Bryce, who is 43 years old, celebrated her dad’s 71st birthday on March 1 with an Instagram post. A snapshot of the father-daughter pair seated at a table at a banquet with Bryce resting her head on her dad’s shoulder and each of them smiling at the camera was featured by the actress, whose own birthday is a day later, on March 2.
With the comment “I love you so much Dad, more than words can say 🥶❤️,” the actress added a touching touch to the shot. “Happy Birthday @realronhoward!”
The actress from Jurassic World has never been bashful about her tight bond with her father, the director. The Happy Days actor expressed his desire to shield his daughter from the more challenging parts of child acting during their panel appearance together at MegaCon last month in Orlando, Florida.
As Ron recounted his formative years in Oklahoma, he reflected on how his parents, Rance Howard and Jean Speegle, had always pushed him to pursue acting, and he went on to appear as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show and other television series.
Bryce, according to Ron, started to “show a real aptitude” for acting at a young age; yet, he confessed that he was concerned that she might one day follow in his footsteps.
“She would ask about [acting], and my wife Cheryl and I would say, ‘No, we can’t let you be a child actor,’” stated the winner of the Oscar. Because of resource constraints, we were unable to provide the level of supervision that my parents provided. Additionally, I had the impression that the Opie mythos was a little too challenging for a young actor to tackle at that age.
Bryce shared with the audience during a panel at Steel City Con in Monroeville, Pa. in December that “my childhood was going and spending time with him on set.” She went on to talk about how she used to visit her dad’s film sets when she was a youngster.
“Here are a couple of reasons,” she remembered. The first is that I wanted to be a part of the set because I’m the eldest of four children; second, it made my mom’s life simpler since she didn’t have to juggle as many children during the day. Therefore, I was essentially following in his footsteps. In addition, both of his parents were employed in the field, therefore he began his professional career at the tender age of 18 months. Bringing your child to work every day was something he just assumed was the usual.
Bryce said that one day she hopes to have a more substantial role to play with her dad than just visiting his sets or being an extra.
Speaking to the crowd at Steel City Con, she said that she had worked with him as an extra when she was about seven years old, but that they had never worked with professionally as actors, doing lines and everything. “On the other hand, I am planning to. It is my deepest desire. Also, I would constantly bug him about it. And I’m like, “Hey, why don’t we have a conversation?”
Ron and his wife Cheryl Howard, whom he wed in 1975 after meeting in high school, have a son named Bryce. Along with their 37-year-old son Reed, they have twin daughters Jocelyn and Paige, who are also 40 years old.
