This versatile stage-trained character player of the 1980s and 90s first registered with a role in the high-profile ABC-TV movie "The Day After" (1983), about the aftermath of a nuclear disaster. After several years of bouncing between low-budget features ("The Lightship" 1985) and TV-movies ("A Killer in the Family", ABC 1983), Howard registered with audiences with his portrayal of Cowboy, a gung-ho marine, in Stanley Kubrick's devastating Vietnam saga "Full Metal Jacket" (1987). He has since turned in some fine performances in features, including "Tequila Sunrise" (1988), as Mel Gibson's drug-addicted cousin; "Men Don't Leave" (1990), as Jessica Lange's love interest; "Wilder Napalm" (1993), as Dennis Quaid's pyromaniac brother; and "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" (1995), as Stockard Channing's abusive husband. More recently, he co-starred in the independent "johns" and offered a villainous turn as the British businessman out to capture dinosaurs for exhibitions in Steven Spielberg's sequel "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (both 1997).

On the small screen, Howard has offered strong portrayals of criminals like a sadistic rapist in "Hands of a Stranger" (NBC, 1987) and the pedophile who kidnaps a young boy and holds him for seven years in the miniseries "I Know My First Name Is Steven" (NBC, 1989). He won a CableACE Award for his supporting turn in the HBO film "Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture" (1990). More recently, he was the bewildered husband of Sissy Spacek in Showtime's "Beyond the Call" (1996) and the Israeli Mossad agent who became "The Man Who Captured Eichmann" (TNT, 1996). Howard earned widespread critical praise for his role as a convict who befriends a pregnant woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn) in "William Faulkner's Old Man" (CBS, 1997).

Howard married his "Wilder Napalm" co-star Debra Winger in 1996.