C. Thomas Howell

C. Thomas Howell (the "C." is an abbreviation of Christopher) is a former child star best known for his lead role as a young white man pretending to be black to get a minority scholarship to Harvard Law school in the 1986 comedy, Soul Man.




Howell was born in Los Angeles, California on December 7, 1966. He is son of a stuntman and rodeo rider. As a child, he was more interested in pursuing the rodeo circuit than in having an acting career. Howell traveled quite a bit with the rodeo and was named the California Junior Rodeo Association’s All Around Junior Boy’s Champion for 1980 and 1981.

His acting career began in television at the age of four, when he was a regular on the TV series Little People. In 1977 he had a minor role in the TV movie, It Happened One Christmas, a remake of the Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life. Howell's next role was a minor one in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, one of the biggest box office hits of all time. After E.T., Howell landed choice roles in the hit movies The Outsiders and Red Dawn.

By the mid-1980s Howell must have felt like he was on Cloud 9. He had already appeared in several huge hit movies and was being offered many more top roles. He was also a teenage heartthrob, the object of affection of many young girls. In 1986 he acted in The Hitcher, a horror cult classic where a psychopathic hitchhiker antagonizes Howell while going on a killing spree along a highway in the southwest. Howell also landed his career-defining role as Mark Watson in the smash hit comedy, Soul Man.

In Soul Man, Howell played a young white male who was accepted into Harvard Law School, but had to pay his own way because his parents cut him off financially. When he was unable to secure private loans on his own, he decided to load up on tanning pills to fool everyone into thinking he was black so that he could secure a minority scholarship. I personally thought that Soul Man was very funny. It basically gave an over-the-top view of the black-white stereotypes. However, the black community did not take kindly to the humor, given that Howell wore black face make-up throughout the film.



Although Soul Man was a hit, garnering $27 million at the U.S. box office, it was Howell's last major role. His career quickly hit the skids and has yet to recover. Has appeared in many productions over the past 20 years, but none of them are choice roles. For example, he appeared in a War of the Worlds movie in 2005, but it wasn't the big hit in which Tom Cruise starred. He also appeared in a remake of The Poseidon Adventure in 2005. Again, it was not the big remake that hit theatres in 2006. Instead, it was a crappy made-for-TV movie that hardly anyone watched.

On the personal side, Howell married his Soul Man co-star, Rae Dawn Chong, in 1986. In 1990 they divorced. He later remarried his current wife, Sylvie Anderson, and now has three kids.

C. Thomas Howell was a big star in the mid-1980s and was very bankable at the time. Unfortunately, after Soul Man, his career went down the toilet and has yet to recover. It's a shame because I always thought that he was a good actor. He is now relegated to acting in made-for-TV and straight-to-video flicks. Accordingly, there is no doubt that C. Thomas Howell is one washed-up celebrity!


*** Update - May 1, 2008 ***

C. Thomas Howell is currently appearing on the VH1 reality show, Celebracadabra. He is competing with other washed-up stars to be the best magician in a contest for cash and prizes. I watched a portion of the first episode last week. Howell impressively made a dollar bill appear to float while out on the street performing magic. After pulling off his trick, he raised his hands in the air and shouted, "Wolverines!," a line from his 1984 movie, Red Dawn.

 
*** Update - July 28, 2012 ***

C. Thomas Howell  recently appeared in the 2012 hit Spider-Man reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, where he plays Ray.  It remains to be seen whether this role will springboard Howell back into choice roles in the future.