10 Fascinating Hollywood Stories You Didn't Know
1. Ron Howard's Dad Was Mr No Legs' Sidekick
Directed by Ricou Browning, the former stuntman who played The Creature From The Black Lagoon, 1979’s Mr No Legs is a Z-grade exploitation movie about Lou (real life double amputee Ted Vollrath), a mob enforcer whose wheelchair comes equipped with machine guns.
Lou’s also a martial artist, and if you get in his way, then as the poster warns, “he’ll cut you down to size!” In the film’s most jaw dropping moment, that’s exactly what he does, leaping out of his chair to kill an army of thugs sent to wipe him out.
His sidekick in the picture is played by Rance Howard, who by that point had been acting for 20 years, including stints on the TV show Happy Days where his son Ron played Richie Cunningham. Rance later appeared in his son’s movies, including Splash, Cocoon and Apollo 13.
While Howard Snr’s career has had its share of ups and downs (he’s also in Children Of The Corn III, Toolbox Murders and 9 ½ Ninjas) there aren’t too many other pictures featuring double amputee kung fu assassins on his resume, and since neither Howard mentions the film in interviews, let’s assume they don’t talk about it at Thanksgiving.