Ron Howard Wins Acclaim of Directors

After years of watching the Oscar elude his grasp, director Ron Howard saw his chances of winning his first Academy Award strengthened Saturday night when his peers in the Directors Guild of America singled out his work in “A Beautiful Mind” for the top directors’ achievement in feature films.

Howard’s film, about how mathematics professor John Nash wins the Nobel Prize despite his long battle with schizophrenia, was honored at the 54th annual awards dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Only five times since the DGA awards’ inception in 1949 has the winner not gone on to win best director at the Academy Awards. Until this year, Howard had been overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, winning a DGA award for 1995’s “Apollo 13” but watching Mel Gibson walk off with the Oscar that year for “Braveheart.”

Howard, who grew up before millions of television viewers as the carrot-topped Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show” and later as teenager Richie Cunningham on the hit sitcom “Happy Days,” has long been one of Hollywood’s top-grossing directors.

For the DGA contest, he beat out Peter Jackson for “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” Christopher Nolan for “Memento,” Ridley Scott for “Black Hawk Down” and Baz Luhrmann for “Moulin Rouge.”

Other winners Saturday night included Bob Kerstetter for commercials; Amy Schatz for children’s programs; Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim for the documentary “Startup.com”; and William Ludel for the ABC soap opera “General Hospital.”

Also honored were Frank Pierson for movies for television for HBO’s “Conspiracy”; Alan Ball for dramatic television series for the pilot to HBO’s “Six Feet Under”; Todd Holland for comedy series for an episode titled “Bowling” for the Fox sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle”; and Joel Gallen and Beth McCarthy-Miller in the musical variety category for “America: A Tribute to Heroes.”

A few hours before the awards ceremony, DGA President Jack Shea announced his resignation during a special meeting of the guild’s National Board of Directors.

The board elected First Vice President Martha Coolidge to succeed Shea, according to a DGA statement. Coolidge will be the first woman president of the guild.

“It has been a tradition at the DGA for the president to only serve two terms,” Shea said in the statement. “At our national convention last June, I advised the delegates that I would run for a third term in order to provide continuity of leadership for our upcoming contract negotiations.”

Shea was picked to take the helm of the DGA for another term.

“I also informed the delegates at that time that I intended to step down as president following a successful conclusion to our negotiations,” he said

.”Thanks to our outstanding negotiating committee, our negotiations were successfully concluded and our contract overwhelmingly ratified by our members,” he said. “I feel it is now time for me to do what I said I would do.”

Coolidge has directed such works as “Valley Girl,” “Rambling Rose” and “Real Genius,” which won Grand Prix honors at the Paris Film Festival in 1986.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.