to be in the movie, and the Ramones did it all for $20,000, which is amazing. Four guys recording the music, appearing in it, showing up to L.A., you know, doing their parts. All that for $20,000? I mean, it was basically for free. Rock N Roll High School was made for about $200,000.

As much as I love Cheap TrickI mean, I know them, Ive always been a huge fanthere was something about the Ramones that made Rock N Roll High School really special. The cheese factor. The fact that they werent really good actors. You could go back and quote some of the lines: [imitating Dee Dee Ramone] Pizza, Joey! Pizza! I didnt have an appreciation for that movie until about 10 or 15 years ago.

In fact, back in Scranton, Pennsylvania, they had a double feature at a drive-in, Clint Howard Night, they had Rock N Roll High School and Ice Cream Man. We sat through all of Rock N Roll High School. Didnt quite make it through all of Ice Cream Man, but thats another story.

AVC: Well get there.

CH: Rock N Roll High School had a spirit about it that Allan and Joe Danteand there was a whole Corman teambrought. Listen, making movies is not a solo thing. Being an actor is not a solo thing. It takes a team. Youre only as good as the prop guy that gives you the good props. Youre only as good as the writers that give you the good material. The director that shapes it and channels it. You may think its Clint Howard doing all that stuff. Well, yeah, my face is up there on screen, but it does take a team.

AVC: The props for Eaglebauers office are incredible, like the charts and

CH: And down to chains.

AVC: The little Superman chain.

CH: The Superman chain. And I remember when we picked that stuff out. The wardrobe lady had some selections, and then I chose through em and picked some and talked about it, and she went and got some more. Thats why its a very collaborative effort.

AVC: About two years later, you made a movie called Evilspeak. The tagline is Remember that little boy you used to pick on? Well hes a big boy now. Is that a reference to your child acting or is that just a tagline?

CH: Listen, I think it was a story. It was a script that was written. A fellow named Eric Weston was the director and he had co-written the script with [Joseph Garofalo]. Carrie had been out, and what they were trying to do was a male version of Carrie. In fact, I was not the first choice. There were other actors that were considered to play Coopersmith, and I came in and auditioned, and Eric said I did a really good job at the audition, and they re-thought their other choices, and they landed on me. I dont think it had anything to do with my child acting. I had a baby face, and I played that innocent guy, and I was carrying a little extra weight, so I was kind of a little chubby.

And also, too, on that movie, that was the first time I needed a hairpiece. I was 19 years old or 20 years old when that movie got made, and I had a hairpiece, you know? Of course, I tried wearing a hairpiece for about six months in the business, and it wasnt working for me, so I decided to go au naturel.

AVC: Very ironic for the kid who played Balok, who demanded a cap because he didnt want to shave his head.

CH: I did the [Comedy Central Roast Of William Shatner] years later. It was probably 10, 12 years ago they did this. The fellow, Joel Gallen, who was directing the roast thought of me. They said, Well, lets get Clint Howard in to get them to do Balok. And by that point my hair was pretty bald, so I didnt mind at all.

AVC: After that, you did a string of your brothers movies: Night Shift, Splash, Cocoon, Gung-Ho, and Parenthood. Do you have any thoughts on his evolution from the other side of the camera, seeing your brother grow as a director? These were all pretty big movies at the time.

CH: Well, first of all, I had the utmost confidence that Ron could handle anything that was in front of him. I mean, I saw right away when he was 16 years old doing little short films with me and my friends that he had all the chops it was gonna take to be a director, and so I didnt think anything was gonna be above his pay grade. And he did a bang-up job on Cocoon.

Theres a really wonderful evolution of his career. He made a couple of really good movies early on. Night Shift was really funny. Night Shift had some big laughs, and Michael Keaton was friggin hilarious in that.

AVC: You have a really funny scene in that movie.

CH: Well, thank you! Yeah, it was Jefferey Durkin. You like music? Yeah! [Sings Jumpin Jack Flash.]

Then he tackled Splash, and that story can be mishandled in so many ways, and yet, Ron has this wonderful sensibility, this wonderful touch. I wouldnt know how to put a label to it. Its not Frank Capra. He directs with a lot of hope. And being an actor, hes really an actors director, and I believe hes also a characters director. Hes not interested in the way something looks. Hes interested in the ways that characters behave. The roles that Ive done for him, hes given me lots of latitude to bring me to the table. I have a great relationship with him as a director.

