I first felt the slippage when I was cast in an ABC series called The Cowboys, based on a 1972 John Wayne movie of the same name. To outward appearances, it looked like a great job—Bob Totten was directing the pilot and was involved in the casting. It was my first TV series since Gentle Ben. And the show was right in my comfort zone, given my track record in westerns: it was about seven teenage boys who are pressed into service as ranchers in the New Mexico Territory in the 1870s. I was one of the seven boys, acting alongside talented guys like Bobby Carradine and A Martinez, who were several years my senior. It felt good to be the young-gun actor on the set, the veteran who could act with the big boys.
But Totten was unceremoniously let go after the first episode. And then, as soon as the scripts started rolling in, I became demoralized. My character—Steve; I can’t believe I even remember his name—had only a couple of lines per show. Nothing plot-related. This would be the case for all twelve episodes of the brief, ignominious life of The Cowboys. I was basically a bit player.
Shortly before I landed the series, I had been appointed editor of the David Starr Jordan Middle School yearbook. Journalism was the first elective class that I had ever taken in school. I fell under the tutelage of a terrific teacher named Steve Campbell, who lit a fire under me and made me realize that I was a good writer. I started winning awards with my pen rather than with my face. Being the yearbook editor played to my strengths and was the sort of socially validating post that would have helped me get through the awkward ordeal of early adolescence.
But I had to give up the editorship for The Cowboys. And then I found myself in TV purgatory, the seventh banana in a cruddy eight-banana western that was destined to fail.
On top of that, I was losing my little-kid looks. My face was physically changing. My brows were getting bigger and darker. Acne descended upon me—pimples everywhere. Clint the cute towhead vanished seemingly overnight, his straight blond hair turning brown and frizzing into curls. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, What the hell just happened? Who will ever go out with me?
This is not atypical stuff for a kid going through puberty. But it’s brutal when you’re a child actor and you’re known for a certain look. When that look is gone, and your hormones are doing a number on your body and your brain, you start to feel the uglies, inside and out. And it sure as hell doesn’t help that your career stalls. Or that you like to get loaded.
IT’S IMPORTANT FOR me to point out that I am not in any way attributing my substance abuse to my struggles in my midteens as an actor. I’m simply saying that these two phenomena arrived in my life at the same time and made for a toxic brew. No work plus access to booze and pot equals trouble.
But here’s the thing: Initially, I thought I could handle it. I was good at keeping up appearances. I still received good grades and had good friends. It was a while before my habits and conduct were problematic enough to cause my family concern.
RON
I was no longer a full-time member of the Howard household when Clint started drinking and getting high, so I wasn’t there to bear witness to his overindulgence. Even when I learned that Clint was smoking pot, it didn’t bug me. Between USC and American Graffiti, I had become totally acclimated to environments where marijuana was a constant. My generation believed that smoking pot was actually less detrimental to one’s health than drinking. And I didn’t yet know that Clint was drinking.
Beyond all that, I knew that Clint had an active social life and I was rooting for him to have fun at Jordan Middle School and Burroughs High School. In some ways, I envied him. Growing up, I had always regarded myself as something of an outsider. I thought that I was inordinately square and Clint was normal. Now, I was comfortable being inordinately square—it hadn’t held me back from meeting and falling for Cheryl—but I didn’t want that for Clint. I admired that he wasn’t hampered by social inhibition. It took me a long while to suspect that anything about Clint’s life was amiss.
BESIDES, I WAS consumed by my own drama. In my first semester of college, I remained preoccupied by the thought of getting drafted. Then the ’72 election was decided in favor of President Nixon. Say what you will about Watergate and his many other transgressions, but Nixon kept his promise to end the draft. The last draft call that required young men to report for military duty was on December 7, 1972. The following July, the United States officially made the switch to having an all-volunteer armed forces. I can’t convey the magnitude of the relief I felt, for me and for my friends such as Noel. My draft-lottery number, 67, wasn’t as scarily low as his, but it was low enough to keep me up at night.