Ralph Macchio

Ralph George Macchio is a former child star best known for his role as "Danny LaRusso" in The Karate Kid.

Macchio was born on November 4, 1961 in Huntington, New York. He began his acting career during the mid 1970s, as star of television commercials for products such as Bubble Yum and Dr. Pepper. Macchio's first big acting role was playing "Jeremy" on the television series Eight Is Enough. In 1983, he appeared in the major motion picture, The Outsiders, as Johnny Cade, a greaser living in Nebraska in the 1950s. Macchio's role was a major one in the hit movie and he received generally positive reviews for his performance.


Macchio's next acting role was the defining one of his career, as Danny LaRusso in The Karate Kid in 1984. Although Macchio was 23 when The Karate Kid came out, he was scrawny and looked like he was about 12 years old at the time. In The Karate Kid, Macchio's character Danny LaRusso was a wimpy kid who moved with his mother to Reseda, California after his father passed away. After LaRusso began dating Ali Mills, the ex-girlfriend (played by Elisabeth Shue) of a local karate champion, Johnny Lawrence (played by perpetual 1980s movie bully, William Zabka), LaRusso is routinely picked on and beaten up by Lawrence and his karate buddies.



Macchio eventually discovers that Mr. Miyagi, the handyman at his apartment building (played by Pat Morita), is a karate expert. Mr. Miyagi took Danny under his wing and taught him karate. By the end of the movie, Miyagi's coaching led LaRusso to win a local karate championship, defeating Johnny Lawrence and his cronies in a tournament. The heart of the story revolved around the close relationship between Miyagi and LaRusso - they were close in a father/son type of way.


After The Karate Kid, Macchio became somewhat of a teen idol of the mid-1980s, despite the fact that he was in his mid-20s at the time. Macchio appeared on the cover of many teen "bubble gum" magazines such as Tiger Beat, 16, and Teen Beat.
Although Macchio received rave reviews for The Karate Kid, he experienced difficulties obtaining meaningful roles afterward. Although he reprised the Danny LaRusso role for The Karate Kid, Parts II and III, his only other decent role in the past 20 years was as "Billy Gambini" in My Cousin Vinny in 1992. However, since 1992, Macchio has been relegated to acting in minor roles in crappy movies and TV shows such as Chicken Soup For The Soul and Popcorn Shrimp.

Although Macchio achieved tremendous success early in his career, his career quickly swirled down the toilet. The likely reason is that Macchio's child-like boyish looks made it far too difficult for people to view him in adult roles. He still looks like a kid, albeit a balding kid, as shown in the photos above. Despite his early success, Macchio couldn't purchase a decent role to save his life now. Accordingly, there can be no doubt that Ralph Macchio is one washed up celebrity!