Although, I tell you what, especially early on, there were parts in his movies that I wish I wouldve played, but it was going to be his decision, not mine. Its his call. Im not the casting director, he is. So you know there were a few times, and actually, the first movie that I did not appear ina lot of people think Im in all of them, and thats just simply not truebut I wasnt in Ransom. He called me, and I remember us having a conversation, and I knew he was getting ready to start casting. He said, You know, Clint, I really need this to look East Coast. I need this to be New York, and if there was any of these guys that you could play

He has treated me really well as an actor, but you know I treated him really well, too, because I feel like I have delivered above and beyond, and hes recognized that. Hes recognized that Ive been put in a lot of situations, and I always find a good way to elevate the character and not elevate the character to where the character is bigger than he should be but just make him come to life.

Theres a trick to being an actor when you only have a few moments on screen, where your character arc is all going to happen in a minute. Youve got to be able to give those goods, and you need it to still seem natural. It needs to be organic, but by god, you gotta get your beats in because, next thing you know, youre going to be out of there.

CH: I was on a professional roll in the early- to mid-90s. I had started to really find my footing as an actor, and I had confidence playing Sy. But again: team, team, team. Ed Harris is a friggin great acting partner. He gives a lot more than he gets. We had so much fun, and he brought my game up to a new level. Also, another thing about Apollo 13, the props, the technical advisers. It does, and I dont mean to keep banging on this, but it does take a team.

AVC: Do you think the role in Apollo 13 led to the roles in Austin Powers and Night At The Museum? Because youre doing this radar tech character, hunching over the computer.

CH: Im sure it had something to do with that. But for instance, the Austin Powers movies, the fellow that directed those movies was a guy named Jay Roach. Jay and I had worked on a TV series back in 1992 called Space Rangers, where Jay had been kind of on the writing team of this television program. So Jay knew me from Space Rangers, and, of course, I did have the experience of working in Apollo 13. And also I was willing to do it. Some actors wouldve shied away from making fun of themselves.

I thought about it for two seconds when I started getting asked to sort of spoof myself. Its a job. It pays. Im going to give them my social security number, and theyre going to give me a paycheck, and this is what I do for a living. I feel like its going back to Dads philosophy of take it seriously. Even with the Austin Powers things, I didnt make fun of being a radar operator. In Night At The Museum, I didnt make fun of a NASA flight controller. I took the role, realized it was a comedy. I knew that I had to lean into certain situations a little differently, but go ahead and do it. And also another thing, shit, if I dont do the job, someone else is going to.

CH: Ive only turned down a couple of jobs in my life. Remember the original Flintstones movie with John Goodman and Rick Moranis? I got offered a role being one of their bowling buddies. I dont know why I was feeling so self-conscious at the time, but I could not see myself in one of those fur costumes. I just did not see myself wearing one of those big stupid ties and a little funny bowling outfit or something, so I passed on that. It was probably a mistake because that movie ended up doing very well.

AVC: Well, you did end up working with a dinosaur that year. You were in Carnosaur in 1993.

CH: Another Roger Corman movie!

AVC: Youve continued a working relationship with him?

CH: I believe it was 12 or 13 Roger Corman movies.

Yeah, I worked for Roger a lot. One story that we talked about in the book: Ron was trying to get Roger to spend a little more money on a few extra extras, and Roger said, No, Ron, youre not going to get anymore extras, and if you do a good job for me, youll never have to work for me again. And Ron never worked for Roger again, and I did. I had a great relationship with Roger. I havent seen him in a few years, but a few years ago, we got together for a Rock N Roll High School tribute, and he was in great spirits. Hes about Dads age. Hes in his mid-90s by now. I have very fond memories of Roger.

AVC: While were in that horror zone, I wanted to get your thoughts on Ice Cream Man because that is a very iconic VHS box cover. I remember seeing that at Blockbuster every week.

CH: I was just trying to churn work. They called and asked for me. I went in, and I met with them, and they wanted to hire me, and I was excited. I was really excited that I was going to get to play the lead of this. I met with the director, Norman Apstein, and he was trying to do this kids horror movie, and it was kind of an interesting approachit wasnt all completely serious but it wasnt all farcical. I liked that. Immediately, I got along with Norman. Weve remained friends over the years, and in fact, we are seriously, not just contemplating, we are figuring out how were going to make a second Ice Cream Man.

Its something that really excites both Norman and I. There was a time in our lives where we just didnt mess with it. Because listen, the original Ice Cream Mans a little spotty. If you watch it from the cinema eye, its a little spotty.

About 15 years ago, Norman and I got together with the idea of trying to raise some money to get a second made. Then we watched the first one and he goes, I dont want to do this because if we make a good Ice Cream Man 2, that means that people are going to go back and watch the first one. But we have shed that skin.

Weve landed on what the tones going to be. Were not going to have a lot of kids in the movie. Its going to be more of a horror film, a demented man my age, a demented ice cream man. I dont believe its going to be the same character. Were going to make a movie called Ice Cream Man starring me.

Lovely memories working on the movie. I still talk about it all the time. I still go to science fiction or horror conventions, and besides maybe Star Trek, the title that most people want to talk about is Ice Cream Man.

CH: [Laughs.] That was cool. A director named Tony Randel asked me to be in it, and I didnt have a lot to do, but it was one of those times in my career where I needed to get paychecks and take the job. I remember that was the O.J. Simpson low-speed chase. On one night we were filming, and Ill never forget the soundman who had a little video monitor on his sound cart, he had it flipped over to the O.J. Simpson slow-speed chase. He wasnt even paying attention to what we were filming in Fist Of The North Star.

AVC: Did Corbin Bernsen actually scrape your teeth?

CH: Yes! Corbin Bernsen was awesome, and that was a wonderful experience. One of those collaborations that was really cool. Brian Yuzna, the director, let us do what we wanted. It was fun. A lot of improvisation. And, of course, the bullets are flying so fast in the low-budget horror genre, we were done with that scene in about three hours.

CH: Great experience. Man, made me cry when I got there and I saw that they were letting my big brother be the tip of the spear of that billion-dollar project. It made me really proud because of the way Ron was handling the crew and handling the cast. It was a collaborative effort. They were really rooting for Ron to do good, and Ron stepped in after 70-some odd days. The two guys that they ended up replacing, they had been working for 72 days or something like that. Ron called me because I was going to fly there to work, and Ron mentioned that, for him, it was the third day on the call sheet, and it was, like, day 77 for the movie.

But again, a very proud moment. And fun! I had fun doing it. I love working for Ron. I didnt have a whole lot to do in the story, but it kept me busy, and I got a trip to London out of it.

AVC: What was going on with the BloodRayne: The Third Reich and Blubberella split production?

CH: Well, Uwe Bolla director Ive worked with a bunch, and I really like himhe doesnt make the best movies in the world, but by god, hes honest and he treats the actors well, and hes a good man. Any time Uwe calls me, I pay attention and listen to what he has to say. He was going to do BloodRayne: Third Reich, which was the latest installment of the BloodRayne franchise, but he couldnt do it unless he made another movie simultaneously, so he invented the idea of doing this big, heavyset woman as a superhero vampire. It was almost spontaneously invented. Michael Par and I wrote most of our dialogue. Lindsay Hollister played the big vampire. She wrote most of her dialogue.

We shot it in Zagreb, Croatia. It took about a month to shoot two movies. There was one day that I did 18 pages of dialogue. I did, like, eight pages from one script and eight pages from another script.

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Clint Howard on working with the Ramones, a hungry bear, and big brother Ron - The A.V. Club

The party rolls on. The Brooklyn Nets came home from the West Coast to host the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night, with Kevin Durant and James Harden playing for the first team this season and Cam Thomas just showing off.

The opponent tonight will be the Philadelphia 76ers. Doc Rivers and friends are trying to figure a few things out as they come into the season. They played the Toronto Raptors on Thursday night and came away with a 12-point win in front of the hometown faithful.

ESPN2 has us covered tonight (ESPN is busy with Colts vs. Ravens on Monday Night Football). Tip off after 8 PM.

