He wears a fedora, carries a whip, he has tackled the Hindenburg, Death Star and the mystical wraiths of God, all with a swashbuckling action. How do you sum up this action-packed cliff-hanging actor? Simple -- Harrison Ford.
Harrison Ford was born on July 7, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, not as a legend that he has become but a simple man struggling to find his career. As a small boy he originally wanted to be a forest ranger or a coal man and not work in an office like his father.
He has worked as a cook on a yacht, knickknack buyer at Bullocks Department Store, a contract player with Columbia at $150 a week and for Universal at $250 a week and even as cameraman for Jim Morrison and the Doors rock band. He eventually became a skilled carpenter to offset the failed auditions.
Ford attended Ripon College in Wisconsin and began his career acting in summer stock productions before he moved to Los Angeles. A simple carpenter? Hardly, with such mega-hits as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies he prefers to be considered an actor, not a movie star. He has the simplicity of un-Hollywood as you can get -- if that’s possible.
Harrison and his wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison, enjoy life on an 800 acre ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. They live in a two-story home, which Ford designed. They have two children, Malcolm, 5, and Georgia, 2. Harrison’s two sons, Ben and Willard, from a previous marriage are now in their 20's.
The Indiana Jones whip and fedora are displayed in the Smithsonian Institute -- that is fame that few will ever attain. His wife Melissa Mathison wrote E.T., in which Harrison was originally cast as the school principal, but later the scenes were cut. She also is the author of The Indian in the Cupboard, a very good film.
There seems to be an unlimited amount of information on Harrison, the actor, but the site that was most impressive was the artistic skill of Chris White. The portrait sketches found within this article are credited to his fantastic talent.
In an interview by Michael Sragow, Rolling Stone, 1981, Ford is quoted as saying, "I made my movie debut in a thing called Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round. It was not an uplifting-experience. I jumped from Columbia to Universal. I did tons of television - Gunsmoke, The Virginian, The FBI - always playing the same part: 'the guy who didn't do it.' I didn't think consciously of getting into the swashbuckling thing, and I didn't know from science fiction. I knew George (Lucus). The movie sounded a little nuts, but I didn't give a shit about whether it'd be successful or not. I always thought it was an accessible, human story.”
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