Little Opie has grown up and become a hotshot film director. Apparently, goin' fishin' with Andy and hanging out with the Fonz paid off. Not to mention an assortment of serious TV-film roles, a lead in American Graffiti and an apprenticeship (Grand Theft Auto) in the Roger Corman school for budding directors. To Ron Howard's recent big-screen credit are Night Shift and Splash. We asked Contributing Editor David Rensin to meet with Howard in Hollywood as he was putting the finishing touches on Cocoon, just released. Says Rensin, "Ron Howard does not look dumb in a mustache. Aunt Bee would be mighty proud."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: Could you, as a director, have improved Happy Days?

Ron Howard: I never thought I could make the show better. But to tell you the truth, I never understood the show or why people liked it so much. We were doing good work, but I figured out early on that it was a genre I didn't relate to very well. I only knew that it was working. People would come up and say, "That scene when you two dressed up as girls was so funny!" But the whole time I was dressed up, I was thinking, Boy, this is really lame. I eventually came to understand it as a fantasy of home life in the Fifties. Fonzie was a fantasy hood. I was a fantasy nice guy. Howard and Marion were fantasy parents.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: Ever get any good advice from your fantasy parents?

Ron Howard: Tom Bosley is a good businessman. He told us all to buy houses, and he was right. He told us all to incorporate, and he was right again. During the first few years, we were all bombarded with investment representatives. We didn't know how to handle that. My real parents knew show business well but were unsophisticated about investments. So Tom would sit with us and explain why we needed life insurance even though we were only 22 years old and how to be responsible with our money.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: What was Opie short for?

Ron Howard: Nothing. It was the name of a bandleader famous during Andy Griffith's childhood--he visited different towns and played in the gazebo on Sunday afternoons. Andy thought he was the greatest. So when they developed the show, he suggested the name and I got stuck with it.

When you're a kid, Opie is not such a great name. I've had people with red hair and freckles come up to me and say, "All my life, people have called me Opie." I always say, "Isn't that horrible when you're not making any money off it?" Besides, Opie rhymes with a lot of things. They don't sound bad now--dopey, soapy--but when you're nine.... Later, when drugs became important, it was "Hey, Opium." I took quite a razzing.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Any physical abuse?

Ron Howard: Used to be. All through elementary school, there used to be at least two weeks of fights when the year started. But I was a pretty good fighter. My dad and I used to watch wrestling on TV. We'd even wrestle a bit ourselves. He'd be the Destroyer and I would be Freddie Blassie or Cowboy Bob Ellis. So I could get guys in scissors locks and half nelsons. But one day, when a kid was giving me trouble, I realized there was more to fighting. He gave me three jabs and knocked me down. I couldn't get up for my flying drop kick. It was a whole new thing.

But the fighting stopped--except on my first day in high school. I was scrambling around, trying to find my classes, and in the middle of zipping one way and zipping another, I stepped on this short Mexican's white shoes. Everything stopped. He said, "Clean them off, fucker." I looked around. There was a whole group of kids around me. It was like my first test. I said, "I'm sorry I stepped on your shoes, but I'm not going to clean them off." But he just said, "Clean them off, fucker!" I didn't know what to do. He had a bunch of pals and mine were nowhere around. So I said no and took a half-baked swing at him. He took a jab at me and missed. Then the bell rang and we were standing there staring at each other. People started drifting away and we used it as an excuse, too.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: To what do you attribute Don Knotts's enduring popularity?

Ron Howard: [Long laugh] He's so sensitive. He's the most vulnerable person you've ever seen on TV--but you like it. Of course, he's actually more self-assured, because he's been a star for a long time. But I think the character was born out of all that is really Don Knotts. When he's doing that character, the poor guy could disintegrate before your very eyes, and you don't want to see that happen. And he does it better than anyone else.

However, I think that at any moment, he will pop up in some interesting movie as a completely different, serious character and just blow everyone away.