Ron Howard has created some of film's most memorable moments. From the dramatic tension of Apollo 13, to the knowing humor of Parenthood, to the tender magic of Cocoon, Howard's films, produced under the Imagine Entertainment banner, possess a bittersweet quality that unites audiences in their shared experiences of loss, survival, passion, family and commitment.

In 1995, Howard directed Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen Quinlan and Ed Harris. A suspenseful true life drama about the 13th Apollo mission that lost power and guidance systems 200,000 miles from Earth, the film brought Howard the Best Director of the Year award from the Director's Guild of America. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and four Golden Globes, and won Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. The Screen Actors Guild honored Apollo 13 with its Best Cast and Best Supporting Actor awards.

Howard packed another powerful dramatic punch with Ransom in 1996, the taut suspense thriller starring Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise and Delroy Lindo. Backdraft, his 1991 film set in the world of firefighters, starred Kurt Russell, William Baldwin and Robert DeNiro, and received four Academy Award nominations.

He next filmed the lushly beautiful Far and Away, an epic love story starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Howard's comedies, beginning with Night Shift, share a sympathy for the underdog. His hilarious and insightful Parenthood was nominated for two Academy Awards.

Howard has also created elaborate fantasy worlds for audiences, beginning with the beguiling Splash, and quickly followed by Cocoon, which won two Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor for Don Ameche. Last year, he took audiences to the amazing world of 'Whoville' in Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey.

In 1986, Howard and Brian Grazer founded Imagine Entertainment to create independently produced feature films. In the intervening years, Imagine has produced a wide variety of popular films including The Nutty Professor and its sequel, Nutty 2: The Klumps, Liar, Liar, Bowfinger, The Paper, Inventing the Abbotts and many others. Howard was also one of the producers, along with Grazer and Tom Hanks, of the mini-series From the Earth to the Moon for HBO. Before forming Imagine, Howard and Grazer had successfully collaborated on Night Shift in 1982, and again on Splash in 1984. Howard directed his first feature film, Grand Theft Auto, in 1978.

Audiences first came to know Howard as an actor. Born in Duncan, Oklahoma, he made his first screen appearance in The Journey, and subsequently appeared in The Music Man and as "Opie" in the long-running television series The Andy Griffith Show. In the 1970's, he starred in the television series Happy Days and drew favorable reviews for his performance in American Graffiti and The Shootist.

In 2005 he directed one of the most controversy project of the year The Da Vinci Code, for this movie Howard won a Academy Award nomination.