72-Year-Old Ron Howard Reveals What Still Makes Him Fall For Wife Cheryl After 51 Years

Ron Howard has spent most of his life in front of an audience, first as little Opie Taylor and later as Richie Cunningham, but the person he still talks about with the most feeling is the girl he met in an 11th grade English class. On Wednesday, November 11, at the DOC NYC Visionaries Lunch at Gotham Hall in New York City, the 72-year-old director was asked about his wife, Cheryl, and he answered without a moment of hesitation.

The Howards celebrated 51 years of marriage on June 7, and just ten days before that lunch they marked 56 years since their very first date. What Ron told People about what keeps him falling for her is simple and a little old-fashioned, and it makes more sense once you know how the story of Ron Howard and Cheryl began in a Burbank classroom.

How Did Opie Win Over a Girl Who Had Never Seen Mayberry?

Ron was a junior at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, California, when Cheryl Alley sat down in his English class. By then he had already spent eight seasons as Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, which ran from 1960 to 1968, yet the fame meant very little to her. According to biographer Beverly Gray, Cheryl had not been allowed to watch much television as a girl and had never seen the show at all.

That suited Ron fine. “I met her, and there was never anybody else,” he told People in 2019, a line Fox News also carried at the time. Their first date came on November 1, 1970, when he picked her up in a 1970 Volkswagen Bug and took her to a re-release of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, followed by pizza in Toluca Lake. “Quite a start, right?” he joked on Instagram decades later, adding that the old Bug was still running. “It runs great. So do we.”

Cheryl was nobody’s idea of a starstruck teenager, though. Their eldest daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, said on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2024 that her mother “solo’d her first plane when she was 16,” which Cheryl herself has confirmed by writing that she soloed on her 16th birthday. That independent streak is the reason the young star had to ask more than once.

Why Did Cheryl Turn Down Ron Howard’s First Two Proposals?

“He proposed three times and she said no two of them,” Bryce explained on that same 2024 appearance, as reported by People and Hello! magazine. Cheryl’s answer to the early proposals was clear: “I wanna go to school first. I’m not ready to be on your train yet.” Bryce called her mother a “very tough, distinctive, singular lady.”

The third proposal worked. On June 7, 1975, the two 21-year-olds were married at Magnolia Park United Methodist Church in Burbank, a little more than a year after Happy Days premiered and made Ron a star all over again as Richie Cunningham. It was no splashy Hollywood affair. “It was a small, very modest wedding in Burbank, California,” he told People in 2025, explaining that “it was important to Cheryl’s dad that he pay for it.”

In his 2021 memoir The Boys, Ron revealed that the whole wedding cost $800, a detail both People and Entertainment Now repeated for the couple’s golden anniversary. They sent out 300 invitations and the church was “chock-a-block full,” he recalled, with “everybody from The Andy Griffith Show, everybody from Happy Days and so many other friends.” “The whole thing was super modest, but you know what? By God it worked,” Ron said. Within six years, that quiet life was about to get a lot louder.

What Happened When the Howards Became a Family of Six?

Bryce Dallas Howard arrived first, on March 2, 1981, and at 45 she is the family’s best-known actor, from The Help to the Jurassic World films. Fraternal twins Jocelyn and Paige followed on February 5, 1985, which makes them 41. Paige became an actress and voice performer, while Jocelyn has chosen a private life. Their son, Reed, was born in April 1987 and is now 39, and he has built a following as a golfer. Today Ron and Cheryl have six grandchildren, a count both People and TV Insider report, including Bryce’s son, Theodore, and daughter, Beatrice.

Cheryl, meanwhile, found her own calling. “I didn’t start writing until the age of 22 and English was never my strong point,” she admitted on her website, “but I do, dearly, love a good yarn.” Her debut novel, In the Face of Jinn, an adventure about two American sisters, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2005.

She has also quietly appeared in her husband’s movies for decades, from Grand Theft Auto to Splash, Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. “She’s been in everything that I’ve ever done since 11th grade in high school,” Ron told People in 2024, and he has long called her his good luck charm. Fame never fit him easily, which is why he once wore a disguise during his ‘Happy Days’ heyday, but Cheryl was the one thing he never tried to hide.

Ron Howard’s Secret to 51 Years With Cheryl

So what still gets him after all this time? When People asked at the DOC NYC lunch this week, Ron’s answer was about the woman across the table, not about technique. “Her smile and her eyes,” he said, “and that look that makes me fall in love again over and over and over again.” Then he added, “I’ve been very blessed to be her guy.”

The couple also rediscovered the thing that started it all, a night at the movies. “Our romantic life has often been built around going to the movies, and that kind of dried up after COVID,” Ron explained. “Now we’ve just rediscovered going back to the movies at least once a week and having a date.” It is the same plan as November 1, 1970, just without the Volkswagen.

He has never pretended it was all magic. Back in 2019 he told People that couples “have to learn to communicate and have difficult conversations in constructive ways,” and that “there’s an element of luck because people either grow together or they don’t.” On their 50th anniversary last year, he described the marriage on Instagram as “an adventure downriver through calm, soothing waters and some tricky rapids as well,” and he summed up their key in one line: “love and respect each other enough to just keep paddling.” His closing line that day still says it best. “Thank God for you, Cheryl.”