The American actor Ralph George Macchio Jr. (born November 4, 1961) is an American television and movie star. Among his best known roles are Daniel LaRusso in three Karate Kid films and Cobra Kai, a sequel television series. The Deuce also featured him as Officer Haddix, as Johnny Cade in The Outsiders, as Jeremy Andretti in Eight Is Enough, as Bill Gambini in My Cousin Vinny, as Eugene Martone in Crossroads, and as Archie Rodriguez in Ugly Betty.
In Huntington, New York, Macchio was born. He was born to Rosalie (née DeSantis) and Ralph George Macchio Sr., who owned a few laundromats and a wastewater disposal company.
Ralph has a younger brother named Steven. He has half Italian and half Greek ancestry, and his mother has Italian ancestry. A 1980 screen test revealed that Macchio’s family had come from Naples. As a graduate of Half Hollow Hills Central School District in New York, Macchio graduated in 1979.
When Macchio was 15, his grandmother introduced him to his future wife, Phyllis Fierro.
They were married on April 5, 1987, and have two children, Julia (born 1992) and Daniel (born 1996). Nurse practitioner Fierro practices medicine.
In 2014, Macchio told a Japanese American National Museum audience that the 1947 Ford convertible his character Daniel receives from Miyagi in the first film was in his garage.