Christopher Thomas Howell (born December 7, 1966 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is an American actor. He appeared in a minor role (credited as Tom Howell) in Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He also starred as the lead in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders as Ponyboy Curtis, and in the 1990 feature film Side Out. However, he is perhaps best known for his lead role in the 1986 film Soul Man in which his character diguises himself as a black man in order to get into Harvard University on a scholarship.
His acting career began in television at the age of four, when he was a regular on the TV series Little People; he went on to appear on other series: Two Marriages and Into the Homeland, as well as co-starring in Kindred: The Embraced.
He has produced Hope Ranch (2002) and To Protect and Serve (1992). Today, he is remarried to wife Sylvie Anderson and has three kids: Isabelle, Dashiell, and Liam.
In 2006, he guest starred in two episodes of the FOX drama 24's fifth season as Barry Landes, the boyfriend and doctor of Kim Bauer, played by Elisha Cuthbert.
He hosted a Hollywood insider radio show in Los Angeles, Sunday nights, 7pm to 9pm Pacific Time on 97.1 FREE FM with comic Kirk Fox until June of 2007
An ex-child rodeo star, C. Thomas Howell was earmarked as one of the most promising young actors in the mid 1980s after an eye-catching performance in the teen coming-of-age epic Outsiders, The (1983). Other roles followed, including the violent Cold War invasion drama Red Dawn (1984), and a co-starring part alongside Jamie Lee Curtis in Grandview, U.S.A. (1984). His career was not helped by the controversial racial comedy Soul Man (1986), which was not well-received. However, he did meet and fall in love with his co-star from that movie, Rae Dawn Chong, whom he later married. Whilst superstardom has eluded him, there's no doubting that Howell has been in consistent demand with film producers. He has notched up in excess of 90 feature film appearances. including starring roles in Side Out (1990), Gettysburg (1993), Baby Face Nelson (1995), Fatal Affair (1998), Asylum Days (2001) and Hoboken Hollow (2005). Known as a friendly and likable person to his fans, Howell lives with his current wife Sylvie, and their three children Isabelle, Dashiell & Liam.
