Harrison Ford biography
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Harrison Ford filmography

[h3]From a struggling actor who turned to carpentry to one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Harrison Ford’s journey from rags to riches embodies the American dream as much as the characters he is known for: struggling, rough-round-the-edges, rascalish grafters who get the job done through grit and determination. [/h3]

Ford’s persistence during almost a decade of flailing round the edges of stardom has paid off and, if box-office takings are any measure, he is now probably the most successful actor of all time. Four films in the top ten grossing films, eight in the top 50, and over $6 billion in world-wide takings have ensured Ford is as bankable as he is watchable.

Ford was born in Chicago, to parents Christopher, an Irish-Catholic advertising executive and former actor, and Dorothy, a Russian-Jewish home-maker. He has one brother, Terence. Ford spent an un-noteworthy childhood in suburban Des Plaines and later Park Ridge in Chicago’s north. He became active in the Boy Scouts attaining their second-highest rank, Life Scout, and worked as a Reptile Study merit badge counsellor at Scout Camps. Bullied at school, no good at sports, and never rising above a C- average, Ford’s schooling at Maine Township High School was only marked by an interest in radio broadcasting where he was the first voice heard on the school radio station.

University at Ripon College in Wisconsin was not much better. Ford disliked the rigid structure and began to show signs of depression, sleeping for days and finding himself unable to face classes. While he did not get a degree, two important things happened: he met Mary Marquardt, who he would marry after leaving college in 1964, and he had his first taste of the theatre acting in productions in his final year. Told by acting-mates he would get acting work in California, Ford and Mary saddled up his old Volkswagen and headed west.

In California Ford worked and studied at the Laguna Playhouse and in 1965 signed a $150-a-week contract with a young talent development scheme run by the studio Columbia. The contract saw him only in minor roles - his screen debut was a one-line appearance playing a hotel porter in the James Coburn caper Dead Heat On A Merry-Go-Round. Despite having no middle name Ford was credited as Harrison J Ford to distinguish him from the silent movie actor of a few generations back. Moving from Columbia to Universal after a few years Ford’s roles did not increase and he became despondent. He and Mary had two children, Benjamin and Willard, and bills had to be paid. By chance, Ford turned to carpentry to supplement his income. It would be the best career move he would ever make.

Ford began by promising to make a pair of tables for a friend and despite having no experience as a carpenter, he later got a job building a recording studio for the Brazilian composer Sergio Mendes. Learning from books, Ford did a good job and was recommended to other Hollywood types as “Carpenter to the Stars”, building a deck for Sally Kellerman and working as a stagehand for the rock group The Doors. He continued acting while wood-working on the side and pressures eased. In 1972 Ford scored a minor role in American Graffiti, a coming of age film staring newcomers [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/581:0/Ron_Howard.htm]Ron Howard[/urlnew] and [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/378:0/Richard_Dreyfuss.htm]Richard Dreyfuss[/urlnew] and directed by fledgling director [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/12:0/George_Lucas.htm]George Lucas[/urlnew]. The film was a huge hit and Ford went on to another small role in the acclaimed thriller The Conversation, directed by [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/243:0/Francis_Ford_Coppola.htm]Francis Ford Coppola[/urlnew]. Slightly more substantial roles came in Judgement: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley, the film Dynasty, and the TV series The Possessed.
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By the late-1970s Ford still had not cracked the big time and was still working as a carpenter. While building a doorway in a studio one day Ford was spotted by Lucas who was casting for a new film. He asked Ford to come and read with the other potentials and, despite having other actors in mind like [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/527:0/Nick_Nolte.htm]Nick Nolte[/urlnew], [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/635:0/Kurt_Vogel_Russell.htm]Kurt Russell[/urlnew] and [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/1326:0/Christopher_Walken.htm]Christopher Walken[/urlnew], Lucas soon realised he had found his man. The film, a sci-fi adventure movie, was Star Wars. It would later go on to become one of the most successful films of all time and Ford’s role as the wise-cracking, loveable-rogue smuggler Han Solo would set him on the path to super-stardom.

The rest of the 1970s was taken up with a small role in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and then roles in the comedy-drama Heroes, the war film Force Ten From Navarone, an American Graffiti sequel, and western-comedy The Frisco Kid with [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/246:0/Gene_Wilder.htm]Gene Wilder[/urlnew]. The stress of location shooting took its toll on Ford’s marriage and he and Mary divorced in 1979, about the same time Ford’s first romantic lead in Hanover Street was released.

The 1980s would see the Harrison Ford spaceship blast off. He reprised his role as Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back and then, due to [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/700:0/Tom_Selleck.htm]Tom Selleck[/urlnew] pulling out because of Magnum PI commitments, he starred in another adventure film as the archaeologist Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film’s blend of exotic locations, action (with Ford doing most of the stunts), Nazis, the supernatural, as well as Ford’s comic roguishness, made the film a huge hit.

