Ron Howard honours wife Cheryl on 50th anniversary of first date: 'We'll be driving in the same '70 VW Bug'

Ron Howard paid tribute to his wife Cheryl on the 50th anniversary since their first date.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker, 66, met his wife at 16 years of age when he took her out on their first date.

"Nov 1 1970 Cheryl & I went on our 1st date. We went to see a re-release of Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad Mad Mad World and then got some pizza at now-defunct Barnone's in Toluca Lake. Quite a start, right?" Howard wrote on Instagram.

"Today we are celebrating with these kind of socks we ordered (Cheryl's w/my mug got held up) and a trip to our local take-out pizza place," he added, alongside a photo of the socks with Cheryl's face on them. "We'll be driving in the same '70 VW Bug I picked Cheryl up in 5 decades ago. It runs great. So do we."

The couple dated for five years before they tied the knot in 1975. They now share four children together, daughters Bryce Dallas Howard, twins Jocelyn Carlyle and Paige Howard and son Reed Cross.

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Howard recently opened up to People about meeting Cheryl as high school sweethearts.

"I met her, and there was never anybody else," he said. "People say, 'How'd you do it?' There's no technique. There's no tactic other than communication is really important. You have to learn to communicate and have difficult conversations in constructive ways."

He continued, "Beyond that, there's an element of luck because people either grow together or they don't and I don't think you can force that."

Howard is the brains behind critically acclaimed drama A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1984).