Harrison Ford (July 13, 1942, Chicago, Illinois, USA) is an American actor. He has been a leading man in films of several genres and is regarded as an American cultural icon. His films have grossed more than $5.4 billion in North America and more than $9.3 billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing actor in North America. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2000, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2010 and an Honorary Palme d'Or in 2023 in addition to an Academy Award nomination.
After playing minor roles in such films as American Graffiti (1973) and The Conversation (1974), Ford gained worldwide fame for his starring role as Han Solo in the epic space opera film Star Wars (1977), reprising the role in four sequels over the course of the next 42 years. He also became known for his portrayal of Indiana Jones in the titular film franchise, beginning with the action-adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and also reprising the role in four sequels over the next 42 years. He has also starred in other film series, playing Rick Deckard in the science fiction films Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Jack Ryan in the spy thrillers Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994).
Ford received his only Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for playing a detective in the thriller Witness (1985). He played other heroic characters in The Fugitive (1993), The Devil's Own (1997), Air Force One (1997), and Cowboys & Aliens (2011), as well as morally complex roles in The Mosquito Coast (1986), Presumed Innocent (1990), Regarding Henry (1991), What Lies Beneath (2000), and 42 (2013). Ford has also starred in the romantic films Working Girl (1988), Sabrina (1995), Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Morning Glory (2010), and The Age of Adaline (2015).
Ford has starred in the Paramount+ western series 1923 (2022–present) and the Apple TV+ comedy series Shrinking (2023). Outside acting, Ford is a licensed pilot who has often assisted the emergency services in rescue missions near his home in Wyoming. He is also a dedicated environmental activist, having served as the inaugural Vice Chair of Conservation International since 1991. He is married to actress Calista Flockhart.
Harrison Ford was born at the Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on July 13, 1942, to former radio actress Dorothy (née Nidelman) and advertising executive and former actor John William "Christopher" Ford. His younger brother, Terence, was born in 1945. Their father was a Catholic of German and Irish descent, while their mother was an Ashkenazi Jew whose parents were emigrants from Minsk, Belarus, then in the Russian Empire. When asked in which religion he and his brother were raised, Ford jokingly responded "Democrat" and more seriously stated that they were raised to be "liberals of every stripe". When asked about what influence his Jewish and Irish Catholic ancestry may have had on him, he quipped, "As a man I've always felt Irish, as an actor I've always felt Jewish."
Ford was a Boy Scout, achieving the second-highest rank of Life Scout. He worked at Napowan Adventure Base Scout Camp as a counselor for the Reptile Study merit badge. Because of this, he and director Steven Spielberg later decided to depict the young Indiana Jones as a Life Scout in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Ford graduated in 1960 from Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. His voice was the first student voice broadcast on his high school's new radio station, WMTH, and he was its first sportscaster during his senior year. He attended Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, where he was a philosophy major and a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. A self-described "late bloomer", Ford took a drama class in the final quarter of his senior year to get over his shyness and became fascinated with acting. Ford was expelled from Ripon College four days before he was scheduled to graduate, on plagiarism allegations.
In 1964, after a season of summer stock with the Belfry Players in Wisconsin, Ford traveled to Los Angeles to apply for a job in radio voice-overs. He did not get it, but stayed in California and eventually signed a $150-per-week contract with Columbia Pictures' new talent program, equivalent to $1,311 in 2021, playing bit roles in films. His first known role was an uncredited one as a bellhop in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966). There is little record of his non-speaking (or "extra") roles in film. Ford was at the bottom of the hiring list, having offended producer Jerry Tokofsky after he played a bellboy in the feature. He was told by Tokofsky that when actor Tony Curtis delivered a bag of groceries, he did it like a movie star; Ford felt his job was to act like a bellboy.
