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Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. He has been a leading man in films of several genres, and is regarded as an American cultural icon.[1] His films have grossed more than $5.4 billion in North America and more than $9.3 billion worldwide.[2][3][4] Ford is the recipient of various accolades, including the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, an Honorary César, and an Honorary Palme d'Or, in addition to an Academy Award nomination.[5][6]

For the unrelated silent film actor, see Harrison Ford (silent film actor).

Harrison Ford

(1942-07-13) July 13, 1942

Actor

1964–present

5

Position established

Ford made his film debut in an uncredited appearance in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) and went on to play supporting roles in such films as Journey to Shiloh (1968), Getting Straight (1970), American Graffiti (1973), and The Conversation (1974). He gained worldwide fame for his starring role as Han Solo in the epic space opera film Star Wars (1977), a role he reprised in four sequels over the next four decades. The multimedia franchise became a global cultural phenomenon. Ford is also known for his portrayal of the titular character in the popular media franchise Indiana Jones, beginning with the action-adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). He played the character in four additional sequels over the next four decades and also starred as Rick Deckard in the cult science fiction film Blade Runner (1982) and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and portrayed Jack Ryan in the spy thriller films Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994).


Ford's on-screen career spans six decades in both film and television. His other films include Witness (1985), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, The Mosquito Coast (1986), Working Girl (1988), Presumed Innocent (1990), Regarding Henry (1991), The Fugitive (1993), Sabrina (1995), The Devil's Own (1997), Air Force One (1997), Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Random Hearts (1999), What Lies Beneath (2000), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), Firewall (2006), Morning Glory (2010), Cowboys & Aliens (2011) 42 (2013), The Age of Adaline (2015), and The Call of the Wild (2020). Ford has since starred in the Paramount+ western series 1923 (2022–present) and the Apple TV+ comedy series Shrinking (2023–present).


Outside of acting, Ford is a licensed pilot; he has often assisted the emergency services in rescue missions near his home in Wyoming, and he chaired an aviation education program for youth from 2004 to 2009.[7] Ford is also an environmental activist, having served as the inaugural vice chair of Conservation International since 1991.[8]

Early life and education

Harrison Ford was born at the Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, Illinois,[9] on July 13, 1942,[10] to former radio actress Dorothy (née Nidelman) and advertising executive and former actor John William "Christopher" Ford.[11] His younger brother, Terence, was born in 1945.[12] Their father was a Catholic of Irish descent,[11] while their mother was an Ashkenazi Jew whose parents were emigrants from Minsk, Belarus, then in the Russian Empire.[11][13] When asked in which religion he and his brother were raised, Ford jokingly responded "Democrat"[14] and more seriously stated that they were raised to be "liberals of every stripe".[15] 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."[16][17][18]


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,[17] and he was its first sportscaster during his senior year. He attended Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin,[17] where he was a philosophy major and a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. A self-described "late bloomer",[19] Ford took a drama class in the final quarter of his senior year to get over his shyness and became fascinated with acting.[20][21][22] Ford was expelled from college four days before graduation.[23]

Career

1964–1976

In 1964, after a season of summer stock with the Belfry Players in Wisconsin,[24][25] Ford traveled to Los Angeles and eventually signed a contract with Columbia Pictures' new talent program.[11]: 60–69  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. According to one anecdote, Tokofsky told Ford that when actor Tony Curtis delivered a bag of groceries, he could tell that Curtis was a movie star whereas Ford wasn't; Ford immediately retorted that if Curtis was truly a talented actor, he would've delivered them like a bellhop. Ford was apparently fired soon after.[11][26]


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. In 1968, he also worked as a camera operator for one of the Doors' tours.[27] 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.[28][29]


Not happy with the roles offered to him, Ford became a self-taught professional carpenter[17] to support his then-wife and two young sons. Clients at this time included the writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, who lived on the beach at Malibu. Ford appears in the documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. He and his wife became friends of the writers.[30] Casting 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).[17] 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 colonel named "G. Lucas".

