Ralph Macchio - Biography

What did you think of 'Iron Man'? Review it!

A dark, "ethnic" and lithe young lead of 1980s Hollywood, Ralph Macchio saw his film career sputter as he outgrew teenaged roles. Sort of a contemporary Sal Mineo, he fared best playing New York street kids wavering between going bad or succeeding. With the help of a caring adult, Macchio's characters usually walked down the wholesome path. He gained stardom in "The Karate Kid" (1984) and furthered it with two of its sequels. Like Michael J. Fox, he was hampered by a boyishness that belied his age.

Macchio began his career in TV commercials made in the New York area. By 1980, he was in feature films, playing the "operator" Chooch in "Up the Academy" based on MAD Magazine. Following its release, he joined the ABC series "Eight Is Enough" playing Betty Buckley's nephew with hoodlum tendencies who needed to be straightened out and "mainstreamed" by the Bradford Family. Macchio's energy added much needed life to the mild-mannered series. Although it was canceled following his 1980-81 season, he was noticed for his work, and won the lead in "Dangerous Company" (CBS, 1982), a "CBS Afternoon Playhouse" presentation. Macchio also starred in "The Three Wishes of Billy Grier" (ABC, 1984), playing a young man who asks help in doing three things before he dies. In He returned to TV-movies after a decade's absence to star in "The Last P.O.W.? The Bobby Garwood Story" (ABC, 1993), based on the true story of a young man, after being captured and imprisoned in Vietnam, who was the last P.O.W. set free and the only one to be tried and convicted of collaborating with the enemy.

A decade earlier, Macchio was cast by Francis Ford Coppola in "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 Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon and Tom Cruise. While Howell had the lead, Macchio was his best friend, Johnny. Strongly reminiscent of Mineo's portrayal of Plato in Nicholas Ray's 1955 classic "Rebel Without a Cause", Macchio's Johnny was a quiet, soulful youngster with a good heart and some bad breaks. Of course, he meets a suitably tragic end--but not before being redeemed. Macchio became a leading man in 1984, playing an east coast urban kid, transplanted with his Mom to southern California, who finds meaning in his life through the martial arts as taught to him by Noriyuki 'Pat' Morita in "The Karate Kid". The film was a huge sleeper success. Macchio starred in two sequels released in 1986 and 1989. His other starring roles included playing a troubled student in "Teachers"; a blues-loving urban young man who offers to take a forgotten blues legend back to Mississippi in return for some songs in Walter Hill's "Crossroads" (both 1986); and a man abandoned by his Vietnam veteran father (John Lithgow), but determined to find him in "Distant Thunder" (1988). Macchio outgrew the urban youth roles, and with that leads disappeared. He was the arrested nephew who calls for help from Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinny" (1992), a practically thankless role. It was two years before Macchio was again on the big screen, this time in the independent "Naked in New York" (1994).

Macchio has occasionally appeared on stage. In 1986, he made his Off-Broadway debut alongside Robert De Niro in "Cuba and His Teddy Bear," and then followed the production to Broadway. He was again Off-Broadway in "Only Kidding" in 1989, and in 1996, played Finch in the road company production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying".