Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, of Greenwich, poses in his Greenwich office with a series of color doodles. Howard says he doodles to help his creativity and he says he doodles when he is talking on the phone. Howard says he spends a lot of time talking on the phone to people in the movie industry. (2002 file photo by Bob Luckey)
Best director — been there, done that.
But what do you get when you mate “A Beautiful Mind” with a Best Animated Short?
A new Oscar category: Best Doodle. And Ron Howard is the favorite.
The Academy Award winner, who calls Greenwich home, has found an outlet for his subconscious pastime of doodling on the backs of his Imagine Entertainment business cards.
Howard recently incorporated four of his favorite illustrations in a set of limited edition coffee mugs — available on Amazon.com for $25 and $35 — to help raise money for the Boys & Girls Club of America. All of the proceeds will go to the organization.
“It’s very much an expression of the subconscious,” Howard told Greenwich Time Friday. “I’m actually kind of building something. A good number of them turn out to be dream-like and sort of whimsical.”
Stuck on conference calls for hours with his Hollywood cohorts on the other side of the country, Howard said he often finds himself doodling. He usually starts with three simple lines on the back of his business cards. Where it goes from there is a crap shoot for Howard, who won Best Picture and Best Director accolades for his 2001 film, “A Beautiful Mind.”
“Part of it had to do with moving to Greenwich, actually,” Howard said. “I decided instead of just doodling to play this game, this creative exercise, which is to stimulate the right side of your brain.”
As Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show,” he grew up mugging for the cameras. Now, the former child star-turned-director is promoting a different kind of mug.
“I wound up Tweeting a few of them for fun over the last couple of years,” Howard said of his doodles. “People said, ‘You should sell these for charity,’ ” Howard said. “I thought, well I’m going to take these Twitter people up on this.”
One mug shows a bar scene, with a man checking out two women on what resembles a dance floor. The second is called “Cowboy Rerun” and depicts a man ensconced by an old Western on his television, aluminum beverage can in hand.
“I collect mugs from every location that I go on and every vacation, and always kind of the sillier and the cornier, the better,” Howard said.
Rounding out the set are the “Dragon Fish” and “Highway USA” mugs, each of which is numbered and has a reproduction of Howard’s signature on them.
“We just got our mug in the mail three days ago. It’s really cool,” said Bob DeAngelo, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich.
DeAngelo characterized Howard, who played Richie Cunningham on the series, “Happy Days,” as a devoted ally of the Boys & Girls Club.
“He produced a really nice (public service announcement) two years ago that national put out that had (Shaquille O’Neal) in it to kick off our Great Futures program,” DeAngelo said. “He’s been really really supportive of the national organization.”
Howard commended the organization for its contributions to generations of young people.
“I just really believe in the work they do across the country,” he said. “I really believe in sort of advancing the educational opportunities. They not only develop great recreational programs, but the sort of know how to morph those into great character-building experiences.”
Howard is currently on location in Canary Islands off the coast of Spain where he is filming “In the Heart of the Sea,” the odyssey of a shipwrecked whaling crew that is based on a true story. Starring Chris Hemsworth, the film is slated for release in March of 2015.
“It’s been an adventure,” Howard said. “We got practically blown out of our boats today.”
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