Paul Millsap missed Fridays game as he was in health and safety protocols. Hes not on the injury report so it looks like hell be back. Devontae Cacok is out with right groin soreness. Kyrie Irving is back practicing with the team, but wont be playing tonight as it sounds like the Nets are working on a ramp-up plan with him. More on Irving in a second.

Ben Simmons is currently in parts unknown and not here. Man packed up his house so you know he aint coming back to Philly any time soon. Matisse Thybulle is out with right shoulder soreness and will be reevaluated in a few days.

So Steve Nash had this to say about Irvings availability yesterday:

Things are always changing a mile a minute around these parts, so well keep people updated as this situation continues to unfold. And before we move on, Ill pass the mic to Malika Andrews...

Chris, Matt, and I were at Practice in the Park on Saturday. It was a vibe. Read about it here.

These two teams will do this again for real next Friday so dont look for too much here. No giving away secrets. With Simmons wherever he is, that opens up an opportunity for Tyrese Maxey. Maxey had a good rookie season last year and now that he has some more responsibilities on his shoulders, well see how he handles it.

The stars (except for Irving) are back for the Nets, and with things tipping off for real soon, Steve Nash and the coaching staff will look to strike the perfect balance of shaking off the rust while not playing his best guys too many minutes in games that dont count. Kevin Durant and James Harden got some work in and played 23 minutes each.

For a team that had trouble with defensive rebounding last season, having more size to work with is always a good thing. Aldridge was on the team last year and played well here, but his heart condition forced him to medically retire. Thankfully hes back, healthy, and able to safely resume his career. LMA adds another wrinkle to an already dangerous Nets offense, so as the team figures the rotations out, having a safety blanket like him on the inside will help smooth it out.

So, Dwight Howard is back out west and replacing him will be Andre Drummond. If you think back to last season, he was rumored to be a player the Nets were looking to bring in, but he chose the Lakers instead. Drummonds LA experience was a disaster and by the end, Lakers fans were practically begging for him not to see the floor. Here, hes solidly behind Joel Embiid and wont be tasked with too much. Embiid played 20 minutes vs. the Raptors and figures to be around that number tonight as well.

We havent seen championships around these parts in quite some time. This one is for you Yankees fans out there

More reading: Liberty Ballers

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Dad [actor Rance Howard] hated the script. He didnt get American Graffiti at all. He thought it was too episodic and loosely structured. It was so radically different from any other script that I had ever come across, including the fact that it had the word graffiti in its title; I had to look it up.

But I saw something fresh and gently subversive in the script and was fascinated by the way George Lucas had situated the story in 1962, a mere 10 years in the past, but an eternity ago in terms of social mores, given how fast American culture had evolved in the 60s. George was looking to capture the lost innocence of the cruising culture that he and his friends had enjoyed as teenagers in his hometown of Modesto, 160 kilometres inland from San Francisco in Californias Central Valley. It was a world of souped-up hot rods and sleek Ford Thunderbirds, closer in feel to the 1950s than to the tumultuous years that lay ahead.

The whole movie took place in the space of one night near summers end, the last one before a group of childhood friends went their separate ways: some off to college, others to work or points uncertain. I was exactly the right age for American Graffiti, 18, and I would be fresh out of high school when the production team was scheduled to film it, in the northern summer of 1972. In fact, it would be my first acting job where I was no longer required to have a welfare worker on set, a freedom that I relished almost as much as the script.

For all his reservations about American Graffiti, Dad respected my enthusiasm. We were, at that point in our father-son dynamic, at a crossroads. He had held the reins to my career pretty tightly throughout my childhood; as long as I was a minor, he and Mom were going to be the primary decision-makers about my career and future, though I was always respectfully looped in. But Dad drew a circle around March 1, 1972, on the calendar: the date of my 18th birthday. On that day, he promised, he would step back and let me become the architect of my professional life. He was as good as his word.

Still, my getting cast in the movie was not a given. First, I had to meet with George Lucas and Geno Havens, the films assistant casting director. George was a slight, soft-spoken man with thick, curly dark hair and a beard. In those days, George could be reticent and awkward around actors, so Geno served a valuable role as his go-between.

