French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron in the Signes du zodiaque series, no. 17. Harrison Ford - Cancer. Photo: Harrison Ford in Witness (Peter Weir, 1985).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 105-527. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill in Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977). Caption: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo.
Italian postcard. Photo: Warner Bros. Harrison Ford in Blade Runner - The Final Cut (Ridley Scott, 1981). In 2007, Ridley Scott released Blade Runner: The Final Cut, digitally remastered with improved visual and sound effects, and numerous revisions to the 1992 Director's Cut. Caption: 'Replicants are like any other machine: they can be an advantage or a risk', Deckard.
West-German postcard by G. Barth, Frankfurt, no. GB 69. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984).
French postcard, Ref. 973.
French postcard by Editions Nugeron, no. Star 206. Photo: Lucasfilm. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989).
One of the most successful and groundbreaking films of all time
Harrison Ford was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1942. His parents were former radio actress Dorothy (née Nidelman) and advertising executive and former actor John William "Christopher" Ford.
Harrison 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 did some acting.
After dropping out of college, he first wanted to work as a DJ in radio and left for California to work at a large national radio station. He was unable to find work and, to make a living, he accepted a job as a carpenter. Another part-time job was auditioning, where he had to read out lines that the opposing actor would say to an actor auditioning for a particular role. Harrison did this so well that he was advised to take up acting.
He was also briefly a roadie for the rock group The Doors. From 1964, Ford regularly played bit roles in films. He was finally credited as "Harrison J. Ford" in the Western A Time for Killing (Phil Karlson, 1967), starring Glenn Ford, George Hamilton, and Inger Stevens. The "J" did not stand for anything since he has no middle name but 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. French filmmaker Jacques Demy chose Ford for the lead role of his first American film, Model Shop (1969). Still, 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.
He had an uncredited, non-speaking role in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Zabriskie Point (1970) as an arrested student protester. His first major role was in the coming-of-age comedy American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973). Ford became friends with the directors George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola and made several films with them. In 1974, he acted in The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) starring Gene Hackman, and played an army officer named "G. Lucas" in Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979, co-produced by George Lucas.
Ford made his breakthrough as Han Solo in Lucas's epic space opera Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977). Star Wars became one of the most successful and groundbreaking films ever, bringing widespread recognition for Ford and his co-stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. He reprised the role in four sequels over the next 42 years: Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980), Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983), Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens (J. J. Abrams, 2015), and Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019).
French postcard by Studio Erving, Paris, no. 696. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977).
West-German postcard by Filmwelt Berlin, Bad Münder, no. SW 4.082, 1997. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford and Peter Mayhew in Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977).
West-German postcard by Filmwelt Berlin, Bad Münder, no. SW 4.039, 1995. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977).
West-German postcard by Filmwelt Berlin, Bad Münder, no. SW 0.0226, 1997. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977).
West-German postcard by G. Barth, Frankfurt, no. GB 66. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981).
British postcard by Santoro Graphics, London, no C212. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd., 1984. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984).
A heroic, globe-trotting archaeologist
Harrison Ford also worked with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg on the successful Indiana Jones adventure series playing the heroic, globe-trotting archaeologist Indiana Jones. The series started with the action-adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981). Like Star Wars, the film was massively successful. It became the highest-grossing film of the year. Ford went on to reprise the role throughout the rest of the decade in the prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984), and the sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989), which co-starred Sean Connery as Indy's father, Henry Jones Sr. and River Phoenix as young Indiana.
In between the successful film series, Ford played daring roles in more artistic films. He played the role of a lonely depressed detective in the Sci-Fi film Blade Runner, (Ridley Scott, 1981) opposite Rutger Hauer. While not initially a success, Blade Runner became a cult classic and one of Ford's most highly regarded films. Ford received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for the crime drama Witness (Peter Weir, 1985) with Kelly McGillis, and also starred for Weir as a house father in the survival drama The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986) with River Phoenix as his son. In 1988, he played a desperate man searching for his kidnapped wife in Roman Polanski's Frantic. Ford received some of the best reviews of his career for his role as a wrongly accused prisoner Dr. Richard Kimble in the action thriller The Fugitive (Andrew Davis, 1993), also starring Tommy Lee Jones.
Ford became the second of five actors to portray Jack Ryan in two films of the film series based on the literary character created by Tom Clancy: the spy thrillers Patriot Games (Phillip Noyce, 1992) and Clear and Present Danger (Phillip Noyce, 1994). He then played the American president in the blockbuster Air Force One (Wolfgang Petersen, 1997) opposite Gary Oldman. Later his success waned somewhat and his films Random Hearts (Sydney Pollack, 1999) and Six Days Seven Nights (Ivan Reitman, 1998) disappointed at the box office. However, he did play a few special roles, such as an assassin in the supernatural horror-thriller What Lies Beneath (Robert Zemeckis, 2000) opposite Michele Pfeiffer, and a Russian submarine captain in K-19: The Widowmaker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2002) with Liam Neeson.
In 2008, he reprised his role as Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg, 2008) with Cate Blanchett. The film received positive reviews and was the second highest-grossing film worldwide in 2008. Later Ford accepted more supporting roles, such as in the sports film 42 (Brian Helgeland, 2013) about baseball player Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), the first black athlete to play in Major League Baseball. Ford reprised the role of Han Solo in the long-awaited Star Wars sequel Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015), which became massively successful like its predecessors. He also reprised his role as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017), co-starring Ryan Gosling.
Harrison Ford has been married three times and has four biological children and one adopted child. From 1964 to 1979, Ford was married to Mary Marquardt. The marriage produced two children. From 1983 to 2003, he was married to Melissa Mathison. Two children were born from this marriage. In 2010, he married actress Calista Flockhart, famous for her role in the TV series Ally McBeal. He owns a ranch in Jackson Hole (Wyoming). Besides being an actor, Ford is also an experienced pilot. Ford survived three plane crashes of planes he piloted himself. The most recent accident occurred in 2015 when he suffered an engine failure with a Ryan PT-22 Recruit and made an emergency landing on a golf course. Among other injuries, Ford sustained a broken pelvis and ankle from this latest accident. In 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
West-German postcard by G. Barth, Frankfurt, no. GB 60. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984).
West-German postcard by G. Barth, Frankfurt, no. GB 64. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984).
West-German postcard by G. Barth, Frankfurt, no. GB 65. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984).
West-German postcard by G. Barth, Frankfurt, no. GB 67. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984).
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 404. Image: film poster for The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986) with Harrison Ford.
French postcard by Editions Nugeron, no. Star 194. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989).
French postcard by Editions Nugeron, no. Star 195. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989).
French postcard by Editions Nugeron, no. Star 196. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989).
French postcard by Editions Nugeron, no. 198. Photo: Lucasfilm. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989).
French postcard by Editions Nugeron, no. Star 199. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989).
French postcard by Editions Nugeron, no. Star 202. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989).
Vintage photo with autograph. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg, 2008).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 31 March 2024.
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