Harrison Ford became a superstar in his own right, even to the extent that his minor role in [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/2064:0/Steven_Spielberg.htm]Steven Spielberg’s[/urlnew] upcoming ET: the Extraterrestrial was cut so as not to distract audiences.

In 1983 Ford married the writer of ET, Melissa Mathison. The couple would later have two children, Malcolm and Georgia. Ford’s career kept accelerating with [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/91:0/Ridley_Scott.htm]Ridley Scott’s[/urlnew] acclaimed sci-fi thriller Blade Runner and then back to his franchise mainstays with the third Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi and then Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

A turn away from out-and-out adventure saw him Oscar-nominated for the thriller Witness and then starring in The Mosquito Coast as an eccentric inventor who moves his family, including a young [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/604:0/River_Phoenix.htm]River Phoenix[/urlnew], to Central America. In the mid-1980s Ford appeared in [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/709:0/Roman_Polanski.htm]Roman Polanski’s[/urlnew] thriller Frantic and then in the comedy Working Girl opposite [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/157:0/Melanie_Griffith.htm]Melanie Griffith[/urlnew] and [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/66:0/Sigourney_Weaver.htm]Sigourney Weaver[/urlnew]. In 1989 he returned to the Indiana Jones series in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and then went on to the dramas Presumed Innocent and Regarding Henry.

He returned to action in the 1990s with Patriot Games and then the massive hit The Fugitive, in 1993, where he played the wrongly-convicted Dr Richard Kimble on the run from [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/1001:0/Tommy_Lee_Jones.htm]Tommy Lee Jones[/urlnew] and trying to clear his name.

Action and comedy films followed through the rest of the 1990s with A Clear and Present Danger, Sabrina, The Devil’s Own with [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/1027:0/Brad_Pitt.htm]Brad Pitt[/urlnew], and Air Force One, where he played the American president taking on terrorists who hijack his presidential jumbo jet. His films dropped off a little in the beginning of the millennium with only moderate hits with the drama Random Hearts, thriller What Lies Beneath, and submarine war movie K19: the Widowmaker. The mid-2000s brought only Hollywood Homicide and the thriller Firewall, neither of which met expectations.
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Harrison divorced wife Melissa Mathison in 2004 with Mathison receiving $90 million, the biggest divorce pay-out in Hollywood history. Ford was seen dating several Hollywood starlets such as Minnie Driver and Lara Flynn-Boyle before he settled with Ally McBeal’s Calista Flockhart. Ford, who is notoriously private and hates publicity of his personal life, found the media attention around his romance hard to bear.

Ford supports conservation groups and has been instrumental in setting aside large swathes of land as national parks around the world. He sits on the board of Conservation International and in recognition of his work he was awarded the Jules Verne Spirit of Nature Award and has had a spider and an ant species named after him. He is a keen flyer of helicopters and planes and owns several aircraft. He crashed a helicopter in 1999 while on a training run but since then he has been involved in two mountain rescues near his ranch in Wyoming while on duty for Teton County Search and Rescue.

Ford’s movie production has slowed down of-late but with the fourth Indiana Jones movie just released it seems clear his Hollywood star will continue to burn bright for some years to come.

[i]Sam Carpenter[/i]
Harrison Ford biography



- Ford has several false teeth. Two were pulled by a dentist after some others were damaged when he fell on a gun during a stunt for a TV appearance early in his career.

- Ford was ranked #1 in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.

- He is listed as one of 50 people barred from entering Tibet because of his support for the Dalai Lama and the country.

- Ford got the famous scar on his chin when he lost control of his car and crashed while trying to put on a seatbelt.

- Ford has turned down lead roles in several hit films including: Proof of Life, The Perfect Storm, The Patriot, Traffic, JFK, The Untouchables, The Hunt for Red October, Cape Fear, The Thin Red Line, Schindler's List, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, U.S. Marshals, and Alien.
Harrison Ford biography



Indiana Jones 4 (2008)

Crossing Over (2008)

Godspeed (2005)

The Wrong Element (2005)

Hollywood Homicide (2003)

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

What Lies Beneath (2000)

Random Hearts (1999)

Six Days Seven Nights (1998)

Air Force One (1997)

The Devil's Own (1997)

Sabrina (1995)

Clear and Present Danger (1994)

The Fugitive (1993)

Earth and the American Dream (1992)

Patriot Games (1992)

Regarding Henry (1991)

Presumed Innocent (1990)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Working Girl (1988)

Frantic (1988)

The Mosquito Coast (1986)

Witness (1985)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)

Blade Runner (1982)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Apocalypse Now (1979

More American Graffiti (1979)

The Frisco Kid (1979)

Hanover Street (1979)

Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

Heroes (1977)

Star Wars (1977)

The Conversation (1974)

American Graffiti (1973)

Getting Straight (1970)

Journey to Shiloh (1968)

A Time for Killing, (1967)

Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966)
Harrison Ford biography

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