I had one concern. My agent had informed me that American Graffiti was going to be a musical. So the first thing I told George was that I could neither sing nor dance. Thats okay, George said. It is a musicalbut nobody sings. He paused when I looked puzzled. Its a musical in that its built around songs, George explained. The songs are playing on the radio. Theyre part of the atmosphere, the setting for the characters.

This was my introduction to Georges outlier thinking. But I would be put through the wringer. Apparently, they were conducting a nationwide search for young actors. At that point, I had my sights set on the character of Curt, the part that ultimately went to a sharp little guy from Beverly Hills named Richard Dreyfuss.

Two auditions later, I found myself in a room reading in front of Fred Roos. This was a good sign. Fred was the hottest casting director around, an associate of Francis Ford Coppola, one of Graffitis producers, and he had put together the unimpeachably great cast of The Godfather. Second, Fred knew me! A decade earlier, he had been the casting director for The Andy Griffith Show in which Id starred for eight years from 1960 to 1968]. So I felt like I had an ally.

I did a total of six auditions. There was one where I had to improvise with other potential cast members. There was another where I did a chemistry read with Cindy Williams, who they had in mind for the part of head cheerleader Laurie.

It would be my first acting job where I was no longer required to have a welfare worker on set, a freedom that I relished almost as much as the script.

Finally, to my delight, I received good news from Bill Schuller, my agent. After months of call-backs, each one of which made me more pessimistic about my chances, he told me that I had won the part of Steve, a young man who is headed east for college and keen to persuade his high-school steady, Laurie, that they should see other people while apart.

He laid on a caveat, though. Its a very low-budget picture, Ronny, Bill said. Theyre only paying the other actors $US750 a week. I pressed hard and got you up to a thousand a week because youre the only one with any name value.

Fine by me. I didnt care about the money or my placement in the credits, which was another issue that Bill brought up. Credits are strictly in alphabetical order, and I took a shot at having them list you as Ron rather than Ronny, but they want people to recognise your name from The Andy Griffith Show, he said. So I had to give em the Ronny. American Graffiti would mark the last time I used my childhood moniker.

Before shooting began, I had a one-on-one meeting with George Lucas where I mentioned to him that after the shoot, I would be starting film school at his alma mater, the University of Southern California (USC). Youre going to love it, George said. Make sure you take some animation classes, because animation is pure filmmaking. You dont have to deal with the actors. This was a strange thing for a director to say to an actor about to be in his next film, but hey, everything about George was unconventional.

As psyched as I was to have this job, I didnt regard it as a major career break. George, though he was a big deal to hard-core cineasts like me, was barely known to the public. At that point, he had directed one feature, a dystopian thriller called THX 1138, based on a 15-minute short he made at USC. It was critically respected, but a box-office bomb. So, in my mind, I was making a cool little art-house film by a visionary indie director from whom I might learn something. The movies budget was in the $US700,000 range. By contrast, budgets for The Exorcist and The Way We Were, shot in the same period, were $US12 million and $US15 million, respectively.

Money was the least of my concerns at that point in my life. I had turned 18 in March, whereupon my parents turned over to me the custody of my bank account and bonds. My net worth, I discovered, was well into the six figures: a sum that I was proud of, though I didnt breathe a word of it to my friends at Burroughs High School in Burbank, lest I come off as a jerk. I was irked, I will admit, when I came in third in the senior classs voting for Most Likely to Succeed. Third? Third? Cmon! Hadnt I already frickin succeeded?

No, what concerned me was uncertainty about my future. One day, a few weeks after I registered for the draft, I checked the mail at our house in Toluca Lake in Los Angeles. Among the envelopes was one from the US Selective Service System, addressed to me. Shit. I opened it. Inside was a letter notifying me that I was to report to a local military office for a physical. I had heard from friends that this was how it worked: you got this letter, you took your physical, and if you passed and were drafted, you were inducted into the military on your 19th birthday.

George Lucas (at left) had a spontaneous approach to directing, confusing Ron Howard at times.Credit:Alamy

The American Graffiti script carried another sting. One of Georges most brilliant, wrenching twists was that the movies teenage high jinks and poignant goodbyes were followed by a final beat: an end card explaining what happened to four of its male protagonists. Mine, or Steves, was that I stayed local, presumably to marry Laurie, and I was working in Modesto as an insurance salesman. Paul Le Mats character, John, died in a car crash. Rick Dreyfusss character, Curt, was a writer living in Canada, the inference being that he moved there to avoid the draft. And sweet, geeky Terry the Toad, played by Charles Martin Smith, was reported missing in action near An Lc, in South Vietnam, just three years after the events depicted in the film. It was another reminder, not that I needed one, of the worst-case outcome for any young man who was shipped over.