1977–1997

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.[31] 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. Ford began to be cast in bigger roles in films throughout the late 1970s, including Heroes (1977), Force 10 from Navarone (1978) and Hanover Street (1979). He 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 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.[32]

Activism

Environmental work

Ford is vice-chair of Conservation International,[120] an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization's intent is to protect nature.[121] Since 1992, Ford has lent his voice to a series of public service messages promoting environmental involvement for EarthShare, an American federation of environmental and conservation charities.[122] He has acted as a spokesperson for Restore Hetch Hetchy, a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley to its original condition.[123] Ford also appears in the documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, which reports on people affected by and seeking solutions to climate change.[124]


In 1993, the arachnologist Norman Platnick named a new species of spider Calponia harrisonfordi, and in 2002 the entomologist Edward O. Wilson named a new ant species Pheidole harrisonfordi (in recognition of Harrison's work as Vice Chairman of Conservation International).[125] The Peruvian snake species Tachymenoides harrisonfordi was named for Ford in 2023.[126]


In September 2013, Ford, while filming an environmental documentary in Indonesia, interviewed the Indonesian Forestry Minister, Zulkifli Hasan. After the interview, Ford and his crew were accused of "harassing state institutions" and publicly threatened with deportation. Questions within the interview concerned the Tesso Nilo National Park, Sumatra. It was alleged the Minister of Forestry was given no prior warning of questions nor the chance to explain the challenges of catching illegal loggers.[127][128][129][130] Ford was provided an audience with the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, during which he expressed concerns regarding Indonesia's environmental degradation and the government efforts to address climate change. In response, the President explained Indonesia's commitment to preserving its oceans and forests.[131][132]


In 2019, on behalf of Conservation International, Ford gave an impassioned speech during the United Nations' Climate Action Summit in New York on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and its effect on climate change for the rest of the world. Ford urged his audience to listen to 'angry young people' trying to make a difference in the situation, emphasizing, "The most important thing we can do for them is to get the hell out of their way."[133]

Political views

Like his parents, Ford is a lifelong Democrat.[134] On September 7, 1995, Ford testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of the Dalai Lama and an independent Tibet.[135][136] In 2007, he narrated the documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance.[137] In 2000, Ford donated a thousand dollars to the presidential campaigns of Bill Bradley, Al Gore, and John McCain.[138] In 2003, he publicly condemned the Iraq War and called for "regime change" in the United States. He also criticized Hollywood for making movies which were "more akin to video games than stories about human life and relationships", and he called for more gun control in the United States.[139] In 2009, Ford signed a petition calling for the release of film director Roman Polanski, who had been arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.[140]


After Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said his favorite role of Ford's was Air Force One because he "stood up for America", Ford responded that it was just a film and made critical statements against Trump's presidential bid.[141][142] For his first time ever endorsing a political candidate for office, Ford endorsed Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign against Trump. He said that he wanted to "encourage people to support candidates that will support the environment" and felt that under Trump, the U.S. had "lost some of our credibility in the world".[143] Along with Mark Hamill, Ford worked with the anti-Trump Republican group The Lincoln Project to produce and narrate a 2020 election ad attacking Trump's disparaging of Anthony Fauci.[144]

Archaeology

Following on his success portraying the archaeologist Indiana Jones, Ford also plays a part in supporting the work of professional archaeologists. He serves as a General Trustee on the Governing Board of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), North America's oldest and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology.[145] Ford assists them in their mission of increasing public awareness of archaeology and preventing looting and the illegal antiquities trade.

about The Mosquito Coast in 1986 from Texas Archive of the Moving Image

Harrison Ford interview on KVUE

at IMDb

Harrison Ford

collected news and commentary at The New York Times

Harrison Ford

at Hollywood Walk of Fame

Harrison Ford