The 80s - Ralph Macchio Appreciation #1 - Because we still love those baby browns

atwoodsmariano · 09-11-2018, 01:42 PM

x

Born Nov. 4, 1961 in Huntington, Long Island, NY to a devoted Italian family, Macchio began his career landing NY-based TV commercials. By 1980, he was landing roles in feature films, playing the "operator" Chooch in MAD magazine's "Up the Academy." Following its release, he joined the family drama series "Eight Is Enough" (ABC, 1977-1981) playing Betty Buckley's nephew, Jeremy, with hoodlum tendencies who needed a good straightening out by the Bradford Family. Macchio's energy added much needed life to the mild-mannered series, resulting in the teen's face smothered across every month's issues of Tiger Beat and Teen Beat. Although the show was canceled following his 1980-81 season, Macchio's work on "Eight" helped land him the lead in the CBS Afternoon Playhouse production, "Dangerous Company" (CBS, 1982). Macchio also starred in "The Three Wishes of Billy Grier" (ABC, 1984), playing a young man who asks for help so that he can do three things before he dies.

Around this time, Macchio was cast by Francis Ford Coppola in the iconic teen angst film, "The Outsiders" (1983). Based on S.E. Hinton's classic "young adult" novel, the film boasted a cast packed with the up-and-coming young leads of the day, including future stars Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon and Tom Cruise. While Howell held down the lead, Macchio was his best friend, the sympathetic Johnny Cade. Strongly reminiscent of Mineo's portrayal of Plato in Nicholas Ray's 1955 classic, "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), Macchio's Johnny was a quiet, soulful youngster with a good heart and some bad breaks. Of course, he met a suitably tragic end - but not before being redeemed. Because Macchio took his role the most seriously of the partying pack of teenage boys let loose on location in Tulsa, OK, he generally received the best critical reviews of them all for his heartbreaking portrayal.

Enjoying his post-Johnny Cade fandom among teenage girls, Macchio became a true leading man in 1984 when he landed the role of Daniel LaRusso - an east coast kid transplanted to Southern California along with mom - who quickly makes all the wrong enemies at school in "The Karate Kid." Through martial arts training as taught to him by Noriyuki 'Pat' Morita, Macchio not only wins the competition at film's end, but the girl (Elisabeth Shue) as well. An unsuspected success that summer, Macchio starred in two lackluster sequels released in 1986 and 1989. His other starring roles included playing a troubled student in "Teachers" (1986); a young blues-loving urban man who offers to take a forgotten music legend back to Mississippi in return for some songs in Walter Hill's "Crossroads" (1986); and a man abandoned by his Vietnam veteran father (John Lithgow) in "Distant Thunder" (1988).

Macchio outgrew the urban youth characterizations and watched as lead roles became few and far between - thanks in large part to his ever youthful looks. His last major showing on the big screen was as the arrested nephew who calls his sketchy cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci) for legal help in the minor comedy hit, "My Cousin Vinny" (1992). It was two years before Macchio was again on the big screen; this time in the independent film, "Naked in New York" (1994). Never one to wallow in past successes, Macchio shifted his big screen focus to the stage, making his off-Broadway debut in 1986 alongside Robert De Niro in "Cuba and His Teddy Bear," which was successful enough to make its way to Broadway. Macchio was again off-Broadway in "Only Kidding" in 1989. In 1996, he played Finch in the road company production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." (x)

x