I simply folded it up and put it in my wallet, where it practically vibrated in the back pocket of my jeans. I figured that if I ignored the problem, it might go away. Still, that piece of paper haunted me.

I told no one about the Selective Service notice. I simply folded it up and put it in my wallet, where it practically vibrated in the back pocket of my jeans. I figured that if I ignored the problem, it might go away. Still, that piece of paper haunted me. Sometimes, when I was alone, I took it out, unfolded it, and reread it, hoping that its meaning would somehow magically change in the process of rereading: an act of futility if ever there was one. No matter what, I kept that damned notice to myself. I didnt want to upset anyone, least of all Mom and my girlfriend Cheryl [whod go on to become my wife]; nor did I want to make them complicit in a potential felony.

When American Graffiti began filming, I drove my VW Bug up the coast to San Rafael, where the cast and crew were staying in a Holiday Inn. San Rafael was supposed to stand in for Modesto, which George decided had become too modernised to plausibly resemble his hometown as he remembered it. But we ended up shooting mostly in the town of Petaluma, whose city council proved more willing to take on the disruptions of a film crew and a bunch of vintage cars cruising their main drag.

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I immediately saw that there was something of a cultural divide between me and most of the cast. With the exception of Charlie Martin Smith, who was my age, the rest of the movies principals were significantly older than me and much more worldly-wise. Rick Dreyfuss, Paul Le Mat, Candy Clark, Harrison Ford, Bo Hopkins: these folks were anywhere from six to 12 years my senior. I initially took Cindy Williams to be my age because she looked so young, but I soon found out she was a seasoned, womanly 24.

She sensed, correctly, that her 18-year-old acting partner was inexperienced at kissing scenes and a bundle of nerves about performing them. We cant kiss for the first time on camera, she said. We better practise. With the professionalism of Hollywoods intimacy co-ordinators, who supervise and choreograph sexually explicit scenes for film and TV, Cindy taught me how to make out convincingly for the camera without overstepping. She was not interested in me romantically, nor was I in her. She performed this service out of generosity, saving me from embarrassment and pre-emptively ensuring that our scenes did not end up on the cutting-room floor.

Cindy, Charlie, and Rick were the actors I ended up hanging around with the most. And Jeff Bridges a little, too, because he was seeing Candy Clark and occasionally came to visit. Harrison and Paul were the cast hellions. They treated that Holiday Inn like it was the Sunset Marquis and they were Led Zeppelin, trashing their rooms and generally raising a ruckus.

Harrison Ford, who played Bob in the film.Credit:Alamy

One Saturday, when we had time off, they were drinking beers and pitching their empty bottles out the window, watching them crash in the parking lot. Then they tossed an unopened beer, which exploded on the blacktop in a gusher, which made them double over in laughter. I was concerned that the shattering bottles were getting just a little too close to my still-new Bug. Harrison, Paul, I said, you can have your fun, but I have to go downstairs and move my car. Can you hold your fire while I do that?

Sure, Ronny, sure. Go ahead, said Harrison.

As soon as I got to the parking lot, a bottle exploded at my feet. Harrison and Paul poked their heads out the window. Dance, Opie, dance! Paul shouted [Opie was the name of my character in The Andy Griffith Show]. Then more bottles came flying in my direction, accompanied by the sounds of nefarious cackling from above. I somehow managed to pull away in my car before they did any damage.

That incident was the only Opie-shaming that I experienced, though I did occasionally endure some razzing because, at that point, I was the sole cast member who was recognisable to the public, and the locals liked to approach me for autographs. But this teasing was all in the spirit of fun, as was Rick Dreyfusss penchant for calling me Ope, which rhymed with hope. For example, when he and I were trying out some improvised dialogue on each other, at Georges urging, I noted that I had never worked this way before. Rick smiled his mischievous smile. You aint in Mayberry anymore, Ope! he said.

American Graffiti was set in the outwardly more innocent period before the tumultuous 1960s. Credit:Alamhy

I sure wasnt. And it was exhilarating. I could just feel the generational shift taking place. We were all in our teens and 20s. Even George was only 28. The people involved in the production behind the scenes were mostly San Francisco-based, like George. They had long hair. They wore beads and bandannas around their necks. Some of them were women. I had to that point been exposed to nothing but old-line, hard-boiled, Anglo-Saxon, male Hollywood.

George boldly ignored the orthodoxies of traditional filmmaking. We had no make-up team or individual dressing rooms. We all got changed into our wardrobes inside a single Winnebago motor home that someone had driven to Petaluma for the shoot. The female actors applied their own make-up. The male actors didnt wear any. George shot most of the movie in continuity, as it plays on the screen, because he knew that we would look progressively more exhausted and undone after six weeks of night shooting, and he wanted us to come by our sunrise dishevelment naturally, in vrit fashion.

George didnt even give us traditional marks to hit. He used very low light levels because he wanted to capture the slightly dangerous late-night feel of a boulevard teeming with teens on the prowl for action and trouble. The camera team liked me because I was experienced and knew where to stand so that my face could catch a little light. I could look through their cameras viewfinders, see what kind of shot they were after, and get myself into the right place in the frame. But George didnt particularly care about this sort of thing. He was all about spontaneity and honesty.

I was so rules-bound that this took some getting used to. At one point, my confusion got the better of me. We were shooting at Mels Drive-In in San Francisco. Take after take, the only direction that George gave was Action!, Cut! and Terrific.

I approached him for a word. George, I said politely, youre saying, Action, cut, terrific for every take and then you change angles and say, Action, cut,terrific again.

Mm-hmm, said George.

Am I giving you everything you need? I asked. Is there something more I can do? Because Im happy to take some direction.

George matter-of-factly explained, I dont really have time to direct now. Im just gathering up lots of footage, then Ill direct in the editing room. He added, Thats why I cast you all so meticulously. It took me six months to find the right mix of people for what I want. And six months to find the right cars.

It was at this moment that it hit me: the cars were just as important to George as the actors. Or, rather, they were actors to him, playing characters just as his droids and starships would in the Star Wars movies. Paul Le Mats yellow Deuce Coupe represented the light side of hot-rod culture. Harrison Fords menacing 55 Chevy One Fifty represented the dark side. Bo Hopkinss chopped 51 Mercury embodied the whole greaser culture. Suzanne Somerss white 56 T-Bird with porthole side windows was as dreamy and unattainable as she was.

And my big ol 58 Chevy Impala with tail fins was the aspirational car of a solid citizen, which Steve was; he had been his classs president. For most of the movie, the car was driven on loan by Charlies character, Toad, who tried to impress Candys character, Debbie, by boasting that it was his set of wheels and that it had a 327 engine in it with six Strombergs as in carburettors a drag-racing modification that sensible Steve would never have made.

Paul Le Mat (who played John), Cindy Williams and Howard. Credit:Alamy

We really didnt know what we had when we were filming American Graffiti. As George said, he was going to do most of the directing in the editing room. This included the matching of music to scenes. It was unclear during the shoot which songs the production could actually clear the rights to, so only occasionally did they pipe in the songs that you hear in the finished film, mostly 50s classics like Almost Grown by Chuck Berry and Chantilly Lace by the Big Bopper. The Platters Smoke Gets in Your Eyes really was playing, though, when we filmed that heartbreaking scene where Cindy and I dance sorrowfully in front of the whole student body, having a whispered fight that no one else can hear.

Time moves more slowly when youre young, because life is still new to you, a process of discovery. Those six weeks felt more like six months, and all of us in the cast developed an extraordinary camaraderie, which was probably Georges plan all along. We rooted for each other like teammates. Part of the bonding process lay in the upside-down nature of filming all night. This required us to get our sleep during the day, so we became a strange pod of weirdos living outside the norms of conventional society.

As the baby of the cast, I also received an education in the ways of life and letters as they existed outside of my happy, but cloistered BurbankToluca Lake world.

