Despite a 40 year career as a film and television actor, C. Thomas Howell is not a household name.
He grew up in the San Fernando Valley outside Los Angeles where his father was a stunt man and rodeo rider.
Young Tom followed in his dad’s footsteps. As a boy, he also did stunt and rodeo work.
His first film role came at age 14 when he appeared as a supporting actor in E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982).
In just his second movie, however, Howell played the lead character. He was fifteen years old.
The film, The Outsiders, was based on a bestselling novel.
It was directed by Frances Ford Coppola.
Howell portrayed Ponyboy.
Howell’s costars in the movie were a Who’s Who of young Hollywood talents at the beginning of their famed careers.
They were: Ralph Macchio, best remembered for starring in the Karate Kid movies; Patrick Swayze; Emilio Estevez; Diane Lane; Rob Lowe; and Tom Cruise.
In 1985, Howell was under consideration, along with Eric Stoltz, to star in Back to the Future. Both of them lost out to Michael J. Fox.
In 1986, at age 18, Howell starred in the ill-fated and ill-conceived comedy movie Soul Man.
In it, Howell portrayed a rich white teenager who passes himself off as a black man in order to attend Harvard University.
The movie was condemned by the NAACP and other organizations. Critics panned it.
Howell has praised the movie as “an important film.”
After Soul Man, he appeared in hundreds of TV shows and movies.
However, since he was 18 in 1986 — unlike his well-known co-stars in The Outsiders — Howell has never had another starring role.
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