1966, and Harrison Ford was at the very bottom of the Hollywood hierarchy. After making a comment to film producer Jerry Tokovsky that an actor playing a bellboy should act like a bellboy instead of swanning around on-camera like a movie star, his name was cast down to the end of the hiring list at Columbia Pictures. Such action could have been enough to end one of the great careers before it had even begun.
In fact, it almost did, until a chance meeting paved the way for Ford to become the highest-grossing US domestic box-office star of all time.
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Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942, to two former actors, Christopher and Dorothy. He and younger brother Terence came from Irish Catholic and Russian Jewish stock, but when asked what religion they had been raised in specifically, Ford joked “Democrat”.
Early life was unremarkable for the young Ford. He achieved the second-highest rank in the Boy Scouts, Life Scout (which was also Indiana Jones’ rank in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), but at school he suffered from poor grades and intense bullying. Maine Township High School’s only saving grace was its local radio station. He became the station’s first host.
University wasn’t much better. Ford, who was studying philosophy, suffered from depression in the face of such rigid academics. However, things started looking up when he decided to take a drama class in his final year to overcome his shyness, and to experiment with more of what the world had to offer. “My decision to go into acting was mostly a reaction to my friends and college classmates who knew what they were going to do with their entire lives,” he explained in Harrison Ford: The Films. “They were all going off to work in the same office year after year, in the same job – maybe until they got a gold watch. They would be the limit of their life experience. Maybe they’d be doing fantastic things and be very successful, but I just couldn’t imagine doing that, the same thing year after year. I thought acting would give me the opportunity to confront new and interesting challenges, to work with certain people on a finite problem within a finite period of time, and then do it again with another set of problems, different people.”
Ultimately, he decided to leave college, and headed out to Hollywood in his old Volkswagen.
The next year was spent in training at the Laguna Playhouse, before Ford applied for a job doing radio voice-overs. He was unsuccessful with his application, but in 1965 signed a $150-a-week contract with Columbia Pictures to work as an uncredited actor in a range of films.
Little is known about Ford’s time spent as an extra, but for a confrontation with producer Jerry Tokovsky over how an actor should appear on screen. His first credited appearance would come in the 1967 Western A Time for Killing before Ford made a transition over to Universal, but it wasn’t enough to keep him happy and stable. He now had a wife – Mary Marquadt, who he’d met just after leaving Ripon – and two sons to take care of. Perhaps it was time to consider a ‘real’ career?
After touring as a roadie for The Doors (“What it was over, I was one step away from joining a Jesuit monastery…it was too much”), Ford decided to try his hand at carpentry. It would mark the most important career change of his life.
Not because he would end up making cabinets for George Lucas, as the rumours say, but because the financial support such projects as the $100,000 recording studio he built for Sergio Mendes, gave him the ability to pick and choose the right roles to further his career.
“Through carpentry I fed my family and began to pick and choose from among the roles offered. I could afford to hold out until something better came along. But I never gave up my ambition to be an actor. I was frustrated but never felt defeated by my frustration.”
At the time, Ford was being championed by Fred Roos, a producer who had found extraordinary success with 1972’s The Godfather. The film had been directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who was now producing friend George Lucas’s new film, American Graffiti. Through this connection, Ford’s rise to stardom gained momentum – though he almost turned down the project because he thought Lucas wasn’t paying enough. He did movies including The Conversation, and Dynasty, but was still working as a carpenter up until the late-70s, at which point he started working on an expansion to Lucas’s offices.
One day, while building a doorway in a studio, Lucas spotted Ford and asked him to read for a role in a new sci-fi film he was developing. The role? That of Han Solo, the wise-cracking rogue in what would become one of the biggest films of all time, Star Wars.
After Star Wars, Ford would have another lucky break when Tom Selleck had to pull out of another Lucas production – Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Suddenly, he was an icon leading two of of the biggest cinematic franchises in history. In fact, he was so popular by this time, that his cameo in ET: The Extraterrestrial was cut out to avoid distracting audiences.
These were followed in the 80s and 90s by classic standalone films as cult-classic Blade Runner, the out-of-type Witness, Tom Clancy’s thrilling Patriot Games, and the action-packed The Fugitive.
In the 00’s, Ford began to relax. He appeared in smaller films, such as What Lies Beneath and Morning Glory, while maintaining a presence in the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises.
Outside of Hollywood, Ford is a private individual. He is a keen aviator and environmental activist, having joined such causes as Conservation International, a partnership designed to find global solutions to global problems. He is the vice-chair. Ford also serves as a General Trustee on the governing board of the Archaeological Institute of America, helping to rise public awareness of the field, and to fight against looting and black market trade.
With Blade Runner and Indiana Jones sequels on the horizon, Harrison Ford shows no signs of slowing down. His 50 year career has seen him become the highest-grossing US domestic box-office star of all time, with a total $6 billion (adjusted for inflation) grossed over his career. He’s appeared in five of the top 30 grossing movies at the US box-office, and seven of his films have been inducted to the National Film Registry.
His career serves as inspiration for any who face challenges to their dreams, as does one of his most important quotes, which we should all keep in mind:
“We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.”