His speaking roles continued next with Luv (1967), though he was still uncredited. He was finally credited as "Harrison J. Ford" in the 1967 Western film A Time for Killing, starring Glenn Ford, George Hamilton and Inger Stevens, but the "J" did not stand for anything since he has no middle name. It was added to avoid confusion with a silent film actor named Harrison Ford, who appeared in more than 80 films between 1915 and 1932 and died in 1957. Ford later said that he was unaware of the existence of the earlier actor until he came upon a star with his own name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ford soon dropped the "J" and worked for Universal Studios, playing minor roles in many television series throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Gunsmoke, Ironside, The Virginian, The F.B.I., Love, American Style and Kung Fu. He appeared in the western Journey to Shiloh (1968) and had an uncredited, non-speaking role in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film Zabriskie Point as an arrested student protester. French filmmaker Jacques Demy chose Ford for the lead role of his first American film, Model Shop (1969), but the head of Columbia Pictures thought Ford had "no future" in the film business and told Demy to hire a more experienced actor. The part eventually went to Gary Lockwood. Ford later commented that the experience had been nevertheless a positive one because Demy was the first to show such faith in him.
asting director and fledgling producer Fred Roos championed the young Ford and secured him an audition with George Lucas for the role of Bob Falfa, which Ford went on to play in American Graffiti (1973). Ford's relationship with Lucas profoundly affected his career later. After director Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather was a success, he hired Ford to expand his office and gave him small roles in his next two films, The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979); in the latter film, Ford played an army officer named "G. Lucas".
Ford's work in American Graffiti eventually landed him his first starring film role when Lucas hired him to read lines for actors auditioning for roles in Lucas's upcoming epic space-opera film Star Wars (1977). Lucas was eventually won over by Ford's performance during these line reads and cast him as Han Solo. Star Wars became one of the most successful and groundbreaking films of all time, and brought Ford, and his co-stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, widespread recognition. Then Ford began to receive bigger roles in films throughout the late 1970s, including Heroes (1977), Force 10 from Navarone (1978) and Hanover Street (1979). Ford also co-starred alongside Gene Wilder in the buddy-comedy western The Frisco Kid (1979), playing a bank robber with a heart of gold. Ford returned to star in the similarly successful Star Wars sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), as well as the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). Ford wanted Lucas to kill off Han Solo at the end of Return of the Jedi, saying, "That would have given the whole film a bottom," but Lucas refused.
Ford's status as a leading actor was solidified with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), an action-adventure collaboration between Lucas and Steven Spielberg that gave Ford his second franchise role as the heroic, globe-trotting archaeologist Indiana Jones. Like Star Wars, the film was massively successful and became the highest-grossing film of the year. Spielberg was interested in casting Ford from the beginning, but Lucas was not, having already worked with him in American Graffiti and Star Wars. Lucas relented after Tom Selleck was unable to accept. Ford went on to reprise the role throughout the rest of the decade in the prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and the sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. During the June 1983 filming of Temple of Doom in London, Ford herniated a disc in his back. The 40-year-old actor was forced to fly back to Los Angeles for surgery and returned six weeks later. Following his leading-man success as Indiana Jones, Ford played Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott's dystopian science-fiction film Blade Runner (1982). Compared to his experiences on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, Ford had a difficult time with the production.
In the 1990s, Ford became the second actor to portray Jack Ryan in two films of the film series based on the literary character created by Tom Clancy: Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), both co-starring Anne Archer and James Earl Jones. Ford took over the role from Alec Baldwin, who had played Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (1990). This led to long-lasting resentment from Baldwin, who said that he had wanted to reprise the role but Ford had negotiated with Paramount behind his back. Ford also played leading roles in other action-based thrillers throughout the decade, such as the critically acclaimed The Fugitive (1993), The Devil's Own (1997), and Air Force One (1997). For his performance in The Fugitive, which co-starred Tommy Lee Jones, Ford received some of the best reviews of his career, including from Roger Ebert, who concluded that, "Ford is once again the great modern movie everyman. As an actor, nothing he does seems merely for show, and in the face of this melodramatic material he deliberately plays down, lays low, gets on with business instead of trying to exploit the drama in meaningless acting flourishes." Ford also played more straight dramatic roles in Presumed Innocent (1990) and Regarding Henry (1991), as well as another romantic lead in Sabrina (1995), a remake of the classic 1954 film of the same name.
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Han Solo (Archive) | Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures |