Biography
If Harrison Ford had listened to the advice of studio heads early in his career, he would have remained a carpenter and never gone on to star in some of Hollywood's biggest films and become one of the industry's most bankable stars. Born July 13, 1942, in Chicago and raised in a middle-class suburb, he had an average childhood. An introverted loner, he was popular with girls but picked on by school bullies. Ford quietly endured their everyday tortures until he one day lost his cool and beat the tar out of the gang leader responsible for his being repeatedly thrown off an embankment. He had no special affinity for films and usually only went to see them on dates because they were inexpensive and dark. Following high school graduation, Ford studied English and Philosophy at Ripon College in Wisconsin. An admittedly lousy student, he began acting while in college and then worked briefly in summer stock. He was expelled from the school three days before graduation because he did not complete his required thesis.
In the mid-'60s, Ford and his first wife, Mary Marquardt (his college sweetheart) moved to Hollywood, where he signed as a contract player with Columbia and, later, Universal. After debuting onscreen in a bit as a bellboy in
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966), he played secondary roles, typically a cowboy, in several films of the late '60s and in such TV series as
Gunsmoke,
The Virginian, and
Ironside. Discouraged with both the roles he was getting and his difficulty in providing for his young family, he abandoned acting and taught himself carpentry via books borrowed from the local library. Using his recently purchased run-down Hollywood home for practice, Ford proved himself a talented woodworker, and, after successfully completing his first contract to build an out-building for Sergio Mendez, found himself in demand with other Hollywood residents (it was also during this time that Ford acquired his famous scar, the result of a minor car accident).
Meanwhile, Ford's luck as an actor began to change when a casting director friend for whom he was doing some construction helped him get a part in
George Lucas'
American Graffiti (1973). The film became an unexpected blockbuster and greatly increased Ford's familiarity. Many audience members, particularly women, responded to his turn as the gruffly macho Bob Falfa, the kind of subtly charismatic portrayal that would later become Ford's trademark.
However, Ford's career remained stagnant until Lucas cast him as space pilot Han Solo in the megahit
Star Wars (1977), after which he became a minor star. He spent the remainder of the 1970s trapped in mostly forgettable films (such as the comedy Western
The Frisco Kid with
Gene Wilder), although he did manage to land the small role of Colonel G. Lucas in
Francis Ford Coppola's
Apocalypse Now (1979).
The early '80s elevated Ford to major stardom with the combined impact of
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and his portrayal of action-adventure hero Indiana Jones in
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), which proved to be an enormous hit. He went on to play "Indy" twice more, in 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. Ford moved beyond popular acclaim with his role as a big-city police detective who finds himself masquerading as an Amish farmer to protect a young murder witness in
Witness (1984), for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his work, as well as the praise of critics who had previously ignored his acting ability.
Having appeared in several of the biggest money-makers of all time, Ford was able to pick and choose his roles in the '80s and '90s. Following the success of
Witness, Ford re-teamed with the film's director,
Peter Weir, to make a film adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel The Mosquito Coast. The film met with mixed critical results, and audiences largely stayed away, unused to the idea of their hero playing a markedly flawed and somewhat insane character. Undeterred, Ford went on to choose projects that brought him further departure from the action films responsible for his reputation. In 1988 he worked with two of the industry's most celebrated directors,
Roman Polanski and
Mike Nichols. With Polanski he made
Frantic, a dark psychological thriller that fared poorly among critics and audiences alike. He had greater success with Nichols, his director in
Working Girl, a saucy comedy in which he co-starred with
Melanie Griffith and
Sigourney Weaver. The film was a hit, and displayed Ford's largely unexploited comic talent.
Ford began the 1990s with Alan J. Pakula's courtroom thriller
Presumed Innocent, which he followed with another
Mike Nichols outing,
Regarding Henry (1991). The film was an unmitigated flop with both critics and audiences, but Ford allayed his disappointment the following year when he signed an unprecedented 50-million-dollar contract to play CIA agent Jack Ryan in a series of five movies based upon the novels of Tom Clancy. The first two films of the series,
Patriot Games (1992) and
Clear and Present Danger (1994), met with an overwhelming success mirrored by that of Ford's turn as Dr. Richard Kimball in
The Fugitive (1993). Ford's next effort,
Sydney Pollack's 1995 remake of
Sabrina, did not meet similar success, and this bad luck continued with
The Devil's Own (which reunited him with Pakula), despite Ford's seemingly fault-proof pairing with
Brad Pitt. However, his other 1997 effort,
Wolfgang Petersen's
Air Force One, more than made up for the critical and commercial shortcomings of his previous two films, proving that Ford, even at 55, was still a bona fide, butt-kicking action hero. Stranded on an island with Anne Hesche for his next feature, the moderately successful romantic adventure Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Ford subsequently appeared in the less successful romantic drama
Random Hearts. Bouncing back a bit with
Robert Zemeckis' horror-flavored thriller
What Lies Beneath, the tension would remain at a fever pitch as Ford and crew raced to prevent a nuclear catastrophe in the fact based deep sea thriller K-19: The Widowmaker.
Ford's activity slowed down a bit in 2003, with only one performance that year, in
Ron Shelton's crime comedy
Hollywood Homicide (a starring role, alongside
Josh Hartnett); the film opened to mixed reviews. After a couple of years off from big-budget Hollywood efforts, Ford starred in
Richard Loncraine's 2006 crime thriller
Firewall. That year, the sixty-four year-old star also announced plans to to re-team with
Steven Spielberg for the fourth installment in the
Indiana Jones series. For the latter project, Ford campaigned for Last Crusade star
Sean Connery to rejoin him, even as Connery hinted at a permanent retirement from the screen. As of 2006, Ford also announced a forthcoming starring role in
Manhunt, playing the nineteenth century Colonel who hunts down James Wilkes Booth after Lincoln's assassination.
Ford, who does not like doing interviews and has maintained a strict privacy regarding his personal life, made a home with his second wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison, whose credits include E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982); they filed for divorce in the early 2000s, and their divorce became finalized in 2004. Prior to that, they lived quietly with their two children, Malcolm and Georgia (Ford's other children, two sons from his first marriage, are grown and have chosen careers outside of show business), in New York City and on an 800-acre ranch near Jackson Hole, WY; Ford had clauses inserted in his movie contracts which permitted him to bring his family with him for location shootings. Shortly following his separation from Mathison, Ford began to court
Ally McBeal star
Calista Flockhart, 22 years his junior; they became engaged in 2002 but announced no immediate wedding plans. ~ All Movie Guide