Most days, we would emerge one by one from our rooms and congregate around the Holiday Inn pool in the mid-afternoon. I was usually the first one there, because I was terrible at day sleeping. Generally, I could only go from 7am to 11am, which compelled me to take catnaps later in the day and night in order to keep my wits about me. This developed into one of my signature life skills: the ability to conk out for 15 minutes at any given moment in any given place. It has served me well.

As the baby of the cast, I also received an education in the ways of life and letters as they existed outside of my happy, but cloistered BurbankToluca Lake world. Rick Dreyfuss became my intellectual mentor. He was an avid reader who was always carrying a paperback. His favourite place in the world was City Lights Books in San Francisco, where we sometimes went in our downtime. I confided to Rick my worries about being drafted (though never about the notice in my wallet) and told him that I was leaning toward voting for President Richard Nixon over George McGovern because Nixon had pledged that he would get us out of the war. This was before the Watergate story broke, and I had grown up in an apolitical household where we never really identified as Democrats or Republicans.

With a wiggle of his eyebrows and a pointed Huh-huh-ho! laugh, Rick said, You have a hell of a lot to learn, Ope. He lent me some books on politics and did his best to set me straight.

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Some of the casts activities were off-limits to me because I was only 18 and the drinking age in California was 21. When the Graffiti guys went en masse to a strip bar in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, Charlie Martin Smith and I got the boot almost immediately for being underage. He and I took to passing our time instead in a dive bar in Petaluma where the manager, a friendly lesbian biker chick, let us shoot pool and play ping-pong for as long as we wanted. It was the beginning of a friendship with Charlie, not the biker chick that still endures.

Cheryl came up for the wrap party, where George showed us all a 15-minute working cut of a few scenes that he had put together with music. George co-edited the film with his wife at the time, Marcia Lucas, and a long-tenured legend named Verna Fields, who also introduced George to Steven Spielberg.

At this screening, there was a collective gasp by the cast members, even the stoic Harrison. This is what we are a part of? Wow! It was riveting, seeing the vision in Georges head coming to life. We still had no clue if our movie stood a chance at the box office, but we knew we had something revolutionary. Afterwards, I drove home to Toluca Lake supercharged to start at USC and make as many films as I possibly could provided that Vietnam didnt get in the way.

George Lucass little $US700,000 picture went on to gross more than $US100 million, at the time the greatest return on investment in the history of cinema.Credit:Alamy

American Graffiti was released in August 1973, a year after we wrapped. I expected it to get some good reviews, and it did. The New York Times posited that it was arguably the most important US film since Bonnie and Clyde. Roger Ebert called it not only a great movie, but a brilliant work of historical fiction. But the film became so much more: a word-of-mouth hit with staying power. It played in movie houses for more than two years after its initial release.

I missed out on the premiere because I was on location for another film, but when I got back home, I drove past theatres where there was a two-hour wait to get into the next showing.

Cheryl and I caught the movie at the Avco Theatre in Westwood, near UCLA, and were astonished to come across a multigenerational audience that, as one, clapped along enthusiastically as Bill Haleys Rock Around the Clock played over the title sequence. George Lucass little $US700,000 picture went on to gross more than $US100 million, at the time the greatest return on investment in the history of cinema.

All of us in the cast benefited from our association with the movie, a phenomenon that I refer to as the Graffiti glow. Candy received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Rick and Paul were signed up to star in multiple movies by Steven Spielberg and Jonathan Demme, respectively. Harrison landed a role in George Lucass next movie, an off-the-wall, long-shot sci-fi flick called Star Wars.

The American Graffiti juggernaut had come in the wake of some similar phenomena: the success of the retro vocal group Sha Na Na, which had played Woodstock and was selling out major rock venues, and the original Broadway production of Grease, which opened in 1972 and proved so popular that it ran for the rest of the decade. This so-called 50s craze set off a scramble among the broadcast networks to develop 1950s-themed series for television.

It was at this point that writer and director Garry Marshall politely raised his hand and notified ABC they had a promising pilot for a 50s show in their vaults already. It was called Happy Days and starred one of the leads in American Graffiti.

Edited extract from The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, by Ron Howard and Clint Howard (HarperCollins, $35), out October 13.

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It was exhilarating: Ron Howards happy days on the role that changed his life - Sydney Morning Herald